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WARNING: I’m not Spoiler or Content Tagging anything in this piece… If you scroll downwards you will see Gore, The Horrors of War, Oddities of Every imaginable thing, descriptions to make your skin scrawl, blasphemies upon blasphemies, Medieval/Early modern medical devices/ conditions/horrors, “Yo Mamma” jokes, graphic depictions of rape (in woodcut, illustration, and film), and Boobies. Lots of Boobies. Untold Boobies.
As will become apparent… You really cannot “Content Restrict” the 17th Century. This is Your warning if you’re at work or otherwise sensitive.
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Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
-John Stuart Mill
Hell is Empty and All the Devils are Here
What if the 1990s Berserk anime, Warhammer 40k, A Man for All Seasons, The Wickerman (1972), Cromwell, 1984, The Gulag Archipelago, the Rocky Horror Picture Show and the chronically underrated 2012 horror masterpiece Compliance… were all the same horrifying movie?
What if Mel Gibson made a film like Apocalypto, exploring the nightmarish depths of political/religious sacrifice rituals… But about Early-Modern Shakespeare-era Europe?
I’m constantly asked for my “Greatest Film of all Time”… A torturous question for someone who’s seen as many movies as me… And doubly torturous because maybe the best true answer is one its really hard to name:
Ken Russel’s The Devils might be it.
Certainly the best 30 Years War film ever made.
And the Greatest goth movie ever made.
And the Greatest witch hunt movie ever made.
And the Greatest “MeToo” movie ever made.
And the Greatest “insane asylum” movie ever made.
And CERTAINLY the Greatest Exorcist movie ever made.
Yes, I said that. And I mean it. Did I stutter?
And maybe the Greatest “Dark Fantasy” film ever made… Except for the fact that the whole thing is true.
And its being rereleased, the full remastered director’s cut in 4K, this October in Cinemas.
(The strobe effect is only in the trailer)
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Ken Russel’s The Devil, adapted from Aldous Huxley’s book The Devils of Loudon and the play The Devils by Dan Whiting, is one of my top five films of all time. And certainly one of the biggest films of all time in it’s own weird way. It does things as impressive for the spiritual, psychological horrifying, and historical on film as Sergei Bonderchuk’s Waterloo does for warfare or Akira for Scifi and Animation.
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Indeed I think I might be the only one who could give that answer, given I might be one of like 10 people who know 17th Century History/Literature and obscure extreme Horror Cinema well enough to INSIST on its OVERWHELMING historical accuracy.
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Indeed I’d struggle to think of a film which captures the Insane deadly hypersexual kaleidoscopic character of the 17th century better.
I’ve been doing this alot recently… But I feel I need to lay out my qualifications here to talk about this… My two areas of focus in university were 17th and 18th century English Literature (Shakespeare through to Jane Austin), and 17th and 18th century Political theory (specifically the works of Hobbes, Locke, Hugo Grotius and other natural law theorists… Yes, I took the BoomerCons seriously when they said natural law was the basis of our society, I believed them… Like an idiot) I’m by no means an expert, but the broad flavor of this era: Culturally, religiously, politically, historically, militarily, theoretically, theologically, poetically… Was what I immersed myself in during the years when I should have been drinking and partying more and repeating nonsense to people in power, and other things that actually advance your career.
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I need to establish that off the bat because I feel as if a huge part of the reason this film is not regarded as a contender for “Greatest film ever made” is the simply the fact that audiences and critics do not believe it, and certainly do not GET it.
That it is SO Bizarre, and SO weird, and SO horrifyingly violent, and SO hypersexual, and SO saturated in it’s colors, and SO religiously discordant… That it has to be a bizarre psychedelic hellscape of Ken Russel’s perverse drug-addled imagination…
They especially had to think this because if they accepted that it was indeed historically accurate, and not a bizarre sexual/psychedelic story of the American 1960s and 70s reading themselves back into history… Suddenly they’d have to accept that the same thing done to Loudon in 1634 was what was being done to America in the middle of the 20th century, and has been done to the west more or less ever since…
That the yo-yo between state-enforced debauchery one the one hand, and moral panic witch-hunts on the other, is not a schizophrenic attribute of mass media or “Moral Progress” or American Culture… But a highly historically precedented and calculated attack meant to destroy and enslave a people without fighting them.
That “Free Love”, “Feminist Criticism”, “Queer Theory”, “No Fault Divorce”, and “Hostile Work Environment lawsuits” rock society between the extremes of sexual license and socio-sexual moral-panic for the same reason one might rapidly rock a boat between it’s port and starboard sides… To capsize it into the devouring abyss.
That we are indeed living through Loudon at scale.
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So in this piece I’m going to go through, summarize what I think is needed and provide the relevant historical context to the early bits so you can see that NO, none of this is a stretch or out of Character for the 17th century (or at least for one of the most extreme moments of that age)… Indeed it is a work of pure genius.
The Most Protestant Film ever made.
WTF Am I Looking At!?
This film has maybe the most aggressive cold opens of any film in history. And possibly the greatest Villain introduction.
I’ve seen films open on torture, rapes, and the executions of pregnant women that are not as hard on audiences as the opening shot of The Devils.
It starts with a play.
A man dressed in a thong and clamshell bra is lifted from a sparkling surf… It is a staged production of the birth of Aphrodite, entirely in drag.
This is king Louis XIII (13) of France (1601-1643). Playing Aphrodite.
He gives this entire long performance before a Catholic Cardinal! Who is in attendance and watching this depravity with an approving smile.
This is the Famous/infamous Cardinal Richelieu, the Religious/Government minister most responsible for the destruction and killing of thousands throughout the French Religious Wars and destroying the various independent principalities and city polities that would become part of the modern centralized French State.
Yes not only are the degenerate French Royal court involved in this, but A Catholic Cardinal and even nuns assisting him are in attendance to witness this degenerate performance from a gay king performing a Grecian Pagan theatrical number… In drag.
