Women in Love
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Movie Reviews of Women in Love
Movie Review: Women in Love
Summary: 5 Stars
A wonderful film with a stellar British cast. Leaves you wondering...whatever happened to Glenda Jackson? She was one of the great actresses of the 20th Century as her work here in this film shows.Movie Review: WOMEN IN LOVE -D.H.AWRENCE
Summary: 5 Stars
THIS IS A VEY OLD MOVIE THAT I WATCH EVERY THREE YEARS OR SO....IT JUST BRINGS OUT THE DIFFERENCE IN RELATIONSHIPS SO BEAUTIFULLY....YOU HAVE TOO KEEP IN MIND WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN...Movie Review: Women in Love
Summary: 5 Stars
An excellent movie. Superb acting by some wonderful actors.
Oliver Reed and Alan Bates brilliant and Glenda Jackson superb.
I am glad I purchased this memorable movie.
Movie Review: Quite good
Summary: 4 Stars
WOMEN IN LOVE is quite a good 1970 film based on a novel that is highly verbal, challenging to read, and as much philosophical in tone as it is socially realistic. On this DVD version we have Larry Kramer's 2003 Commentary of the film, and since he was the screenwriter -- and since his memory is quite good -- he gave quite a good accounting of both his adaptation and the themes in the book, as well as recounting the production itself, with which he was attached. Definitely one of the better Commentaries out there.
The plot concerns Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen, two sisters in the Midlands of England circa 1920 (played by Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden), who start keeping time with two men (Gerald Crich and Rupert Birken, respectively, played by Oliver Reed and Alan Bates, also respectively). The level of acting is wonderful as is Kramer's screenplay, virtually a model of intelligent adaptation. In Kramer's Commentary, he points out several instances in which he added nothing, but let the novel's original words speak for themselves, a good instinct on his part. Occasionally the movie gets a little abstruse and verbal, particularly the philosophical ramblings of the Rupert Birken character, though D.H. Lawrence himself based Rupert on himself...and as a bonus Alan Bates in a full beard looked a great deal like the novelist.
More intrusive to my way of thinking is the way verbal imagery and symbolism, made visual here, sometimes becomes too blatant. The most obvious example (or examples) of this come when a chugging freight train blocks a crossing for an impatient Gerald, who sits on a white stallion. It doesn't take much exposure to Lawrence's writing to know that the heaving of a steam locomotive and the action of the wheel's drivers are symbols of coition or fornication. The sexual iconry of a man astride a powerful stallion virtually speaks for itself. In this case, as the train passes the stallion rears up violently, and Gerald is just barely able to keep the horse from bucking him off and possibly crushing him. It is hard to interpret this as anything other than the power and potential harm of restrained sexuality, and this is fully in keeping with Lawrence's themes and Gerald's character.
What is missing at such points during the film are the "Aha!" moments the novel's readers feel when they visualize the symbolic elements, and do the mental work of putting them together in order to interpret what's going on beneath the surface. Being inherently visual, the film can't help but lay it out blatantly. In all fairness, though, director Ken Russell films most of the film's violent and tragic passages with grace and without hype, showing no foreshadowing of the gratuitiously over the top, point-of-view sequences that plagued THE MUSIC LOVERS several years later.
Everyone talks about the nude wrestling scene between Rupert and Gerald. I myself do not see how the film could cohere without it, as Rupert Birken's expressed longing for a "Blutbrudershaft" (blood-brotherhood) with Gerald becomes more explicit in the second half of the film, after the nude sequence, although it's left open as to whether Rupert conceives of this union as physical homosexuality or something more idealized and febrile. There are, in fact, several scenes involving sexuality or nudity in a heterosexual context (including Gudrun's painful, under-the-covers deflowering by Gerald), but no one seems to dwell on them. While I don't think WOMEN IN LOVE is a "gay novel" using the contemporary definition, there is a definite homoerotic element at work and I think Kramer was only doing the book justice by including that in his screenplay. Even today, the frontal male nudity of Bates and Reed wrestling in front of a roaring fireplace still startles and impresses.
On the whole, WOMEN IN LOVE is a good, solid movie, with a few marred moments and a little overlong, but visually a joy and with marvelous acting. Not "for the whole family" but serious viewers, whether or not they've read the Lawrence novel beforehand, will probably enjoy and appreciate WOMEN IN LOVE. I count it a definite plus that Larry Kramer's top-notch Commentary is included.
Movie Review: 4 and one-half stars; recommended
Summary: 4 Stars
The film may set up the women as primal characters but the story dwells more on the complexities of how the men react to love and its demands. That said, D H Lawrence is still a better (or at least more vivid) guide to women under the influence than many female story-tellers. And tin this production he does a notable job of presenting variations of both sexes as love first rules, then rues, the day.
Russell became something of a guilty pleasure, a filmmaker who was overtaken (as, say, DePalma?) by his strengths and forget how to moderate his passions. But in this movie Russell is in top form: the camera movement alone makes this required viewing for anyone interested in the technical aspects of the art; the acting is top-notch, as are the sets and costumes. A cornucopia of images lives on after viewing, with my favorite Glenda Jackson facing down the bulls on Oliver Reed's estate. Soothing the saving beasts, indeed. A close second is Oliver Reed's snowy suicide, a sacrifice to his crazy mother, weak father, and an inability to meet Jackson's loving demands. Nothing more can be said about the famous nude wrestling scene - except the obvious point that Hollywood has no actors today brave enough to carry out a similar tryst.
Shifting POVs and the lack of a strong plot eventually enervates the story and the first half is far more memorable than the second. There's relief when the curtain falls, not real desire to stay with the (remaining) characters any longer. As the final freeze-frame acknowledges, divisions in what we want from love will always separate us, and not just along gender lines, as most movies would have it.
Still, for the triumvirate of exceptional acting (Bates, Jackson, Reed), the indelible images and camera movement, and the bravado that Russell brought to its screen telling, Women in Love deserves a look.