“OR IS IT ABOUT MEN?”

By Raymond Benson

Ken Russell’s controversial but widely-acclaimed adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s novel, Women in Love, might have had a better and more appropriate title—Men in Love. While touted as being an examination of the nature of love and sexuality between two men and two women, in the end we are left with the more potent notion that there is a love that can exist between two males—as friends—that is more powerful and “eternal” than the love a man will have for a woman.

Released in 1969 in Britain and in 1970 in the U.S. (hence, its four Oscar nominations for the year 1970), Women in Love has not aged well in terms of its arty and borderline pretentious direction… but as I tell my Film History students, “judge a film within the context of when it was released.” In that regard, Women was a groundbreaking and daring motion picture of its time. In the U.S. it played only in the big city art house theaters, probably due to its frank nudity (both female and male—one of the first mainstream pictures to feature full frontal men in the raw) and subject matter.

It’s the early 1920s in the English countryside, where class standing is very much a thing; but a movement is afoot for the emancipation of women, free-thinking, avant-garde art, and the breaking of social taboos. While the story focuses on four characters—Rupert (Alan Bates), Gerald (Oliver Reed), Gudrun (Glenda Jackson), and Ursula (Jennie Linden)—the “protagonist,” as it were, is Rupert. In fact, it is how he approaches his relationships with his best friend Gerald and the woman he eventually marries, Ursula, that is the crux of the story.

Glenda Jackson, however, won the Best Actress Oscar as the free-spirited, take-no-prisoners Gudrun in what is honestly a supporting role in the story. This statement is not meant to take away from her engaging, charismatic performance—she’s terrific. There is no question that she steals the movie. But Linden has more screen time as her younger, more conservative sister.

What made the film a cause célèbre at the time was the much-talked-about nude wrestling scene between Bates and Reed—which, apparently, they had to talk Russell in to filming because they were keen to do it. Beautifully shot by Oscar-nominated Billy Williams, the rumble in an English manor study by firelight rightly is a remarkable piece of cinema.

Ken Russell received his only directing Oscar nomination for the film. Some might watch it today and think that his work—and the acting as well—is over-the-top. The truth is that Russell intentionally stylized the movie with a heightened realism that matches the passion and intensity of its subject matter. This is a picture in which style and substance are notched up to eleven. Russell, in his later career, would often be accused of extravagance and pretentiousness—but here, Women in Love is relatively tame in comparison.

This gorgeous period piece with heady dialogue, editing influenced by the French New Wave, lovely costumes, and beautiful scenery, is showcased by the Criterion Collection’s new restored 4K digital transfer with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack.

Supplements include two different commentaries from 2003 (one by Russell, one by producer/screenwriter Larry Kramer); new interviews with DP Billy Williams and editor Michael Bradswell; vintage interviews with Russell and Jackson; an interesting on-location piece featuring Bates, Linden, and Kramer; and the theatrical trailer.

The most striking supplement is Russell’s own biopic autobiography, A British Picture—Portrait of an Enfant Terrible (1989), a bizarre but fun piece in which a little boy plays Russell throughout the years, even when Russell is an adult. Another interesting, but less successful, inclusion is a 1972 short film, Second Best, based on a D. H. Lawrence short story, produced by and starring Bates. The booklet features an essay by scholar Linda Ruth Williams.

Cinema, English, and literature buffs will certainly appreciate Women in Love. For those willing to position it in its appropriate historical place, it’s a scrumptious and sensual delight.

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