The Play ends with the Crowned “Aphrodite”, Louis XIII, kissing Cardinal Richelieu's ring after agreeing that they must violate their treaties of peace and destroy the remaining Huguenot Protestants who’ve recently rebelled against the crown, but had agreed to return under terms of toleration and religious protection. Louis and Richelieu agree they’re going to violate those agreements and destroy them… Committing the violence in peace that they could not accomplish in war.
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And the important thing to understand is… the Scene is NOT improbable. Indeed many MANY people alive at the time would have described exactly this if you asked them to describe the French Court or the king’s relationship to Richelieu.
Everything related to the Historical Possessions of Loudon and the political struggles around Cardinal Richelieu’s consolidation of the French state, and especially the Sexual politics of French courtly life… while that’s all open to endless historical debate… We DO have what was written down… And we do have all the various rumors and accusations of Louis XIII’s homosexuality and pederasty as repeated by people alive at the time
Allegedly he’d forced an adolescent Marquis de Cinq-Mars to bed dressed as bride… Only for the Marquis to be less affectionate than he liked, and the Marquis to subsequently involve himself in the conspiracies to assassinate cardinal Richelieu… He was then caught and Louis had the Marquis behead at age 22, his last words were, “Ah ! Mon Dieu, qu’est-ce de ce monde?” (’My God! What is this world?’).
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Remember: This is all going on during the 30 Years War in Germany and all the related wars that poured out of it. Maybe the bloodiest most horrifying war cycle to hit Europe in the past 1000 years, with maybe the worst and most horrifying abuses of any war in Human history.
That’s not me saying that. That’s Albert Speer saying that in 1945:
In his radio broadcast on 4 May 1945, Hitler’s architect and armaments minister, Albert Speer, announced “the destruction that has been inflicted on Germany can only be compared to that of the Thirty Years War. The decimation of our people through hunger and deprivation must not be allowed to reach the proportion of that epoch.’ For this reason, he went on, Hitler’s successor, Admiral Donitz, had given the order to lay down arms. Public opinion surveys carried out in the 1960s revealed that Germans placed the Thirty Years War as their country’s greatest disaster ahead of both world wars, the Holocaust and the Black Death.
-Peter H. Wilson, “Europe’s Tragedy” (pg 6)
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In World War 2 Germany lost 8% of its prewar population. The USSR 13%. Poland 17%. And in especially hard hit Belarus they lost 25% of their prewar population.
In the 30 Years War the German Areas of the Holy Roman Empire lost FORTY PERCENT of their pre-war population. In Pomerania and other hard hit areas this rose to 50 or even 80%.
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“OK…” You might say. “So Louis XIII was a rumored and nearly confirmed Gay-Pedophile and the Protestants would certainly say he was a tyrant and murderous maniac, and Cardinal Richelieu was certainly a powerful religiously genocidal figure if not completely controlling the throne… AND this was at the height of religious warfare beyond even anything seen in 20th century ideological warfare. But SURELY this Drag performance of the Birth of Aphrodite BY THE KING would not have been done, even to a courtly private audience!? Surely THIS is an absurd stretch.”
You’d think so. But no.
Theatrical productions IN DRAG were a MASSIVE part of 17th century life… it was in fact controversial when female actresses displaced men playing female roles in the later half of the 1600s. Indeed you yourself know many of the plays of this period! Shakespeare's plays were originally performed with all male casts, Juliet was first played by a man in drag. And the Catholic or Catholic adjacent Royal courts (such as the Stuart-Era Anglicans) were the largest supporters of theater of this time… Indeed such a scene is only a little out of place in 17th century France, only because it’d be more appropriate to 17th century ENGLAND, where the sexual license and degeneracy of the Jacobean and Carolean courts were a thing of infamy amongst the ultra-protestant Puritans who would BAN the Theatre in 1642 after winning the first round of the English Civil War.
However before then and after the restoration one could go to the Theater in London and see plays such as Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Chaste Maid in Cheapside (A hilarious play… Resembling a 17th century South Park… complete with Prostitutes, Cuckolds, prolifically adulterous Cottagers, and the Knight “Sir Walter Whorehound”), The Queen and the Concubine, A New Trick to Cheat the Devil, The Constant Maid, A Cure for a Cuckold, All’s Lost By Lust, The Witch, The Maid’s Tragedy, Cupid’s Revenge, The Custom of the Country (referring to the Droit du seigneur), Lucifer, “The Amorous Prince, or, The Curious Husband”…
and of Course Christopher Marlowe’s legendary original Doctor Faustus in which Satan himself was said to have regularly appeared in the cast… as the actors insisted one devil too many sometimes appeared amongst them in the final dance scene wherein Faustus is dragged to hell. (Marlowe indeed might have arranged an intruder, or paid for the rumor as a promotional stunt)
Shakespeare himself early in his career produced one of the most violent and sexual of these scandal plays… His Titus Andronicus centering on Rape, Slavery, Cannibalism, massacres, usurpations, attempted post-birth abortion, and one of the earliest “the baby is black” plotline known to man…
Leading to one of the earliest, or at least best, “Yo Mamma” jokes:
There is very good Chance Queen Elizabeth herself saw this production and approved, as it was early in Shakespeare’s career and she was an early patron of Shakespeare notably the play Merry Wives of Windsor was commissioned for her, that she adored the character of Falstaff from Henry IV so much she wished to see a play with him in love.
