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has been a long time since I first watched 'The Devils' by Ken Russell.
He has inspired me to expose my feelings and opinions. His disturbing film
has always had a powerful affect on me emotionally. It stirs up an angst
so deep that I tend feel an overwhelming passion to actively dispose of
all those sadistic, despotic idiots who are abusing people's lives with
their deliberate acts of corruption, corporate exploitation and violence.
Many
of these ancient beliefs survived in the medieval Western worldview, and
their survivals remain in much of modern custom. Medieval peasants said
"bless you" to their fellows when they sneezed so that the devil
or some other demon would not enter the person's body as his mouth was
opened. The 'village idiot' was often allowed to roam free rather than
being confined because people assumed he had been "touched"
by God, and so his soul had become slightly dislodged. There were many
"epidemics" of possession in European history, such as the one
described by Aldous Huxley in his book The Devils of Loudoun , and they
often led to rather violent responses, such as the Inquisition in Spain,
the witch-hunts in central Europe, and the Puritan witch-burnings of colonial
New England. "Concourse" with spiritual beings was assumed to
be the result of a pact with the devil, and was severely punished. It
was only with the advent of the Enlightenment that possession began to
be looked at in a different light. (Garrett 1987: 38) The
distinction between Self and Daimon is necessary. The first is an abstraction
that tends towards subjectification, and eventually slides, willy nilly,
into its supposed opposite, ego. (As soon as we have opposites, we find
the identity of opposites occurring.) Daimon is not a concept, but a personified
figure, a voice, a shape, an impulse, a phantom, an image, an imaginary
being, like a spirit, a shade, an angel, an animal-soul. (James Hillman)* I know I could be losing my street creditability by declaring instinctive emotion and not hiding behind the present day popular, self-conscious mask of corporate insensitivity. You know the mask I mean, the institutionalized and accepted face of submissive acceptance, wrapped in an existential state of irony. It can usually can be found in many Artists, Designers, the civil service & politicians and anyone else who is trying to put across a persona of who they are not. We have all grown familiar with this love/hate mask with gritted teeth in our culturally limiting and imposed remit of not taking anything too seriously. What the hell, someone's got to say it. The Western World has been experiencing the inevitable and predictable process of what Sartre dryly termed as 'Being and Nothingness'. In short: nothingness, the body, external objects and the ego. Objects guide us and are our borderlines, informing our definitions via tactile interaction with stuff. This stuff that we touch and take for granted is our support, our crutch and physical foundation. The foundation that we stand on, live and breath on, locally, and on an external level, call it Planet Earth. Also there is stuff from within, emotions, memory etc. What separates humanity from still objects such as a stone or an animal is lust, desire, will to be, ideas and our unique ability to enjoy sensuality & sexuality like no other living entity on this planet. At present, the Western world is going through the motions of being nothing. Our being is a nothingness. Meaning that we are now the sum of everything outside of ourselves, an inverted kind of nothingness. A sort of Topsy Turvey situation. The nothingness and void that Sartre expounds about is within and outside us all and can be considered or termed as a 'sense of dysfunction', an object that is broken. I believe that we all know of this as a common experience. That we all feel it affecting us everyday and we are all dysfunctional just by the nature of our day-to-day existence. A state of non-being, a state of being out of touch, not in sync with the soul or Spirit or Daemon, or whatever name we one chooses to label it as. Part of the problem with being dysfunctional is that we have no image of our selves; everything seems so abstract and undefined. No image of our selves other than what the external (mediation)has put into our selves. We have become the external, we are externalised, no definitions other than the faint glimmer of the shadows of our former idealised selves. Our dreams are mainly induced via the process of celluloid and digitally enhanced mediation, confusing our tired craniums. Our origins, our myths of who and what we are, are no longer obtainable from within our dissected selves, abstracted and fragmented via (now global)institutional definitions. Even though we know deep down that each of us are something, it seems that we influenced by what we are informed to be. Habitually we are interactive creatures who wish to communicate, procreate, eat & sleep so to survive. Even though we are going through the process of instinctive living the main problem is that we are also consumptives, consumers who create our personal references via the products sold and given to us. We are filled, loaded up with 'product viruses' that influence the way we all behave to each other. We consume
handed down references, items to guide us in a cause and effect fashion,
defining and informing our inner & interactive personalities. This
tells me that we have now become products, levers of multinational and
corporate identities that direct our energies towards their own products.
