Ken Russell's best work was done by the early 1970s. First his poetic TV essays on Elgar and Delius. Then, for the big screen, his bravely flamboyant adaptation of Lawrence's Women in Love and this sensational adaptation of John Whiting's 1961 RSC play, based on The Devils of Loudun, Aldous Huxley's remarkable 1952 study of how the church and state conspired to exploit an apparent case of demonic possession in 17th-century France in order to destroy Father Urbain Grandier, a charismatic libertine who challenged their authority. The censors, the film's Hollywood producers and the tabloid press reacted to the film much the way the French authorities did to Grandier in 1634, and this excellent double-disc box contains the longest version yet released of this much cut movie, accompanied by a commentary (by Mark Kermode, Russell and others) and a documentary by Kermode and Paul Joyce that sets the movie in its cultural and historical context. There is much to irritate in the film, but it's bold, individual and a landmark in British cinema, with outstanding performances from Oliver Reed as Grandier and Vanessa Redgrave as the possessed Mother Superior; memorable stylised sets by Derek Jarman; dramatic lighting by David Watkin; and an atonal score by Peter Maxwell Davies.