[Read my takes on various other Shakespeare Adaptations]
This is almost certainly part of the reason Shakespeare is so famous and lionized, not because he was so much better than the others of his time (Marlowe was arguably the best of them) but because he received royal patronage and so was subsidized to produce propaganda plays about English history and the “Correct version” of the War of Roses across his 8 play history cycle from Richard II to Richard III (with 3 Henrys and 6 plays in between)… Or Works like Macbeth which is a quiet subtle origin story for Fleance son of Banque and the Jacobean Scottish Crown over their hated rivals like Macbeth…
Whereas everyone else had to compete in the free market creating raunchy comedies and sexual tragedies, lacking the backing of institutional power. In much the same way modern directors are forced to make horror films, then super-hero films, and if they have a proven track record of financial returns and political agreeability, only them can they afford to make big historical biopics and the like.
Because Elizabeth and then James the 1st liked Shakespeare, he was subsidized to produce all these high concept historical plays emphasizing their respectability whilst others produced quite witty but far raunchier and more violent works.
This “General Audiences” and Historical quality is almost certainly the reason so many children have read “Romeo and Juliet” and “Richard III” in schools across the past 400 years, and so few “Tis Pity She’s a Whore” despite John Ford generally being considered a remarkably accomplished dramaturgist just a few decades later, and TPSaH being a well done play.
Parents would complain about Tis Pity She’s a Whore, or The Queen and the Concubine, or Doctor Faustus in ways they wouldn’t about The Tempest or King Lear.
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“But surely a KING would not get up on stage like in The Devils!?”
For a private audience maybe… remember people were generally profoundly bored in the past, and there are lots of examples of Roman Emperors and European courts descending to the levels of Acting in theater and other degeneracies in the raw boredom of the age before digital distraction… As well as the sexual degeneracy of the Absolutist elite.
Acting out scenes for home audiences from written plays was indeed one of the major pass-times until quite recently. (Indeed To this day children partake in church nativity scenes, school plays, and class “group project” play-actings… That before TV this was common entertainment, but now only survives in odd timeless traditions we enforce on Children out of inertia.) However in the past this was a quite common thing for adults to do.
Again the most famous example is English:
John Wilmot the 2nd Earl of Rochester was a shockingly accomplished Military figure, Poet, man of Letters, Playwright, Parliamentarian, friend of Charles II King of England, and general historical figure… Especially when you consider he died at age 33 of Sexually-transmitted Syphilis.
A ton of bawdy poetry is attributed to him… His Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover was the model for my own poem Song of a Young Lady to Her Many Simps…
He was an extraordinary poet and Playwright. Producing bawdy “Closet Dramas” never performed publicly for a general audience but either read or performed in private settings for selected parties…
Indeed Rochester was so infamous, and his poems so scandalous that there existed quite the economy of men writing or publishing scandalous sexual poems, then attaching his name to them both to dodge any legal or social consequence to the real author, but also to advertise the new works.
The most infamous of these, which you never find in the collected works of Rochester despite being a ingeniously composed poem, is Regime de Vivre (notice as English poems get more bawdy they associate them with the French?)
Here’s the full text because it’s so hard to find elsewhere:
I rise at eleven, I dine about two,
I get drunk before seven; and the next thing I do,
I send for my whore, when for fear of a clap,
I spend in her hand, and I spew in her lap.
Then we quarrel and scold, ’till I fall fast asleep,
When the bitch, growing bold, to my pocket does creep;
Then slyly she leaves me, and, to revenge the affront,
At once she bereaves me of money and cunt.
If by chance then I wake, hot-headed and drunk,
What a coil do I make for the loss of my punk!
I storm and I roar, and I fall in a rage,
And missing my whore, I bugger my page.
Then, crop-sick all morning, I rail at my men,
And in bed I lie yawning ’till eleven again.
So yes this image of an Absolutist Royal Court in the 1600s is ENTIRELY plausible.
That a Closet Drama or comedy or Dance performed entirely in drag, with Aristocrats or even a degenerate alleged-homosexual/pederast King taking on the role of scantily clad women… That is exactly what EVERYTHING we know about the 17th century would suggest was entirely possible.
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Ken Russel is a hippy obsessed with sex and altered states of consciousness… as evidenced by his filmography, But the thing that really jumps out to me is just how much of an English Protestant he is… In many respects this film is exactly what 400 years of Middle-Class Protestants have thought of the Catholic Absolute monarchies.
Indeed the entire film is a Protestant fever dream of the 30 Years War and surrounding wars of religion.
And the Puritans and Protestants of the era denouncing such behavior would be the very first to tell you that this is what the Catholic and Crypto-Catholic (English) Monarchies were up to and that if you weren’t armed to the teeth and praying day and night, and ready to fight and die for God and Country, then the Aristocrats and their Catholic Allies would get you! And they’d do to your children what they did to those poor nuns in Loudon!
Its certainly polemical… But it’d be the equivalent of someone in the Year 2471 opening a film set in the 2000s with Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Jeffery Epstein and Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Barak all drinking together on Little Saint James and laughing at how rigged the American electoral system is and how the people can never resist them, as weeping naked children lie curled up about them begging for their parents.
It is unlikely those specific characters would all be together in a single cameras frame saying exactly that with the abused children present… But its very likely such conversations took place, the majority of people agree at least one of them did rape kids on Epstein Island, they are all known Epstein Associates and basically friends… It is not a secret… And Indeed tens of millions alive today if time-warped to the year 2471 would insist such a director got everything exactly right with such a scene.
This is a Controversial and polemical opening… It is taking a firm side.
But it is 100% plausible and entirely in keeping with the setting and Historical verisimilitude of the 1600s.
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So King Louis, still dressed in drag, kisses Cardinal Richelieu's hand, as they agree the Huguenot Protestants must be driven from the land.
Title Card!
Ok so that was the first 5 minutes of the film and I’ve written 7 pages on it. I could honestly go through every single line of dialogue at this pace, its historicity is that good and that close to the period.
But I’m not going to continue at this pace… Because I don’t want this to become a book… And I could certainly write one.
But know that EVERYTHING that follows is either 100% confirmed, or historically precedented in France or another European court at the same time.
