1:09 PM Women in Love (film) | |||||||||||
Women in Love (film)Women in Love (film) Women in Love is a 1969 British film directed by Ken Russell.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.[] It stars The two couples take markedly different directions exploring the nature of commitment and love. The film 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...///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 catkin. 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 Highland cattle while Ursula sings "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". When Gerald and Rupert appear, Gerald calls Gudrun's behaviour 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 Bates as Rupert Birkin Oliver Reed as Gerald Crich Glenda Jackson as Gudrun Brangwen Jennie Linden as Ursula Brangwen Eleanor Bron as Hermione Roddice Alan Webb as Thomas Crich Vladek Sheybal as Loerke Catherine Willmer as Mrs. Crich Cast
The idea for the film came from Silvio Narizzano, who had directed the critically and commercially successful 1966 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 whom declined the offer. Kramer's fourth choice was Ken Russell who had previously directed only two films and was better known then for his biographical projects about artists 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, D.H. 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 D.H. Lawrence. Kramer wanted Edward Fox for the role of Gerald. Fox fitted Lawrence's description of the character ("blond, glacial and Nordic"), but United Artists, the studio financing the production, imposed Oliver Reed, a more bankable star, as Gerald even though he was not physically like Lawrence describes the character in the novel. Kramer was adamant to give the role of Gudrun to Glenda Jackson. She was, then, well recognised 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 Artists 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 less 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 her the chance 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 scenesReleased 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 Reed, 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 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 prequel The Rainbow.
Oliver Reed (13 February 1938 – 2 May 1999) was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles. His films include The Trap, Oliver!, Women in Love, Hannibal Brooks, The Triple Echo, The Devils, The Three Musketeers, Tommy, Castaway, Lion of the Desert and Gladiator. Early lifeReed was born Robert Oliver Reed in Wimbledon, London, to sports journalist Peter Reed and his wife Marcia (née Andrews).[1] He was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, and grandson of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree by his alleged mistress May Pinney Reed. He was alleged to have been a descendant (through an illegitimate step) of Tsar Peter the Great of Russia.[2] Reed attended Ewell Castle School in Surrey. [edit] CareerAfter time in the British Army, serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Reed commenced his thespian career as an extra in films in the late 1950s. He had no acting training or theatrical experience. Oliver Reed appeared uncredited in an early Norman Wisdom film, The Square Peg in 1958, and in another Wisdom comedy, The Bulldog Breed in 1960, where Reed played the leader of a gang of Teddy Boys roughing up Wisdom in a cinema. Uncredited television includes episodes of The Invisible Man (1958) and The Four Just MenHammer Films' Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), Captain Clegg (1962), Pirates of Blood River (1962), and The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). Reed also starred in Paranoiac, and The Damned. In 1964 he starred in the first of six films directed by Michael Winner, The System, (known as The Girl-Getters in the U.S.). More Hammer Films productions followed, such as The Brigand Of Kandahar (1965). He first collaborated with director Ken Russell in a TV biopic of Claude DebussyDante Gabriel Rossetti in Russell's subsequent TV biopic Dante's Inferno (1967). (1959). Reed got his first notable roles in in 1965, and later played In 1966 Reed played a mountain fur trapper, with co-star Rita Tushingham, in an action-adventure film The TrapRon Goodwin. Reed's presence could be seen in The Shuttered RoomWomen in Love (1969), in which he wrestled nude with Alan Bates in front of a log fire. The controversial 1971 film The Devils was followed in the summer of 1975 by the musical film Tommy, based on The Who's 1969 concept album Tommy and starring its lead singer Roger Daltrey: all three films were directed by Ken Russell. Reed made another contribution to the horror genre in 1976, acting alongside Karen Black, Bette Davis, and Burgess Meredith in the Dan Curtis film Burnt Offerings. with a soundtrack by British film composer (1967), after which came another performance in the film In between those films for Russell, Reed played the role of Bill Sikes, alongside Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Mark Lester, Jack Wild and Harry Secombe, in his uncle Carol Reed's 1968 screen version of the hit musical Oliver!. In 1969 Reed played the title role in Michael Winner's WWII action-comedy Hannibal Brooks, alongside an elephant named Lucy. An anecdote holds that Reed could have been chosen to play James Bond. In 1969, Bond franchise producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were looking for a replacement for Sean Connery and Reed (who had recently played a resourceful killer in The Assassination Bureau) was mentioned as a possible choice for the role. Whatever the reason, Reed was never to play Bond. After Reed's death, the Guardian Unlimited called the casting decision, "One of the great missed opportunities of post-war British movie history". Reed starred as Athos the musketeer in three films based on Alexandre Dumas's novels. First in The Three Musketeers (1973), followed by The Four Musketeers (1974), and The Return of the Musketeers (1989). He starred in a similarly historical themed film, Crossed Swords (UK Title "The Prince and the Pauper") (1977), as Miles Hendon alongside Raquel Welch and a grown up Mark Lester, who had worked with Reed in Oliver!. Reed returned to horror as Dr. Hal Raglan in David Cronenberg's 1979 film The Brood. From the 1980s onwards Reed's films had less success, his more notable roles being General Rodolfo Graziani in the 1981 film Lion of the Desert, which co-starred Anthony Quinn and chronicled the resistance to Italy's occupation of Libya; and in Castaway (1986) as the middle aged Gerald Kingsland, who advertises for a "wife" (played by Amanda Donohoe) to live on a desert island with him for a year. He also starred as Lt-Col Gerard Leachman in the Iraqi historical film Al-Mas' Ala Al-Kubra (a.k.a. Clash of Loyalties) in 1982, which dealt with Leachman's exploits during the 1920 revolution in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). By the late 1980s, he was largely appearing in exploitation films produced by the infamous impresario Harry Alan Towers, most of which were filmed in South Africa at the time of apartheid and released straight to video in the US and UK. These included Skeleton Coast (1987), Gor (1987) Dragonard (1987) and its filmed-back-to-back sequel Master Of Dragonard Hill, Hold My Hand I'm Dying (aka Blind Justice) (1988), House Of Usher (1988), Captive Rage (1988)and The Revenger (1989). His last major successes were Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) (as the god Vulcan), Treasure Island (1990) (as Captain Billy Bones), and Peter Chelsom's Funny Bones (1995). His final role was the elderly slave dealer Proximo in Gladiator, in which he played alongside Richard Harris, an actor whom Reed admired greatly both on and off the screen. The film was released after his death in 2000 with some footage filmed with a double, digitally mixed with outtake footage. The film was dedicated to him. He was posthumously nominated for a British Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in this film, and also for the Screen Actors Guild Award, along with the rest of the principal players for Best Ensemble Cast.
Selected filmography
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References
[edit] External links
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