In the 1971 film The Devils, what is the name of Vanessa Redgrave’s character, who is called “the new Pandora”?

In the 1971 film The Devils, Vanessa Redgrave plays Sister Jeanne des Anges, who is called “the new Pandora.”

Ken Russell directed The Devils, a historical drama adapted from Aldous Huxley’s nonfiction book The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting’s stage play. Redgrave portrays the prioress of a French convent whose alleged possession becomes entangled with accusations against Urbain Grandier, played by Oliver Reed.

The film uses the Pandora comparison as part of its dense religious and political imagery. Sister Jeanne is not Pandora from Greek mythology, and the plot is not an adaptation of Hesiod. The phrase is a characterization within the film’s rhetoric, connecting the convent’s scandal with the older cultural idea of a woman associated with catastrophe.

The historical events took place in Loudun in the seventeenth century. The movie is controversial for its graphic violence, sexuality, and treatment of religious persecution, making the Pandora reference one small element in a much broader historical and cinematic work.