The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, March 1-7
The Devils (1971)
Directed by Ken Russell
Portraying faith and religion in a respectful manner on film is an often difficult task, usually only achieved by a scant handful of filmmakers (Dreyer, Scorsese, and Bresson among others). Russell did so in his own extravagant, inimitable style in The Devils. Perhaps one of the most controversial films ever made, it takes the historical story of a French priest put to death for supposedly being a witch and forms from it a searing, perversely explicit critique of organized religion and fanaticism. But leaving aside the crazed visuals, performances, and sets, there is the incredible anchoring performance of Oliver Reed, a voice of reason in the madness and an exemplar of individual faith every bit the equal of Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Ryan Swen (March 5, 3pm, 9pm at the Alamo Drafthouse)