The dialogue, concepts, relations, rituals, all the little religious details about how the characters conduct themselves and argue with each other…. All of it true. Or it is so close to true that after thousands of pages of reading about the era, I didn’t catch the fault.
The torture and executions are all basically exactly how they did it right down to the bizarre focus on sexual torture and medical enemas (the devices are shown in the film but its largely implied, the movie cuts away).
The ONE EXCEPTION is a scene where Louis XIII is shown shooting prisoners who’ve been dressed up as birds and forced to run through a “Hunting party”.
I have no Idea where this is from (if it is a reference to something, please let me know in the comments).
Now cruel execution of prisoners is by no means usual in the era.
The English practiced a torturous mode of execution in which the condemned was “Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered” reserved generally for those convicted of high treason… The victim would be publicly hanged, but cut down before the lack of oxygen could kill him… Then, still alive, he would be disemboweled (the bowels “Drawn” out), before being dismembered “Quartered” with limbs and privates hacked off first, and the head removed last (finally completely killing the condemned). The intact pieces would then be distributed and placed on pikes for public display with lots of announcement of what happens to those who betray the crown or state.
Likewise in France “Breaking on the Wheel” was still common in the 17th and into the 18th century (it was replaced by the Guillotine by the French Revolution).
In Breaking on the wheel the condemned would be tied to a large wagon wheel, and then have his limbs broken with an Iron Rod or other means… The broken limbs would then be woven into the spokes of the wheel so the crippled condemned could never leave the wheel… And the wheel hoisted on a high-pole where the condemned would be left in his agony to die of exposure. This is accurately depicted in the film.
However I’ve NEVER run into an instance of prisoners being made to play animals and shot.
Now Cruelty to animals for public entertainment was VERY common in the era… Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was right up the street from a Bear-Baiting venue were bred and captured bears would be tied down in an arena, and had teams of dogs loosed upon them… To either rip the bear apart (or if a cheaper night, until the announcer conceded the “fight” for the animal) or until the Bear succeeded in killing or scaring off all the dogs.
Shakespeare actually tacitly acknowledges this is happening across the street in Macbeth:
MACBETH.
They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly,
But, bear-like I must fight the course.—What’s he
That was not born of woman? Such a one
Am I to fear, or none.
It is an apt metaphor for Macbeth’s state… but it’s also an advertisement. That anyone in the Audience who thinks the sorrows of the sad/mad king had drawn on too long and is thinking of slipping out across the street should instead stay in their seat, that they’re going to see more entertaining violence in Shakespeare’s conclusion than the mere fun of dogs ripping apart a bear.
Baiting of bears, dogs, boars, bulls, wolves, etc. All ended in the 1800s in England… Notably after the horror of a Lion-Baiting event in which a tame lion… Nero… Was pitted against six dogs and, deeply confused and surprised, simply refused to fight, instead swatting at them with its paws and plainly landing blows but not using its claws to maim them. The Wikipedia page has an extensive description from Victorian era Times which led to parliament banning the practice, though in the United States various baiting events continued until at least the civil war… And illegal baiting events still occur along the borders with Mexico with some regularity.
Human Baiting was also rumored to have occurred with poor boxers and dwarves and others agreeing to a fight a large dog or team of dogs for money… in most tellings the organizers were said to successfully intervene and rip the dogs off before the competitor could be killed… But there were always rumors of higher tiers, and other places, and rarer events where like an expensive bear-bait, the fight would be allowed to go to conclusion.
So whilst I have ZERO Idea where Ken Russel got the scene of a royal hunting party shooting prisoners dressed as birds in a mock hunt…
I hope I can impress that this is just odd, or a reference that I’m not getting. Someone in some royal court in Europe almost certainly did something similar… and its far less weird or cruel than various things we KNOW the Early Moderns did do to the condemned for fun or to send a message.
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Aside from that it is as accurate as is historically possible.
Even things like set design where you’d normally think the critics would have it over on the lazy director, the critics are just completely wrong and their idea of what a monastery in the 17th century looked like is colored by cartoons or visits to museums where all the stone forts and buildings are collapsing and haven’t been painted in over a century “Why are the walls and churches white like bathroom tile!” They shrieked.
Meanwhile Saint Peter’s Church (Contructed 1217) in real life Loudon, France (the historical church one of the film sets stands in for).
Ken Russel matched THE ACTUAL ARCHITECTURAL STYLE of the real Loudon’s Destroyed medieval Buildings.
Yes it actually looked like that!
Ken Russel built the sets of the lost walls and Monasteries based on the actual surviving medieval architecture from the period…
And for doing that he was criticized that it didn’t look “right” that it didn’t look like an illustration or a Scooby-Doo cartoon of a gothic medieval nunnery.
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Which is Doubly damning because for many of his shots he copies period paintings depicting the city, original early modern gothic horror, and others depicting Demonic possession, hell… The Visual verisimilitude is unbelievable.
So What the Hell Happened at Loudon Then!?
“Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”
-Apocalypse Now
“At least you’ll have one consolation. Hell will hold no surprises for you.”
What the hell could happen in the 17th century… THE 17th Century we’ve just described… The one so depraved and licentious that Puritans decided to risk life and limb to settle America rather than stick around and live in proximity to the depravity of “Babylon” (even though the English crown was fine with their religion as long as they paid their taxes… They actually faced basically zero persecution in England, though they were rightly paranoid that would change).
When Christopher Marlowe is summoning the devil nightly for London theater audiences, the king of France is forcing adolescent noblemen to his bed dressed as brides, and all violence imaginable is being practiced on man and animal… In front of cheering crowds often with children in attendance… When even Shakespeare is casting Adolescent boys to play Juliet in his plays, and children are going to watch… and even young noblemen attached to the king of England are dying of Syphilis like some unending AIDs crisis…
How the hell does one get burnt at the stake amidst all of THAT for “Devil Worship” or “depravity” or “Corrupting the innocent”?
