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Women in Love (film)
Encyclopedia
Women in Love is a 1969 British film directed by Ken Russell
. It stars Alan Bates
, Oliver Reed
, Glenda Jackson
and Jennie Linden
. The film was adapted by Larry Kramer
from the novel of the same name
by D. H. Lawrence
.
The plot follows the relationships between two sisters and two men in a mining town in post First World War England.
The two couples take markedly different directions exploring the nature of commitment and love.
The movie was nominated for Best Cinematography
, Best Director
and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
. Jackson won the Academy Award for Best Actress
for her role, as well as a slew of critics' honors.
.
The four are later brought together at a house party at the estate of Hermione Roddice, a rich woman whose relationship with Rupert is falling apart. When Hermione devises as an entertainment for the guest a dance in the style of the Russian ballet, Rupert becomes impatient with her pretensions and tells the pianist to play some ragtime. This sets off spontaneous dancing among the whole group and angers Hermione. When Birkin follows her into the next room, she smashes a paperweight against his head, and he staggers outside. He discards his clothes and wanders through the woods. Later, at the Criches’ annual picnic, to which most of the town is invited, Ursula and Gudrun find a secluded spot, and Gudrun dances before some longhorn cattle while Ursula sings “I’m forever Blowing Bubbles”. When Gerald and Rupert appear, Gerald calls Gudrun’s behavior impossible and ridiculous, and then says he loves her. “That’s one way of putting it”, she replies. Ursula and Birkin wander away discussing death and love and end up making love. The day ends in tragedy. Laura and Tibby drown while swimming in the lake.
During one of Gerald and Rupert’s discussions, Rupert suggest Japanese style wrestling, and they strip off their clothes and wrestle in the firelight. Rupert enjoys their closeness and says they should swear to love each other implicitly, but Gerald cannot understand Rupert’s idea of wanting to have an emotional union with a man as well as an emotional and physical union with a woman.
Ursula and Birkin decide to marry while Gudrun and Gerald continue to see each other. One evening, emotionally exhausted after his father’s illness and death, Gerald sneaks into the Brangwen house to spend the night with Gudrun and leaves at dawn.
Later, after Ursula and Birkin’s marriage, Gerald suggest that the four of them go to the Alps for Christmas. At their inn in the Alps, Gudrun irritates Gerald with her interest in Loerke, a homosexual German sculptor. An artist herself, Gudrun is fascinated with Loerke’s idea that brutality is necessary to create art. While Gerald grows increasingly jealous and angry, Gudrun only derides and ridicules him. Finally he can endure it no longer. After attempting to strangle her, he trudges off into the snow to die. Rupert and Ursula and Gudrun return to their cottage in England where he grieves for his dead friend. Ursula and Rupert discuss love; you can’t have two kinds of love. Why should you? Ursula says. ‘It seems as if I can’t’ Rupert responds, “yet I wanted it “.
, who had directed in 1966 the critical and commercially successful film Georgy Girl
. He suggested to make a film adaptation of D. H. Lawrence
's novel Women in Love
to Larry Kramer
who bought the film rights of the book. Narizzano was going to be the film’s director, but he had to leave the project after suffering a series of personal set backs. He divorced his wife for a man who shortly after died tragically.
Kramer originally commissioned the screenplay to David Mercer
, whose adaptation differed too much from the original book and he was bought out of the project. Ultimately Kramer himself wrote the script. With Narizzano out of the picture Kramer considered a number of directors to take on the project including Jack Clayton
, Stanley Kubrick
and Peter Brook
all of which declined the offer. Kramer fourth choice was Ken Russell who had previously directed only two films and was better known then for his biographical projects about artist for the BBC
. Ken Russell got committed to the project and made important contributions to the script.
