The Devils
Ken Russell, USA, 1971, 111 min

 

The Devils was the KEN RUSSELL film version of the controversial play by John Whiting. The story, based on Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, concerns controversial 17th century French priest Urbain Grandier, whose radical political and religious notions and profligate sex life earn him many enemies. When a group of nuns appears to have been « bewitched » by Grandier, his rivals feed on the resulting mass hysteria, using this incident as an excuse to have the priest arrested. Refusing to confess to being in league with Satan and to renounce his « heretical » views, Grandier undergoes appalling tortures, and is finally burned at the stake. Vanessa Redgrave co-stars as the head nun.

 

*WINNER: Best Director, Venice International Film Festival 1971.

 

 

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Présenté hier soir dans le cadre des ‘Évènements Spéciaux / Longs métrages : Entre la mort et le diable‘ du festival Fantasia (détails du film ici).

 

 

Le turbulent contexte social actuel a entraîné une montée de désenchantement vis-à-vis les institutions religieuses, en particulier l’Église catholique. Le cinéma de genre reflète cette désillusion avec force, ce qui nous a inspiré une section dédiée à l’abus de foi, l’horreur des idéologies et la corruption de la piété. Certains de ces films vont littéralement vous stupéfier.

Tranquillement, pas vite
Guy L. Coté, Canada, 1972, 148 min 11 s

 

Long métrage documentaire en deux parties sur l’évolution de la religion au début des années 1970, Tranquillement, pas vite (1re partie) – Que s’est-il donc passé? retrace la désagrégation et la mutation rapides de la religion catholique au Québec. Des paroissiens se réunissent et discutent de l’avenir de leur église, de sa chapelle et de ses services. Le manque de financement est au centre de la discussion, de même que la place accordée aux rassemblements communautaires payants, telles les parties de bingo, et le nombre croissant de prêtres se retrouvant sans emploi.

Tranquillement, pas vite (2e partie) – Communauté de base présente huit mois d’une expérience originale de reconstruction religieuse : celle de la communauté chrétienne de base, sise à Montréal.

 

 

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Robert Mager: «l’État québécois n’a jamais été religieux» (June 23, 2010)

Les moines de Saint-Benoît
Roger Blais, Canada, 1951, 19 min 47 s

Documentaire filmé à l’abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac et illustrant comment, tout en vivant du travail de leurs mains, des moines cherchent, dans le silence et la méditation, à atteindre l’humilité et la perfection selon la règle de saint Benoît.

Puisqu’on parle de BRION GYSIN :

The Beat Hotel
Alan Govenar, USA, 2011

 

‘The Beat Hotel, a new film by Documentary Arts, goes deep into the legacy of the American Beats in Paris during the heady years between 1957 and 1963, when Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso fled the obscenity trials in the United States surrounding the publication of Ginsbergs poem Howl. They took refuge in a cheap no-name hotel they had heard about at 9, Rue Git le Coeur and were soon joined by William Burroughs, Ian Somerville, Brion Gysin, and others from England and elsewhere in Europe, seeking out the freedom that the Latin Quarter of Paris might provide.

The Beat Hotel, as it came to be called, was a sanctuary of creativity, but was also, as British photographer Harold Chapman recalls, an entire community of complete oddballs, bizarre, strange people, poets, writers, artists, musicians, pimps, prostitutes, policemen, and everybody you could imagine. And in this environment, Burroughs finished his controversial book Naked Lunch; Ian Somerville and Brion Gysin invented the Dream Machine; Corso wrote some of his greatest poems; and Harold Norse, in his own cut-up experiments, wrote the novella, aptly called The Beat Hotel.

The film tracks down Harold Chapman in the small seaside town of Deal in Kent England. Chapmans photographs are iconic of a time and place when Ginsberg, Orlovsky, Corso, Burroughs, Gysin, Somerville and Norse were just beginning to establish themselves on the international scene. Chapman lived in the attic of the hotel, and according to Ginsberg didnt say a word for two years because he wanted to be invisible and to document the scene as it actually happened.

In the film, Chapmans photographs and stylized dramatic recreations of his stories meld with the recollections of Elliot Rudie, a Scottish artist, whose drawings of his time in the hotel offer a poignant and sometimes humorous counterpoint. The memories of Chapman and Rudie interweave with the insights of French artist Jean-Jacques Lebel, author Barry Miles, Danish filmmaker Lars Movin, and the first hand accounts of Oliver Harris, Regina Weinrich, Patrick Amie, Eddie Woods, and 95 year old George Whitman, among others, to evoke a portrait of Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso and the oddities of the Beat Hotel that is at once unexpected and revealing.

The Beat Hotel is currently in production and is scheduled to be released in the Fall of 2009 (?).’

 

thebeathotelmovie.com

 

Nobel Prize-winning philosopher/mathematician, BERTRAND RUSSELL, explains why he does not believe in God.