Well to answer that question you need to answer the Question at the center of the film…
Who was Urbain Grandier?
Why was HE the last ruler of Loudon with any true independence? Why did the walls fall on his watch? Why does Loudon have a population of only 6000 today?
Oliver Reed’s depiction of Grandier is an acting tour-de-force.
The range of the character is truly incredible. Matching any of Shakespeare’s characters.
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We see him womanizing and dismissing the girl he’s impregnated.
We see him mourning his late friend and mentor.
We see him as a Warrior Cleric/Acting Governor.
We see him as rakish libertine having armed spats with the father of the girl he’s debauched.
We see him as a local sex symbol.
We see him tending the sick and dying.
We see him repentant.
We see him falling in love.
We see him him philosophizing theological matters (in no other movie has “Theological debate” ever been so core to the plot and characters)
We see him as a dissenter theologian.
We see him as a warlord.
We see him as an outraged patriarch and moral leader.
We see him as a great orator and legal voice.
We see him tortured.
We see him stripped.
We see him broken.
We see him resolved to bear true witness.
We see him realize he has failed entirely.
We see him die a martyr’s death.
His two introductory scenes really get the division in his character.
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In the one he gives the eulogy for the former governor George De Sainte Marthe.
Marthe We learn, despite being a Catholic, navigated Loudon through the recent religious wars and Huguenot rebellion without having the city erupt in religious conflict, importantly protecting the city walls of Loudon and gaining concessions from the king guaranteeing them, which are the basis of the independence and freedoms of the people of Loudon. Grandier ends off asking the people of Loudon, of both faiths, to remember Sainte Marthe and look to the defense of their walls and freedom.
Here Grandier embodies almost the ideal of a Religious Leader in the role of Acting Governor. A good Catholic Priest using his moral authority to act as a civil leader, in contrast to Cardinal Richelieu’s Machiavellian manipulation of depravity.
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However in the Subsequent scene we see the fly in the ointment… Urbain Grandier is a sex symbol.
The Nuns and women of the town are obsessed with him… Vanessa Redgrave’s wonderfully twisted sister Jeanne des Anges, the young mother-superior of the Ursuline Nuns (who are carcerally confined in their convent), appears to correct the other nuns their schoolgirl fascinations… but then reveals that she was indeed the most smitten of all.
“When I did not see him, I burned with love for him and when he presented himself to me ... I lacked the faith to combat the impure thoughts and movements that I felt... Never had the Demons created such disorder in me.”
-Sister Jeanne des Anges “Autobiographe”
[full text in French… Looking for an english Translation]
However, we soon discover that Grandier is not some poor innocent theologian/stateman predated upon by townswomen and nuns… He’s really horrendously vain and scandal ridden, sleeping with and impregnating a local upper-class woman sent to him to learn Latin.
She is in love with him, and he abandons the heartbroken girl and makes an enemy of her and her father when he learns of the pregnancy.
So is that his mistake?
Is that the sin for which things will eventually death spiral into him being burnt at the stake and Loudon doomed?
Have you been paying attention?
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No! Grandier’s conventional sexual licentiousness with consenting adult women, no matter how infamous and titillating is NOT the thing that damns him… He could have had similar adventures and misadventures until the day he died and still be less scandalous than many of the era, and certainly be still thought considerably above average compared to other priests and political figures for his other virtues.
Rather Grandier’s mistake, the thing that really destroys him… Is his sincere naivety.
Grandier is a classically educated priest, He has the classical liberal-humanist education that marked the Educated upper-class and clergy throughout the Medieval and Early Modern period, Not “Liberal” or “Humanist” as in the enlightment political philosophy, but in the Medieval sense of being classically educated in Greek and Latin (he’s giving Latin lessons) and being well versed in classical political theory, history, and mythology (See Also: Aquinas, Machiavelli, Dante, Shakespeare, Marlowe… This was the measure of an educated person… That they could converse on Livy or Virgil or Plutarch). This is an archetype that doesn’t exist much anymore, the sensitive young men who become classics-bros don’t become priests in our society (or atleast not Christian priests) and our reverends are of a class, biology, and intelligence that is largely shockingly unimpressive in all things, let alone education.
But Grandier is one of these Classically educated men… well versed in both Christian theology and the ancient heroes… And Like many a classical hero… Indeed like many of the statues and classical works he keeps in his study… His downfall begins when he falls in love.
And like the sincere sensitive man he is…
He resolves to marry for love.
He resolves to endeavor on a sincere spiritual journey of life with his love.
He resolves to become a better person for love.
He resolves to become someone other than the fallen man he has been…
Of course this leaks… And both Mother Superior Jean, and Cardinal Richelieu’s agents find out…
But that alone would not destroy him…
What destroys him is that this newfound sincerity leads him to taking his eye off the ball.
A heart cannot melt and keep its steel resolve.
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Early on we see an attempt by the Kings agents to rip down the city walls of Loudon…
Dudley Sutton’s Baron de Laubardemont slips in with a work-crew of prisoners and small company of soldiers intent on ripping down the city walls before anyone can even notice what’s happening in the confusion and disorganization following the death of Sainte Marthe…
And as soon as Grandier discovers this, he sounds the alarm, raises the local militia…
Laubardemont tries to appeal to process and challenge Grandier’s authority, whether he is a priest or a governor, and what authority he has to stop a representative of the crown.
and escalates to edge of massacre that if one more stone is removed his soldiers will open fire and Laubardemont will die, and open battle will commence.
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All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing… and Grandier knows damned well what “Something” is.
Steel bolts ripping through dozens of vital organs at 400 feet per second.
Something is violence. As much as it takes.
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Grandier gives a speech again, more fervently this time on defending the walls… But this is how knife’s edge the situation is.
Merely being distracted. Merely hesitating or trying to converse or reason with the lying and slithering enemy… Merely entertaining them and their appeals to process or procedure or formality… Merely not catching them and their machines for a few hours when they’ve slipped in…
And that could be it for Loudon.