Alan Bates
, who had been the leading man in Georgy Girl
, was interested from the beginning to take the role of Birkin, DH Lawrence’s alter ego in Women in Love. Birkin’s was the first role to be cast. Bates sported a beard, giving him a physical resemblance to DH Lawrence. Kramer wanted Edward Fox
for the role of Gerald. Fox fitted Lawrence’s description of the character (“blond, glacial and Nordic”), but United Artist, the studio financing the production, imposed Oliver Reed
, a more bankable star, as Gerald even though he physically was not like Lawrence describes the character in the novel. Kramer was adamant to give the role of Gudrun to Glenda Jackson
. She was, then, well recognized in theatrical circles. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company she had gained a great deal of attention in the role of Charlotte Corday
in Marat/Sade. United Artist was unconvinced to cast her considering her not conventionally beautiful enough for the role of Gudrun who drives Gerald to suicide. Jackson had her teeth fixed, the varicose veins on her legs operated and was given a flattering hair style. The last of the four main roles to be cast was the one of Ursula. Both Vanessa Redgrave
and Faye Dunaway
declined to take the role finding it the least interesting of the two sisters and that they would be easily eclipsed by Glenda Jackson's acting skills. It was by accident that Russell and Kramer came upon a screening test that Jennie Linden had made opposite Peter O'Toole
for The Lion in Winter
, for a part that she did not get. Kramer and Russell went to visit her offering to be Ursula. Linden had recently given birth to her only son and was not eager to take the role but was ultimately persuaded.
, who would do a nude wrestling scene with Alan Bates
. He went as far as to persuade (and lightly physically arm twist) director Russell to film the scene. Russell conceded and shot the controversial scene, which suggested the homoerotic undertones of Gerald and Rupert's friendship. The wrestling scene and caused the film to be banned altogether in Turkey. The composer Michael Garrett
who also contributed to the score can be seen playing the piano in one scene. Considered the best of Russell's films, it led him to make the 1989 sequel The Rainbow
.
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
. It stars Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
, Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
, Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
and Jennie Linden
Jennie Linden
Jennie Linden is an English film and television actress.Linden was born in Worthing to Marcus and Freida Fletcher, an architect and housewife. She attended the Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 17 on a scholarship...
. The film was adapted by Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer is an American playwright, author, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love in 1969, earning...
from the novel of the same name
Women in Love
Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence published in 1920. It is a sequel to his earlier novel The Rainbow , and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an...
by D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
.
The plot follows the relationships between two sisters and two men in a mining town in post First World War England.
The two couples take markedly different directions exploring the nature of commitment and love.
The movie was nominated for Best Cinematography
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
, Best Director
Academy Award for Directing
The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...
and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. Jackson won the Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
for her role, as well as a slew of critics' honors.
Plot
In 1920 in the Midlands mining town of Beldover, two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, discuss marriage on their way to watch the wedding of Laura Crich, daughter of the town’s wealthy mine owner, to Tibby Lupton, a naval officer. At the village's church each sister is especially fascinated by a particular member of the wedding party – Gudrun by Laura’s brother Gerald and Ursula by Gerald’s best friend Rupert Birkin. Ursula is a school teacher and Rupert is a school inspector; she remembers his coming to her classroom and interrupting her botany lesson to discourse on the sexual nature of the catkinCatkin
A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind-pollinated but sometimes insect pollinated . They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged closely along a central stem which is often drooping...
.
The four are later brought together at a house party at the estate of Hermione Roddice, a rich woman whose relationship with Rupert is falling apart. When Hermione devises as an entertainment for the guest a dance in the style of the Russian ballet, Rupert becomes impatient with her pretensions and tells the pianist to play some ragtime. This sets off spontaneous dancing among the whole group and angers Hermione. When Birkin follows her into the next room, she smashes a paperweight against his head, and he staggers outside. He discards his clothes and wanders through the woods. Later, at the Criches’ annual picnic, to which most of the town is invited, Ursula and Gudrun find a secluded spot, and Gudrun dances before some longhorn cattle while Ursula sings “I’m forever Blowing Bubbles”. When Gerald and Rupert appear, Gerald calls Gudrun’s behavior impossible and ridiculous, and then says he loves her. “That’s one way of putting it”, she replies. Ursula and Birkin wander away discussing death and love and end up making love. The day ends in tragedy. Laura and Tibby drown while swimming in the lake.
During one of Gerald and Rupert’s discussions, Rupert suggest Japanese style wrestling, and they strip off their clothes and wrestle in the firelight. Rupert enjoys their closeness and says they should swear to love each other implicitly, but Gerald cannot understand Rupert’s idea of wanting to have an emotional union with a man as well as an emotional and physical union with a woman.
Ursula and Birkin decide to marry while Gudrun and Gerald continue to see each other. One evening, emotionally exhausted after his father’s illness and death, Gerald sneaks into the Brangwen house to spend the night with Gudrun and leaves at dawn.