A good example of this is the patenting of humanities genes. Multinational
companies will soon own the 'stuff of life itself' and we will have no
say in how it is used even though it will affect us & our lives dramatically. So as the multinationals spanning the globe blatantly ignore genuine, realistic and environmental pleas in exchange of their shareholder's greed and world domination. Collecting profit while killing off communities and indigenous livelihoods all over the world to feed the greed of a few thousand rich businessmen & businesswomen who are calling the shots. I begin to wonder why they have been aloud to do such things? Why are these very ugly individuals within large corporate companies aloud to destroy our world and many of the people that exist in it? To answer these questions I will have to go back to Ken Russell's film 'The Devils'. The main thing that affected me in Ken Russell's film was watching his depiction of the herd mentality. How a company, a church, a despot can harness the minds & emotions of people who are lazy in spirit. Wilhem Reich famously called them 'Little Men' and they are everywhere, conforming to the rhythm of blind consensus. Too eager to demolish and trap others who wish to be different. Stone throwers, when allowed and given the chance will & do gladly hide behind a given flag as they toss projectiles of hate and fear at anyone who defies conformity.
Herd Power The power one feels when one is wearing a uniform is all too apparent. Many of course are easily swayed to join that tribal affiliation and sense of being part of a larger grouping, especially when on the moral or winning side. There are many accounts of when people in uniforms armed with weapons and cynical power can come unstuck. One account is documented on Saturday 31st March 1990. The Poll Tax Riot at Trafalgar Square. Everyone who was there will remember how the police trampled civilians whilst mounted on horses. And how they rammed people with their vans as if they were nothing but disposable traffic cones. Many individuals who went on that march will never forget the violence that was deliberately imposed on them by the riot Police. What was interesting was how much of the event that day was played down by the media & how it took sides. Not daring to mention to the general viewing public that the Police basically had a free for all bash at everyone. Misinformation was the call of the day, hiding the fact that the then Thatcher runned Government was not interested in what people had to say but was more keen on snuffing out the voice of questioning and reason by what ever means at their disposal. I was there and witnessed the carnage caused by the many 'Little Men' in their nasty gangs hitting women, children and anyone else they could find. The Riot Police loved every moment of it (rush of power you see). They had obviously been briefed to cause as much pain as possible to let everyone know who was the boss. In the end many marchers got fed up with being brutally bashed by nasty officially 'legalized' thugs & retaliated to protect themselves. Causing damage to property and many of the policemen. It's such a shame that governments never listen to what it's people's needs are. The Riot at Trafalgar Square is one of those examples. When push comes to shove, citizens are swiftly left to rot and what counts is maintaining the illusion of democracy. It was a strange experience for me the next day. It was as if I had just been to a movie. The newspapers showed a young, masked women with a long pole about to strike a policeman as he was defending himself with his shield. The press mentioned nothing of the ghastly things I and everyone saw. The police are still arresting anyone who exhibits photographs proving what they had done to many people that day. There are still many citizens in hospital from that day who have been crippled & brain damaged by their inhumane wrath. The media, the government condemned them all as anarchists. Wake up! How many anarchist are there out there? It was a mixture of Britain's people's, all united against the corrupt antics of the state. Declaring how you feel about something I believe is very important, especially in these stylized, dis-empowering and mediated days. At present there is a war raging between the existential globalisation of market forces and the inadequate bombardment of (fascist style), extreme-like religions. Neither of these options seems able to move humanity to a place of harmonious sanctity. The historical push and pull effect caused by fundamentalist religion and the white man's soul 'careering', sure is not getting us anywhere useful. It surprises me (or does it?) how long these big forces have been allowed to get away with it. Too many dirty fingers in too many dirty pies. Is the ordinary person really too docile or uninterested to challenge all this nonsensical, bombastic exploitation? Well, it seems so. In fact most people would be offended if one was to start talking about various issues happening in the world. Our culture in the UK is going through a very dodgey phase. You just have to look at the pop charts & listen to the garbage that the music industry is feeding all those gullible teenagers. A lot of the young are lacking the urgency & questioning that my generation had. Compliance dominates. People are not interested in what's happening out there, outside the UK. We are dangerously becoming as ignorant as America, with it's right wing mindset, no interest in history & context or self liberation, even though our civilians have use of the Internet, it seems that they are just searching for product rather than change. It's all left for the television to sort out. We look at the screen