Laubardemont’s challenge of Grandier’s authority has BITE… not because Grandier hesitates, he doesn’t. But because the chains of command in Loudon are ambiguous enough and the election/selection of a new governor is far enough off that without the will and resolve of acting governor Grandier, everyone will just sit about asking “Are they supposed be doing that? Should we do something?”
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Grandier understands this, but is naive about their situation… believing that the king is sincere in respecting their rights and independence, and that it is Richelieu acting against the king’s words and wishes… when the King only mouths these things to lull the semi-independent states into a false sense of security.
This double fiction is a staple of medieval and early modern life… That the crown pretends to respect the people’s and lords’ ancient rights, and they pretend to be loyal and obedient in the belief that he truly benevolent and only being “mislead by his advisors”… In much the way the Modern American government pretends to respect the Constitution and the people’s liberties, and the people to pretend that that the government is legitimate, not rigged, and the Judiciary not corrupt.
That way if the government wins in a conflict they can pretend that “the people were loyal but mislead” and the people that the government was “corrupted away from its benevolence by evil ministers”… Then some middlemen can be fired and the corrupt compromise peace go on…
But the second one starts to forget the other is fundamentally an enemy who wants to take everything form them… The second they start to believe in the benevolence of the crown, or the constitution, or “the people”… They’re screwed.
Grandier seems to genuinely misunderstand how much of a threat the crown is, his sincerity cannot comprehend the level of hypocrisy and evil he’s up against…
Mind you, It is almost overwhelmingly hard for anyone to predict or understand true evil who has not seen it.
The Exorcism
Of course the most infamous part of the Film is the second half…
The “Exorcism” of the Nuns by Laubardemont, his allies, and the terrifying fanatical and depraved Witch Hunter Father Pierre Barre (Michael Gothard).
I feel as if to this day people don’t GET what Ken Russel was doing with these scenes.
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First of all… As I will repeat again and again… Almost all of this is historically accurate or accurate to what the most intelligent people were saying at the time…
The story of the nuns of Lodun [sic] possessed, was nothing but a contrivance of Cardinal Richelieu to destroy Grandier, a man he suspected to have wrote a book against him, who was condemned for witchcraft in the case, and burnt for it. The scene was managed by the Capuchins, and the nuns played their tricks well, but all was a cheat.”
-English Philosopher John Locke, 1679.
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But more importantly it is Artistically Literate.
Every extremity of the filming, or at least every extremity of the versions I’ve seen communicates something VERY intentional in relation to religious and art history…
Religious and Art history that the Religious authorities and Critics SHOULD have recognized immediately if they were not the hacks they are and utterly unversed even in their own professions.
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Sister Jean has, seeing the opportunity, confessed to Grandier’s second Father Mignon (Murray Melvin) that she was having sexual/evil visions of Grandier…. Mignon already resentful of Grandier and his philandering ways, buys this hook line and sinker as a matter of sincere, if resentful, religious concern.
Joining in Confederacy with the Baron and the other enemies of Grandier they gather the Nuns and the first torturous interrogation begins whilst Grandier is out of town.
The only problem is Sister Jean doesn’t know how to act like a demonically possessed woman. She tells the visions she’s actually had, and the crowd and even the lawyers say that she’s just a hysterical nun and that no one can be convicted off her actual blasphemous visions of Grandier…
So like any good show trial, the threats and torture begins.
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Western Civilization is haunted by the image of the “emperor with no clothes”… The absurdities repeated because power insists on it.
People are also obsessed with the idea of the honest child who unwittingly saying the truth and breaks the spell… “From the mouth of babes”.
This never happens.
The Naked Emperor is an expression of power… People trick themselves into believing it, and even staking their wealth and reputations on it… It is a relationship of power and the purchase into power. The lie gains power the more people repeat it. It snowballs. It becomes impossible to break it… Or at least impossible to break it without violence. That people will fight to maintain the lie, that they’d be ruined if they ever acknowledged it was false.
They are not tricked. They know that they are lying.
Even if the linguistic part of their brain tries to trick themselves into thinking that they are tricked.
If a child could dispel it, it would mean that the spell was already broken by the Emperor and his attendants poor maintenance of the power relations… One might as well say that the “clothes” blew off the emperor in the wind, or a wizard stole them, as attribute it to anything said by the child.
Once one is on the compliance ladder, and the authority is maintaining your compliance, it takes forceful determination and more often than not actual combat to break the relation. Something the weak willed will never do.
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
-John Stuart Mill
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There is a genius moment at this point in the film... When the interrogation of Sister Jean escalates, it’s not the case that the “rubes” and medieval believers in the audience watching the “questioning” believe it…
Rather many start shouting in outrage!
The Nuns try to riot!
The middleclass townsmen rightly identify what’s happening… They shout that it’s a sick and twisted trick!
Nothing has even been done quite yet, no one believes the Devil story, the torture is still to begin, and no confession has even started!
We’ve been trained to think that this would be enough. Tell the truth early, tell it to everyone! Don’t let the lie take hold!
“Live not by lies” to quote Rod Dreher…
It does nothing.
The crowd is largely there because it is a spectacle and they want to be scandalized and entertained. A few responsible businessmen from town calling a spade a spade does nothing, the crowd will not spontaneously come to their conscience… They never have.
Grandier earlier in the film could run to the bell and call a muster and start a standoff and threaten massacre if a “single stone” should fall.
A single stone.
Yet These men could not run home, grab their arms, and shout for all they met along the way to join them… whilst watching a Nun raped in front of them.
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It is not enough to “stand athwart history shouting ‘stop’”…
The truth does nothing without the resolve to fight.
Those who will not commit violence for the truth will watch impotently as others commit violence for lies.
And those who cannot commit violence will lie themselves and lie to themselves so as to comply with the violence.