Later, after Ursula and Birkin’s marriage, Gerald suggest that the four of them go to the Alps for Christmas. At their inn in the Alps, Gudrun irritates Gerald with her interest in Loerke, a homosexual German sculptor. An artist herself, Gudrun is fascinated with Loerke’s idea that brutality is necessary to create art. While Gerald grows increasingly jealous and angry, Gudrun only derides and ridicules him. Finally he can endure it no longer. After attempting to strangle her, he trudges off into the snow to die. Rupert and Ursula and Gudrun return to their cottage in England where he grieves for his dead friend. Ursula and Rupert discuss love; you can’t have two kinds of love. Why should you? Ursula says. ‘It seems as if I can’t’ Rupert responds, “yet I wanted it “.
Cast
- Alan BatesAlan BatesSir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
as Rupert Birkin - Oliver ReedOliver ReedOliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
as Gerald Crich - Glenda JacksonGlenda JacksonGlenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
as Gudrun Brangwen - Jennie LindenJennie LindenJennie Linden is an English film and television actress.Linden was born in Worthing to Marcus and Freida Fletcher, an architect and housewife. She attended the Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 17 on a scholarship...
as Ursula Brangwen - Eleanor BronEleanor BronEleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
as Hermione Roddice - Alan WebbAlan WebbAlan Webb may refer to:* Alan Webb , , English actor* Alan Webb , , American track athlete* Alan Webb , retired English association football player* Allan Webb , Anglican bishop...
as Thomas Crich - Vladek SheybalVladek SheybalVladek Sheybal , born Władysław Sheybal, was a Polish character actor, whose career lasted from the 1950s into the 1980s. He was probably best known for his portrayal of the chess grandmaster Kronsteen in the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love, a role for which he had been personally...
as Loerke - Catherine Willmer as Mrs. Crich
- Phoebe NichollsPhoebe NichollsPhoebe Nicholls is an English film, television, and stage actor. She is known for her roles as Cordelia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited and as the mother of John Merrick in The Elephant Man....
as Winifred Crich - Sharon Gurney as Laura Crich
- Christopher GableChristopher GableChristopher Gable, CBE was an English ballet dancer, choreographer, and actor.Born in London, Gable studied at the Royal Ballet School, joining the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1957...
as Tibby Lupton - Michael GoughMichael GoughMichael Gough was an English character actor who appeared in over 150 films. He is perhaps best known to international audiences for his roles in the Hammer Horror films from 1958, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in all four movies of the Burton/Schumacher Batman franchise,...
as Tom Brangwen - Norma Shebbeare as Mrs. Brangwen
- Nike Arrighi as Contessa
- James LaurensonJames LaurensonJames Laurenson is a New Zealand actor, who has performed many classical roles on stage and television.Laurenson was born in Marton, New Zealand...
as Minister - Michael Graham CoxMichael Graham CoxMichael Graham Cox was an English actor who voiced Boromir in the 1978 movie The Lord of the Rings, as well as voicing Boromir in the 1981 BBC radio series The Lord of the Rings. He also voiced Bigwig in the feature film Watership Down.Michael had a minor role in Richard Attenborough's A Bridge...
as Palmer
Production
The idea for the film came from Silvio NarizzanoSilvio Narizzano
Silvio Narizzano was a Canadian film director, educated at Bishop's University, Quebec.His best received film was Georgy Girl , which was entered into the 16th Berlin International Film Festival...
, who had directed in 1966 the critical and commercially successful film Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl is a 1966 British film based on a novel by Margaret Forster. The film was directed by Silvio Narizzano and starred Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, Alan Bates, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Bill Owen....
. He suggested to make a film adaptation of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
's novel Women in Love
Women in Love
Women in Love is a novel by British author D. H. Lawrence published in 1920. It is a sequel to his earlier novel The Rainbow , and follows the continuing loves and lives of the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. Gudrun Brangwen, an artist, pursues a destructive relationship with Gerald Crich, an...
to Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer is an American playwright, author, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love in 1969, earning...
who bought the film rights of the book. Narizzano was going to be the film’s director, but he had to leave the project after suffering a series of personal set backs. He divorced his wife for a man who shortly after died tragically.