informing us of all the (recontextualised, ill informing) troubles around the world then we turn it off. So watching all those willing victims in 'The Devils', who ( were emotionally, psychologically submissive) ganging up on Oliver Reed, a very human priest. And Watching him burn as they stupidly let their city be invaded and blown apart by the ruling Catholic Church; touched a raw nerve. It also reminded me of when I was at school. Most of the kids were scared of standing out & worried about being seen as different or even special. Like most blokes whom my stepfather respected in his local haunt, the pub. These young lads at my senior school hated anyone who was different or stood out. They ganged up on Jewish kids, Black Kids and anyone else who to them seemed gay or talked with an ascent or whose origin was not from their own limited locality. These slaves of ignorance have grown up and become men now & just like me, have & are witnessing the discordant, confusion that the world is going through. I hope for all of our sakes that they have developed, challenged themselves & have become not what they were designed to be. The trouble is that humanity is suffering from the overpowering wrath of 'bloke limitedness' and it's narrow, stumped mentality is everywhere. Just ask any woman from anywhere in the world on how tiresome men are with their brutish warlike & macho insensibility's. It dominates most institutions, the most worrying is in religion. Who do you think has started all these wars on our long-suffering planet? Not hard to guess is it? Yes, that's it you've guessed it. Men. Is it just Coincidence? I know, I've been told that many men have had a mother telling their son to go to war & kill the enemy but the buck has to stop somewhere. 'Don't Hang Back With The Brutes!'shouted Blanche in the brilliant Tennessee Williams play 'Street Car Named Desire'. I do hope that we have in some small way moved a little further away from the emotionally limited trap of perpetual 'gruntship'. Don't get me wrong, I am very much into the collective feral being, man and woman's. I definitely do not value its misdirected energy being wasted on killing off what is beautiful & the world's essential resources & all who live in it. When I make love I am very aware of the feral being inside of me, even when I walk the street at night. Feral energy can be tapped into for pleasure and creativity rather than the usual, predictable and tiresome examples happening all over the globe. So here we all are, we've made it into the 21st Century and we are all still stuck in the same muddy puddle as we were in the last century. Governments are still hiding the truth in favour of control & conveniently forgetting their responsibilities to us the people & the world. Multinationals are still drilling into the world's crust and taking, taking, taking. You know the rest. I just want to say Thank you to Ken Russell for bothering with such a troubling film & thank you also to Aldous Huxley who wrote the 'Devils of Loudon', a strong influence for the film itself. (This
is not a cultural piece of text, it is just my personal comments after
watching a film. Marc Garrett.) Los demonios - Spanish
/ Venezualan title Australia Finland Italy Norway Sweden UK USA Russell himself has bemoaned the critical establishment's apparent inability to understand his true intentions: "'What people don't understand,' Ken adds, 'is that The Devils was done with a great sense of irony'." Certainly the broadness of the characters and the often unsubtle humour attest to Russell's intention to parody the real-life events of Loudon, though most of the film's detractors were blinded to just about everything but the sex, the violence and the blasphemy. One of those detractors was British critic Alexander Walker of the London Evening Standard who very nearly met his match on the night of July 22nd 1971 when he appeared with Russell on the BBC's Tonight programme to discuss the film. Walker's damning [and error-riddled] review had been published earlier that day in the Standard and from the off, Russell proved to be in no mood to simply accept Walker's critique. The meeting proved spectacular and is now the stuff of TV legend, with Russell immediately going on the offensive, reminding Walker that his films were made for paying cinemagoers and not for the critical establishment. Adding insult to injury, Walker noted that "The public doesn't appear all that grateful, especially in America," a reference to the film's poor box office performance in the States. Russell then exploded, hitting Walker across the head with his rolled up copy of the Standard and exhorting Walker to "go to America and write for the fucking Americans!" The fallout was predictable
enough - the BBC switchboards were jammed by indignant viewers calling
to complain about Russell's language and the tabloid hacks had a field
day. Walker was told by the BBC that should he ever appear on TV again
with Russell he "must give an undertaking in advance not to provoke
him" [Walker 1988, p.107] and Russell wrote an indignant letter to
the Radio Times suggesting that Walker and Tonight frontman Ludovic Kennedy
had conspired against him. A "diminuendo of accusations, libel threats
and, eventual, qualified apologies" [ibid] followed, but Walker claims
to bear no grudge against Russell: "In fact, I had rather more respect
for Ken Russell for forcing his emotions so trenchantly on a critic. The
manner of his doing so was, after all, the very embodiment of his filmmaking"
[ibid]. Russell remains adamant that the furor surrounding the film was
justified: "Was it worth it? To me, yes. The Devils was a political
statement worth making" [Russell, 1989, p.193]. |