"She saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture, the old,
brittle corruption of houses and factories swept away, the world built up in a
living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-arching heaven."*
Well, this is a vibrant experience and one that must have caused
considerable stir on release for its hyper-reality and naked male bonding
between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates… all it needed was a needle drop of Sophie
Ellis-Bextor to become modern iconic in an Emerald way. But no, this is a
serious attempt to capture the lightning in a bottle of Lawrence’s prose and
his questing subject matter with febrile performances not just from the men in
love but the women too, Jennie Linden and the super-natural Glenda Jackson.
The book(s) and the film are full of new century yearning for meaning as
the characters question humanity’s place in the industrial world as well as the
post Freudian extended sexual universe. Women in Love is the sequel to The
Rainbow which DH Lawrence had originally intended as one book covering the lives
of the Brangwyn family and in particular the two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun.
Ursula is the dominant character in the first novel and experiences a very Freudian
sexual awakening after an affair with her teacher Winifred, before her romance
with a soldier which ends in disappointment. Ursula’s search for a balanced
love ends in the follow up, whilst Gudrun’s is just picking up momentum but it
is the men who have the biggest questions.
Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Alan Bates, Jenny Linden and Eleanor Bron
A long time ago I studied The Rainbow for A-Level and so always
have more affiliation with her character in this film and for me that is closer
to the way Jackson plays Gudrun but having revisited both books I see the strengths
of Jennie L’s performance as the most sexually mature of the components in the
two main relationships. She is based on Lawrence’s own, no doubt long-suffering,
wife just as her eventual husband in WIL, Rupert Birkin (Big Alan), is
the writer’s cypher… raising the question of whether a man needs a deep
emotional relationship with a best friend as well as a romantic love of a
woman, to be fulfilled. Whether this alludes to a homosexual or homo-social
ideal is open to debate but it’s likely that WIL is one of the first great openly
bi-sexual books written by a man from Nottingham.
Say what you will about Ken Russell but he manages to convey so much
of his subject’s intent, be they composers or authors, in his sometimes-overwhelming
films. The pace of the passion, imagery and the scale of the expression can be
bewildering but you just have to hang on and cling on for the ride. There are
some fabulous scenes – Gudrun dancing in the woods for a herd of cows, the
wedding of two of the town’s wealthiest young things Laura Crich (Sharon Gurney)
and Tibby Lupton (Russell regular, Christopher Gable) as well as their tragic
ending on the boating lake – genuinely distressing and horrible to witness).
Two sisters
There’s also the “blue stocking” brilliance of Hermione Roddice (Fab Four
favourite Eleanor Bron) with her picnics and artistic pretensions, a
pretentious ballet completely undermined by Rupert as he switches his
affections to the more earthbound Ursula. Then the special effect that is
Oliver Reed, whose Gerald Crich is a modernising businessman who ultimately
cannot connect with his best friend in the way that he wants nor his lover
Gudrun whose almost flippant creativity and refusal to commit to a shared
reality will be the death of him.
Russell moves the story from pre- to post-war – when the book was
written – and the themes are just as relevant there. Recalling my own grandfather’s
experience in the war and afterwards, the shock of what he had experienced as a
teenager in the Middle East and India during the war, led him to question the
established order and for the son of a canal worker from Widnes, there were new
possibilities and a new balance to be struck as a battered Britain searched for
a “…world built up in a living fabric of Truth…”.
Ursula and Rupert: are they "complete"?
This is probably my and everyone else's favourite Ken Russell film and released on BFI 4k
UHD it is irresistible especially with a bevy of beautiful extras including an
interview with Russell’s son – see below.
Special features
- Audio commentary with director Ken Russell
- Audio commentary with writer and producer Larry Kramer
- Second Best (1972, 27 mins): film starring Alan Bates, based on the short story by D H Lawrence
- The Guardian Lecture: Glenda Jackson (1982, 77 mins, audio only)
- The Pacemakers: Glenda Jackson (1971, 14 mins): a documentary profile of the actor
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
- A British Picture: Portrait of an Enfant Terrible (1989, 49 mins): Ken Russell’s documentary on his life and career
- Human Relations: Alexander Verney-Elliott Discusses Women in Love (2025, 17 mins): a newly recorded interview with Ken Russell’s son
- ATV Today (1968, 10 mins): interviews with writer and producer Larry Kramer and actors Alan Bates and Jennie Linden on the set of Women in Love
- Billy Williams OBE BSC in conversation with Phil Méheux BSC (2015, 49 mins)
- Stills and collections gallery
- Original theatrical trailer
- Illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Matthew Melia and archive essays by Michael Brooke, Claire Smith and Vic Pratt; notes on the special features and film credits
The latter is only included with the first pressing so place your
order now for a film that should be in the collection of every
seeker after love and truth over a century after this work was first imagined.
You can order directly from the BFI shop and other reputable retailers!
Russell would eventually film The Rainbow with Sammi Davis as
Ursula and Paul McGann as Anton in 1989, it would be compromised by budget
constraints and took him years to get off the ground. By this time the sexual
subject matter was not as shocking as it would have been in 1969 and yet it is
still remarkable given the date of its inception in 1915. It’s sobering to
think that the time between these novels and Russell’s filming date for Women
in Love is less than between this release and the film… the search for
balance and the Truth continues.
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| *Quote above from The Rainbow and here's the final page annotated by annoying 16-year old P. Joyce of Deyes High School Lower Sixth... |
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