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From Amazon.co.uk
Before director Ken Russell's name became synonymous with cinematic extravagance and overkill, he actually directed what is one of the most passionate and involving adaptations of DH Lawrence in recent memory. Oliver Reed and Alan Bates star as friends who fall in love with a pair of sisters (Jennie Linden and Glenda Jackson, who won an Oscar for the role). But the relationships take markedly different directions, as Russell explores the nature of commitment and love. Bates and Linden learn to give themselves to each other; the more withdrawn Reed cannot, finally, connect with the demanding and challenging Jackson. Shot with great sensuality, Women in Love was surprisingly frank for its period (1970) and includes one of the most charged scenes in movie history: Bates and Reed as manly men, wrestling nude by firelight. --Marshall Fine
Product Description
Best friends Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) and Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed) spend much of their time analysing love, especially when they meet two sisters (Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden). While Rupert loves then marries one of them, Gerald and Gudrun's relationship is not so straightforward.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By Lou Knee
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a nice film, satisfying in so many ways, even if the sad conclusion is anything but, but that's the nature of romantic tragedy. This is Oliver Reed's finest film performance (apart from maybe Gladiator), and must be Ken Russell's best movie bar none. Good authentic adaption of DHL, a writer whose works often arouse strong emotions one way or another. In fact human emotion is often the main focus of all his works, rather than the more overt themes of class, or raw passion. This film has a lovely period feel to it, is very intimate in its portrayal of the relationships between people with different personalities and feelings, and it distills the mood or essence of DHL perfectly, including clear undertones of misogyny. If you're prepared for a slightly more detached and arty kind of romantic drama then this film is for you. More emotionally engaging than it may look, with its emphasis on the visual rather than the dramatic, as always with Russell. But what saves this becoming a mere art piece is a great piece of acting from Jackson in particular, but also a deep and broodingly memorable performance by Reed, which was probably coaxed out of him by his great drinking partner, Russell.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By Ian Hunter
Format:DVD
Ken Russell did us all a great service by trying to break the conventions of film-making. In this interpretation of love, he juggles the underlying emotions between the two couples with the essential love between the two men. The latter was not a homosexual love but a love of the spirit and the mind. The naked wrestling scene remains a piece of innovation in the cinema. The use of the weapon of jealousy is woven into the fabric of the character perpetrated by Jackson and endured by Reed. The final exchange between Bates and Linden remains for me, the epitome of love.
Ian Hunter.
Author of `e-Love'.
Ian Hunter.
Author of `e-Love'.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Philoctetes
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Watch five minutes of this classic British film and if you've ever read any D.H. Lawrence you'll sense his spirit at work. I was drawn to this after watching the perplexing recent TV adaptation on the BBC
Women in Love [DVD]
which attempts, one presumes not ambitiously but for the sake of economy, to amalgamate Women in Love with its prequel The Rainbow. There is a difference of attitude, I found as well, with the 21st century spotlight inclined to sneer (disbelieve) in Lawrence's ideas and to overplay the Rupert-was-a-homosexual perspective.
However we may live now, within half an hour I had concluded that this Oscar-winning film directed by Ken Russell was so immeasurably superior to the TV version as to make its production feeling totally pointless. The beauty of the locations and the romantic quest for sensuality and self-actualization, on the part of all four leading actors, is so vivid, the script better shaped to delineate those characters and the colour of mind and spirit which makes each so very unique.
In a way it can't help being coloured by the era of production, the 1960s. At times I felt they were living in the '60s, not after WW1 but the spirit of the '60s apparently has more in common with the 1920s than our hyper-post-ironical-modernism in the new millennium.
Alan Bates and Oliver Reed make much more plausible lovers than the recent chaps and the ladies here are more bewitchingly and passionately intriguing than the duo of Rosamund Pike and Rachael Stirling - attractive though they are. The film is full of unforgettable scenes: Hermione's dance of the widows, Gudrun spooking the cattle, the tableau of drowned lovers, Rupert and Gerald wrestling, Rupert running from the house and going feral, etc.
Visually stunning, winningly scripted and superbly cast.
Women in Love [DVD]
which attempts, one presumes not ambitiously but for the sake of economy, to amalgamate Women in Love with its prequel The Rainbow. There is a difference of attitude, I found as well, with the 21st century spotlight inclined to sneer (disbelieve) in Lawrence's ideas and to overplay the Rupert-was-a-homosexual perspective.
However we may live now, within half an hour I had concluded that this Oscar-winning film directed by Ken Russell was so immeasurably superior to the TV version as to make its production feeling totally pointless. The beauty of the locations and the romantic quest for sensuality and self-actualization, on the part of all four leading actors, is so vivid, the script better shaped to delineate those characters and the colour of mind and spirit which makes each so very unique.
In a way it can't help being coloured by the era of production, the 1960s. At times I felt they were living in the '60s, not after WW1 but the spirit of the '60s apparently has more in common with the 1920s than our hyper-post-ironical-modernism in the new millennium.
Alan Bates and Oliver Reed make much more plausible lovers than the recent chaps and the ladies here are more bewitchingly and passionately intriguing than the duo of Rosamund Pike and Rachael Stirling - attractive though they are. The film is full of unforgettable scenes: Hermione's dance of the widows, Gudrun spooking the cattle, the tableau of drowned lovers, Rupert and Gerald wrestling, Rupert running from the house and going feral, etc.
Visually stunning, winningly scripted and superbly cast.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bizarre Aspect Ratio format and poor transfer.
As usual, a product review not a movie review. (Women in Love - MGM release)
A single DVD in a normal case with no extra frills. Read more
A single DVD in a normal case with no extra frills. Read more
Published 2 months ago by David S. Graham
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic film!
I could watch this film over and over...partly because I'm a fan of the divinely handsome Oliver Reed and he gives an outstanding performance! Passion, love and tragic romance..
Published 3 months ago by Clodagh Dow
5.0 out of 5 stars
classic film
i chose this as i am a big fan of young oliver reed!! it is a classic and beautifully made, great cast, and the film has a compelling story of love, life, and relationships, i... Read more
Published 3 months ago by miss marilyn miller
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent film/performance by Reed!
Have been curious about this film since it's release, now that I've seen it I see it is worthy of it's lofty reputation.
Published 5 months ago by P. Mccall
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classic love story between the classes
Beautiful film about sexual love between the classes, set at the time of industrialisation in the North. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Prescient
5.0 out of 5 stars
Weird but wonderful
This film shows the passion of true love and that you would die for love but not be able to show it! Truly breathtaking!! Must watch for those who question love!!
Published 14 months ago by Ld861
4.0 out of 5 stars
Birkin buys a chair
There is a nice scene in this most coherent of Ken Russell`s films in which the idealistic Birkin and his lover Ursula, the more biddable of the two Brangwen sisters, are browsing... Read more
Published 16 months ago by GlynLuke
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ken Russell - In Memoriam 3rd July 1927 - 27th November 2011
Ken Russell was a maverick, wayward genius among film makers.
At times controversial, confrontational and willfully shocking
he, nonetheless, also possessed a... Read more
At times controversial, confrontational and willfully shocking
he, nonetheless, also possessed a... Read more
Published 18 months ago by The Wolf
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Cast; Great Adaptation
I remember seeing this film when it was first released in 1969, and purchasing the DVD took me right back to the musty smell of the old ABC in Nottingham. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Captain Sinister
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant movie
This is a brilliant movie. I first saw this film when it came out around 1969. It has a fine cast Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson, and Jennie Linden. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mr. A. Kerr
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