When Aldous Huxley wrote The Devils Of Loudun he couldn’t have known his non-fiction account of this historical possession narrative would become one of the most controversial movies of all time, with graphic scenes of sex and torture that included a nun masturbating with a charred femur bone and a two and a half minute segment of orgiastic action that became known as the “Rape of Christ” sequence.
Happy Halloween?
The most significant cuts were made by Warner Bros., prior to submission to the BBFC. Two notable scenes were removed in their entirety: One was a two-and-a-half-minute sequence featuring naked nuns sexually defiling a statue of Christ, which includes Father Mignon looking down on the scene and masturbating. Another scene towards the end showed Sister Jeanne masturbating with the charred femur of Grandier following his burning at the stake. Due to its content, the former scene has been popularly referred to as the “Rape of Christ” sequence.
In today’s post, brought to you by the Decoding Culture Foundation and PsyOp Cinema, I’m highlighting some FBI documents as I examine the movie project Huxley inspired, which was just re-released this month so that a whole new generation can be exposed to nuns masturbating and raping Jesus.
Considered one of the most controversial films of all time for its graphic, blasphemous, and sexually provocative imagery, Ken Russell‘s “The Devils” is now back in cinemas uncut and uncensored.
Re-released in 4K by Warner Bros. imprint Clockwork some 55 years after its controversial debut, the new director’s cut of the film — which premiered this year in Cannes and later the London Film Festival — has given an entirely new generation the chance to discover Russell, often considered the overlooked “wild man” of British cinema.
Before this movie was made, Aldous Huxley was commenting on the power of visual programming–especially the power of advertising–and government agencies, like the FBI, were definitely interested.
In the following document, found in Huxley’s FBI file, his views on “overpopulation”, drugs, and tv marketing are made clear:
Another document I found in the archives of the Decoding Culture Foundation features Aldous Huxley discussing his ideas as part of a panel discussion alongside Harold Urey, a scientist who spent time in Missoula before joining the Manhattan Project.
Hmmm.
When Aldous Huxley suggests he cares about the “moral imperative” of applying science to human need it’s important to understand that Huxley’s own need to have sex without consequence was a BIG motivator for making the “scientific” argument that the world was devoid of meaning.
Returning to the devil movie, director Ken Russell is described in this article as a “transgressive” artist who definitely had beef with the Catholic Church, but not with ALL religion.
British-born Russell (1927–2011) was a trailblazing director, with works ranging from the Academy Award-winning drama Women in Love (1969), to the fantastical rock opera Tommy (1975) starring The Who.
Above all, he was a transgressive artist who pushed the boundaries of filmmaking.
While The Devils is clearly an anti-Catholic film, it is by no means an anti-religious film. Russell had converted to Roman Catholicism in his late 20s. But his relationship with the Catholic Church proved to be short lived.
For him, the Loudon possessions perfectly highlighted the church’s hypocrisy. His disillusion with corruption in both the church and state was what led him to make The Devils.
Transgressive artists, by definition, enjoy making art that violates established rules, laws, social norms, and moral boundaries, so it shouldn’t surprise readers that Ken Russell was involved in bringing another transgressive piece of art to his audience, the once-banned play by Oscar Wilde, Salome.
To briefly summarize this story, John the Baptist is being imprisoned by Herod, which gives him bad-boy aura, which is an ancient aphrodisiac that modern women still find irresistible.
After becoming enthralled by this bad boy, Salome ultimately uses her social status and sexuality to get the object of her desire decapitated.