The Greatest Religious Film of All Time
The Rest of the Film I’m not going to describe in a detail blow by blow… It is terrible and brilliant, cruel and beautiful, and genuinely needs to be seen to be believed. No words can do it justice.
No sooner has some great horror and excess begun than some new untold and unimagined brilliancy of writing graced the screen.
Twists and moments that in other films would make the entire experience go by entirely unnoticed.
I watched it 5 or 6 times before I caught that in the final execution it is both the crowd and an overdub of Father Mignon own conscience that tells him to kiss Grandier and give him the last rights… Nor did I catch that the crowd beings to chant “Judas” at the kiss as Mignon realizes the depth of his betrayal.
I have never seen such an achievement of depravity and faith on screen… And the fact that NO religious group views this and Considers Grandier a saint, or the film an achievement, or even bothers to commentate on it is one of the great strikes against organized Christianity….
I can get why Catholics don’t like the film and that the heroism of Grandier against the institution doesn’t serve the fact they’d rather you forget the entire thing…
I can understand that Russell’s cinematographic commentary on the overlap between Sister Jeanne des Anges’ visions of Grandier and the Ecstasy of fellow Carmelite nun Saint Teresa of Ávila and her sexual-religious visions… that is not something that the modern Catholic Church wants you to think about or acknowledge despite the fact that it is not just Russell drawing the connection, but that indeed the historical Sister Jeanne herself explicitly modelled her own Autobiographe after Saint Teresa’s.
I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.
-Saint Teresa
I can understand that Catholics are not going to approve of ANY film in which Priests debauch and torture nuns no matter how true and under what circumstances and even if a honest priest fights against them…
But I can’t for the life of me understand why PROTESTANTS do not care about this film aside from the cowardly Ned Flandersism whereby grown men and aged women feel the need to protect their girl-ish innocence from any depiction of history itself or indeed their own religion.
That if they weren’t allowed to see something as a child that is a statement about the thing and not their relationship with their parents and their parents judgement of their maturity.
I recently listened to a husband-wife podcast in which the wife removed her headphones and COVERED HER EARS when a description from a gruesome part of history occurred. (the husband continued and notified her when he was past the scary point).
This is a woman in her 30s with children of her own. This is a woman whose vote is equal to yours. This is an adult who actually has to protect her kids from the evils of the world, and she can’t stand even hearing a description of it.
Her eldest son who sneaks onto live-leak is more of an adult than her.
Once you’re no longer a child or virgin yourself you have to stop cowering from the world and actually understand it. If only to protect those who cannot.
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And yet… Maybe the most protestant film ever made… Directly commentating on religious history, the absolute monarchies of Europe, the individual spiritual quest vs. institutional compliance, duty to one’s love, one’s polity, and one’s faith… The bravery to speak the truth and its limits and flawed fallen men both rising above themselves and falling way further than they thought possible…
That carries no interest for Protestant America or the Anglo-sphere.
Somehow a film in which a priest and the woman he loves debate whether they should wed or stay chaste with biblical reference and theological sophistication has ZERO interest for Protestants whose Founder Martin Luther did the exact same as Grandier a century earlier.
Somehow a two hour long philosophical debate and martyrdom of a historical personage to his people and true faith… That holds no interest for Christendom.
I can gaurantee you that when I go to see this in 4K in October I will see more Horny Goth girls who want to see a scandalous “witch” movie and Pagan Horror fanatics than I will anyone who actually shares Grandier’s faith or identify with his struggle…
And I can Guarantee you that they will recognize and understand the medieval and early modern religious and visual symbolism BETTER that the few religious people who wander in.
A film about the wars of religions was made with 100% focus on the Religion. Complete with dozens of correct and blasphemed religious rituals. From an almost explicitly British Protestant Perspective, with better research, production value, writing, directing, casting, visual story telling, historical accuracy, symbolic significance, and narrative pathos… THAN HBO’S ROME… And Protestants across the English speaking world did not give a shit.
Hell during the original run this English language film about the depravities of the catholic church made more money in Catholic Countries than England.
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“Why doesn’t Hollywood make movies about heroic priests and christian martyrs?”
They did.
Oliver Reed’s Urbain Grandier is maybe the greatest filmed Christian Martyr in world cinema… who explicitly breaks his churches’ edicts to adopt the protestant interpretation of marriage and other doctrines out of love… And I’d be shocked if 1 protestant preacher out of 1000 would recognized the filmic character or historical figure if you didn’t explicitly provide the context along with the name.
Indeed if they knew the movie existed at all almost all of them denounced it sight unseen for it’s sexual content.
[As an aside, Speaking of Rome and Sexual Content, Check out my review of the recent re-Edit of Caligula:]
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Black Mass: Sexual Utopia in Power
The Later half of The Devils is divided between the later trial of Grandier… And the infamous “Exorcisms” of the Loudon Nuns…
All the most infamous scenes are from these exorcisms. If there is a heart of darkness to the 17th century… Well it’d probably be something that happened in Germany during the 30 years war… But this is certainly up there.
Under threats, torture and violence the nuns are compelled to play the parts of the demonically possessed and depraved… If they don’t comply and play the part, that is a sign of demonic intransigence and the devils successfully going dormant… In need of violent and forceful drawing forth.
However if they DO comply and act insane, and strip naked, and play out the obscene role of sexually licentious demonically possessed nuns… Naming Grandier as their corruptor and tormentor… Then they are free to act however they please, nay “Free-er” than they have ever been in their lives, at least in terms of raw licentious abandon… just so long as they act “Exorcised” whenever Father Barre waves a cross at them, they can act however they please…
Except they aren’t allowed to act dignified, nor pray properly, nor act faithfully, or virtuously… And also they’re prisoners and cannot leave… And they’re subject to all violence offered them, and have no hope of ever defending themselves or resisting.