Kramer originally commissioned the screenplay to David Mercer
David Mercer
David Mercer was an English dramatist.- Biography :Mercer was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England. Like the central characters of his plays Where the Difference Begins and After Haggerty, he was the son of an engine-driver...
, whose adaptation differed too much from the original book and he was bought out of the project. Ultimately Kramer himself wrote the script. With Narizzano out of the picture Kramer considered a number of directors to take on the project including Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.-Career:A native of East Sussex, Clayton started his career as a child actor on the 1929 film Dark Red Roses...
, Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
and Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
all of which declined the offer. Kramer fourth choice was Ken Russell who had previously directed only two films and was better known then for his biographical projects about artist for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. Ken Russell got committed to the project and made important contributions to the script.
Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
, who had been the leading man in Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl
Georgy Girl is a 1966 British film based on a novel by Margaret Forster. The film was directed by Silvio Narizzano and starred Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, Alan Bates, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Bill Owen....
, was interested from the beginning to take the role of Birkin, DH Lawrence’s alter ego in Women in Love. Birkin’s was the first role to be cast. Bates sported a beard, giving him a physical resemblance to DH Lawrence. Kramer wanted Edward Fox
Edward Fox
Edward Fox may refer to:*Edward Fox , American judge*Edward Fox , English actor*Edward Fox , American author*Edward Long Fox , British psychiatrist*J. Edward Fox, US State Dept. official...
for the role of Gerald. Fox fitted Lawrence’s description of the character (“blond, glacial and Nordic”), but United Artist, the studio financing the production, imposed Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
, a more bankable star, as Gerald even though he physically was not like Lawrence describes the character in the novel. Kramer was adamant to give the role of Gudrun to Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
. She was, then, well recognized in theatrical circles. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company she had gained a great deal of attention in the role of Charlotte Corday
Charlotte Corday
Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont , known to history as Charlotte Corday, was a figure of the French Revolution. In 1793, she was executed under the guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was in part responsible, through his role as a politician and...
in Marat/Sade. United Artist was unconvinced to cast her considering her not conventionally beautiful enough for the role of Gudrun who drives Gerald to suicide. Jackson had her teeth fixed, the varicose veins on her legs operated and was given a flattering hair style. The last of the four main roles to be cast was the one of Ursula. Both Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
and Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
declined to take the role finding it the least interesting of the two sisters and that they would be easily eclipsed by Glenda Jackson's acting skills. It was by accident that Russell and Kramer came upon a screening test that Jennie Linden had made opposite Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
for The Lion in Winter
The Lion in Winter (1968 film)
The Lion in Winter is a 1968 historical drama made by Avco Embassy Pictures, based on the Broadway play by James Goldman. It was directed by Anthony Harvey and produced by Joseph E...
, for a part that she did not get. Kramer and Russell went to visit her offering to be Ursula. Linden had recently given birth to her only son and was not eager to take the role but was ultimately persuaded.
Behind the Scenes
Released in Britain in 1969 and the U.S. in 1970, the film was applauded as a good rendering of D.H. Lawrence's controversial novel about love, sex and the upper class in England. During the making of the film, Russell had to work on conveying sex and the sensual nature of Lawrence's book. Many of the stars came to understand this was to be a complex piece and worked hard to convey this. No one worked as hard as Oliver ReedOliver Reed
Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
, who would do a nude wrestling scene with Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
. He went as far as to persuade (and lightly physically arm twist) director Russell to film the scene. Russell conceded and shot the controversial scene, which suggested the homoerotic undertones of Gerald and Rupert's friendship. The wrestling scene and caused the film to be banned altogether in Turkey. The composer Michael Garrett
Michael Garrett (composer)
Michael Garrett is a British composer. He was born in Leicestershire, England in 1944. He has been composing and performing for more than fifty years. His many works extend across a wide range of styles. He has written many symphonic, chamber and instrumental works as well as vocal music and has...
who also contributed to the score can be seen playing the piano in one scene. Considered the best of Russell's films, it led him to make the 1989 sequel The Rainbow
The Rainbow (film)
The Rainbow is a 1989 drama film directed by Ken Russell. The story, adapted from the D. H. Lawrence novel, is a prequel to Lawrence's Women in Love, which was also made into a film by Russell in 1969....
.
Further reading
- Powell, Dilys (1989) The Golden Screen. London: Pavilion; pp 244–45
- Taylor, John Russell (1969) Review in The Times 13 November 1969