Ok, maybe I should let Wikipedia to the summarizing:
Jokanaan (John the Baptist, Iokanaan in the original French text) has been imprisoned by Herod Antipas in a cistern below the terrace of Herod’s palace, for his hostile comments about Herodias, Herod’s second wife. A young captain of the guard admires the beautiful princess Salome, Herod’s stepdaughter. A page warns the captain that something terrible may happen if he continues to stare at the princess. Salome is fascinated by Jokanaan’s voice. She persuades the captain to open the cistern so that the prophet can emerge, and she can see him and touch him. Jokanaan appears, denouncing Herodias and her husband. At first frightened by the sight of the holy man, Salome becomes fascinated by him, begging him to let her touch his hair, his skin and kiss his mouth. When she tells him she is Herodias’s daughter, he calls her a “daughter of Sodom” and bids her keep away from him. All Salome’s attempts to attract him fail, and he swears she will never kiss his mouth, cursing her as the daughter of an adulteress and advising her to seek the Lord. He returns to his underground confinement. The young captain of the guard, unable to bear Salome’s desire for another man, fatally stabs himself.
Herod appears from the palace, looking for the princess and commenting on the strange look of the moon. When he slips in the captain’s blood, he suddenly panics. Herodias dismisses his fears and asks him to go back inside with her, but Herod’s attention has turned libidinously towards Salome, who rejects his advances. From the cistern, Jokanaan resumes his denunciation of Herodias; she demands that Herod hand the prophet over to the Jews. Herod refuses, maintaining that Jokanaan is a holy man and has seen God. His words spark an argument among the Jews concerning the true nature of God, and two Nazarenes talk about the miracles of Jesus. As Jokanaan continues to accuse her, Herodias demands that he is silenced.
Herod asks Salome to dance for him. She refuses, but when he promises to give her anything she wants, she agrees. Ignoring her mother’s pleas – “Ne dansez pas, ma fille” – “Do not dance, my daughter” – Salome performs the dance of the seven veils. Delighted, Herod asks what reward she would like, and she asks for the head of Jokanaan on a silver platter. Horrified, Herod refuses, while Herodias rejoices at Salome’s choice. Herod offers other rewards, but Salome insists and reminds Herod of his promise. He finally yields. The executioner descends into the cistern, and Salome impatiently awaits her reward. When the prophet’s head is brought to her, she passionately addresses Jokanaan as if he were still alive and finally kisses his lips:
Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood? … But perchance it is the taste of love. … They say that love hath a bitter taste. … But what of that? what of that? I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan.
Stories like this are great fodder for transgressive artists because they’re Biblically rooted. For those with religious beef to project, depicting the sinful nature of man (and woman) is a not-so-subtle opportunity to actually undermine the moral authority exerted by organized religion over the centuries, especially the long and violent history of the Catholic Church.
While Aldous Huxley goes to the 17th century for his story, and Ken Russell goes all the way back to Biblical times for one of his, its the modern age of atomic annihilation, and the legacy of scientists like Huxley and Missoula’s Harold Urey, that I’d like to conclude this week’s Decoding Culture post with.
Harold Urey comes off as being pretty reasonable throughout this 1960 UCLA panel discussion on “Human Values and the Scientific Revolution”, while Aldous Huxley admits to his elitist ONE WORLD fantasy (as popular then as now, it would appear) followed by “Lady Snow” (Pamela Hansford Johnson) doing that cultural thing a certain strand of colonial-minded white woman has been doing to “help” poor brown people for many, many years.
Fast forward from 1960 to 2014, when Silicon Valley first aired on HBO, and I’d say that Harold Urey was absolutely right to be discouraged about the fact “Scientists make the decisions and, in actuality, represent such a small percentage of the people“. It’s not just the embracing of an archetypal version of Satan that’s concerning, but the overt hostility toward Christianity, which culminates in the plot of an entire episode where a web-developer is outed as a Christian, horrifying the rest of the team at the potential loss of money-making that associating with a Christian means to their bottomline.
The tension between human morality and human technical innovation may no longer be as important as it’s been, historically, if NON-humans are increasingly involved in our technically interconnected lives.
So, on Halloween’s eve, consider what NEW devils are out there, and stay safe. This “new” world is far from being brave.
Thanks for reading!