But they’re “safe” and fed and free from want and work and expectations…
A miniature Isle of Capri. Or an predecessor to Little Saint James.
The best of them commits suicide rather than endure this or watch her friends descend.
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All of this is of course obscenely blasphemous and directly analogous to the degeneracy of the American 1960s…
Except if you haven’t pieced it together, pretty much all the shots are nearly one to one references to various historical artworks and medieval or early modern depictions of hell, or the Devil’s actions on earth.
Specifically almost all the “exorcism” scenes are references to various historical descriptions and works on “Witches Sabbaths” and “Black Masses” described by the Catholic church and catholic sources.
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The black mass is a reoccurring legend, horror story, piece of witch hunting lore, and basically official Catholic doctrine that the servants of Satan and Witches (remember Witch hunts were officially sanctioned if tacitly poo-pooed… the repeated claims they made had sanction).
The Legend goes that Witches, Satanists, etc. Invert the classical Latin Mass substituting nudity on the part of various characters for robes, menstral blood and other sexual fluids for the Eucharist, women lying naked upon the altar with the chalice held on their bare stomachs… all manner of traditional catholic symbols rendered obscene…
Specifically these were the accounts and “coffessions” collected and published by the Catholic Church of the 16th and 17th century. Notably the Basque Witch Trials of 1609 (just a few Decades before Loudon)… And which many of the Marquis de Sade’s blasphemous scenes in Justine and other works… Are actually just a parody of. (That his priests perpetuate the abuses they’ve accused others of, with more detailed jokes the more you know his various source materials (notably the fictional works of English Puritan writer Samuel Richardson [comment if you want me to go off on Justine, Pamela and Clarrisa in another piece])).
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What Ken Russell has done… And which many MANY commentators in the 1600s were already saying (they weren’t idiots, just under brutal conditions) is that the REAL Witches Sabbath was the unholy abomination of the exorcisms… That he is drawing direct visual parallel between the blasphemy of the exorcism and the Witches Sabbaths of catholic doctrine and European gothic legend.
With lots of references to Faust and Dante mixed in.
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The only “Inaccuracy” is that a lot of the visual references are to illustrations and Paintings from the 19th century depicting the descriptions, legends, and stories of the 17th century and before.
However I doubt anyone would even consider that a fault… Instead of a fault with my sourcing of images or with the general unnavigability of Wikimedia.
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A Quick Aside on THIS SHOT
This shot is a direct reference to Early Modern Shakespearean Profane cursing. Specifically the English profanity “God’s Wounds” or for Shakespeare fans “Zounds”. As in “‘Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?” The equation of Christ’s spear wound with the Female anatomy is a really old medieval depiction/motif for tapestries and artwork, that became almost entirely defunct by the 1600s as a matter of sincere religious belief, but was still used for cursing and profanity… I cannot express to you how much of a deep cut this shot is. I could research and write a paper entire on this shot and the religious symbolism. And its a throw-away shot that’s part of a dream sequence of a hysterical nun fantasizing about a guy she has a crush on. No other film in history is this dense! There are dozens and dozens and dozens of other shots i could go this deep on.
It has gotten to the point where I will think Russell made some shit up… Or I try to critique something… Then mid-writing I remember an obscure matter from Elizabethan Theater or Dante… And then realize that I’m the idiot and Russell already thought of that.
In Conclusion: This Film is One of the Crowning Achievements of European Art and Art History… And Political Theory
If you are not watching The Devils Remastered in 4k this October. You are wrong.
You are wrong in your life choices. You are wrong spiritually. And you are wrong in matter of fact.
You are watching The Devils.
You are watching The Devils every day of your God damned life.
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You are watching it when you follow excitedly to some tabloid news of a sex scandal.
You are watching it when you slip over to pornhub or onlyfans.
You are Watching it when the head of some August institution is “metoo”’d.
You are watching it when your kids’ school has pride month or their little friend “transitions”.
You are watching it when you see the homosexual on television.
You are watching it when Flock Cameras are set up in your neighborhood.
You are watching it when the Military tries to slip a single oil tanker past Iran only for the president to tells you its all flowing freely.
You are watching it when the Lindsay Clancy trial consumes your friend group.
You are watching it when you or your interlocutor reach for the accusation that someone is a “Nazi” or has otherwise practiced Witchcraft.
You are watching The Devils every day your mind is turned towards social scandal and sexual matters, and you are encouraged to indulge or watch, the debauching of your innocents… As opposed to paying attention to the military and strategic realities that actually determine the continuation of your liberties and if violently and ruthlessly acted upon, could actually prevent your enemies from debauching the innocent of your society.
Every instant that passes in the film… That was the best moment to stop talking and take violent lethal action.
Like Tumbling down a cliff… The best time to catch yourself was before you’d gathered so much momentum. The next best time is now.
It only gets worse and harder with time.
Grandier could have saved the city had he just ordered his soldiers to fire the first time the Barron showed up. The townfolk could have saved Loudon on their own had they just mustered the militia and taken to the sword at first assault on one of their nuns.
Grandier could have rallied them on his return after hearing the rumors… And he could have called for blood when he still had prestige and the crowd at his trial.
Instead at every instant… They talked. They reasoned. They debated… And they allowed their moments and opportunities to be frittered away. Something realized only too late:
“If you would remain free men. Fight. Fight them. Or become their slaves.”
The details of Grandier’s execution right down to beats and screwups are accurate, or accurate as can be to the contemporary accounts. His actual last words are lost to time.
Like the walls of Loudon.
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Excellent piece. History is more fantastic and wild than is taught in any classroom. As the saying goes, "the victors write the history books."
Incredible another masterwork of film that I am only hearing about because of my paid subscription to a schizophrenic nut job on Substack.
Edit I find it most amusing that the ultimate film about the Protestant faith reveals itself to me just after I gave up on not only Protestantism but the faith of on Jesus the Nazarene entirely.