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Such a frustrating disappointment

Simply A Masterpiece

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

After the production code ended and before political correctness started there was an era of almost complete cinematic freedom. This film is of that time. Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden play Gudrun and Ursula, a pair of sisters in 1920s England with unconventional views on love. One day while rubbernecking at a wedding, the see the brother of the bride (Oliver Reed) and his best friend (Alan Bates) and after another meeting or two begin torrid relationships. The two couples fornicate their way through life, spouting philosophical nonsense, until another man shows up on a ski trip in Switzerland. I think the scene that summed it all up for me was when Gudrun and Ursula wandered off at a garden party. Ursula is singing, and a herd of cattle show up, frightening her. Gudrun confronts that cattle -- with interpretive dance. The cattle, suitably baffled, wander off, realizing that the film already has enough BS and doesn't need theirs.. Oh, and the couple that got married at the beginning drown themselves at the garden party to get out of this turkey. Jackson won an Oscar in a weak year for actresses. I can't blame her; she does the best she can with the leaden material. I give this one a 5/10 for cinematography and for the historical value of being what passed for sexual shock value in 1969.

Ken Russell's overly precious screen version of the D H Lawrence novel "Women in Love" is all tactile sensuality and much naked abandonment, not to mention a hell of a lot of high flautin' dialogue courtesy of producer Larry Kramer. It was a huge hit when it came out, (the nudity may have helped sell it), and won the then unknown Glenda Jackson an Oscar as Best Actress. The problem I have with her, and indeed everyone else for that matter, is they aren't playing flesh and blood people but just aspects of Lawrence. There are several great set-pieces that might convince you that you are watching a real film and it's superbly photographed by Billy Williams but ultimately it's a very patchy piece of work that just doesn't live up to its reputation.

Where to begin. Not with the story which is clearly by D.H Lawrence so it is about the adaption to screen by Ken Russell.You are either a THL fan of not. I had THL thrust down my throat at upper sixth form level English by a very zealous feminist teacher who sat in a mini-skirt on my desk, so my attitudes to DHL are somewhat confused but overall, I think he explored original ideas in society but was just a boring writer. We did Sons and Lovers for University Scholarship and would have been bored stupid had it not been for Miss P. and her staggeringly suggestive interpretation of the rose petal/river scene.I went to Woman in Love (the movie)only because I was going out with an English literature major and I was far more interested in her than the movie and was prepared to be indulgent. Wrong. With WIL, Russell turned my perceptions around. He sticks mostly to the original novel but manages to infuse it with originality and his own version of shock/horror. The naked wrestling scene for example. That was groundbreaking at the time. Alan Bates fig opening scene is just as controversial. All of the characters are flawed in their own way but the acting is superb, the scene setting wondrous, and the photography brilliant.I believe this movie could be re-released today, uncut, and be a bigger success than it was in 1970.Glenda Jackson got an Oscar for this but I thought Alan Bates and Oliver Reed were the better; I really enjoyed both of their portrayals which are quite exceptional. Jenny Linden of course, is just beautiful.The lady is long gone but I have a Directors Cut DVD in my library and I watched it recently on the anniversary of my first viewing of it (sounds stupid but I got a bit nostalgic). Hence this review.Like The Devils of Loudon, I do understand why we do not see this movie on popular television, because it requires a level of competency in literature and history, and an appreciation of acting capability and technical execution. There is no Pride and Prejudice here. Thank God I didn't have to study that dross at school. Even Miss P wouldn't have helped.Highly recommended.

The title is revealing but probably misguiding. One woman who is drowning will drown her own husband who is trying to rescue her: possessiveness in death. She took him to paradise. The second wants total submission in the two partners and she castrates her husband of his desire to have a friend, a male friend. The third one wants to absolutely possess her partner but she also wants to be able to flutter around. Her man will end up killing himself in the mountain since he could not get over her the complete possession she had over him. In other words it is a bleak world and even a sad world. There is no hope for love, real love. Love is nothing but a trap in which the human rats we are accept to survive in order to have a social dimension and a domestic comfort we would not have otherwise. With age this film that used to be a cult film when it came out has become a rather trite story. I remember watching it in 1973 or so in Davis, California. It was on campus a film appreciated by women in the name of a certain vision of women's liberation, and by gays for the vision of male friendship between two men. I am quite disappointed today with the feeling I have just watched a piece of ancient anthropological discovery.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID