PIC of the Week – Women in Love
Article series by Ray Schillaci
Sure, Star Wars fans will shout foul, and those who were disappointed by The Last Jedi will be happy that I overlooked the latest installment for the PIC. Instead, I go way back to 1969 when an upstart British director jumped from a successful run of TV documentaries to translating a famed D.H. Lawrence novel to the big screen, making a huge mark in Hollywood. The Criterion Collection has honored the great and eccentric director Ken Russell (Altered States, Tommy) with a remarkable Blu of his first film, Women in Love.
Russell, producer/writer Larry Kramer, and their stars Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, and Jennie Linden broke new ground in the late ’60s with what many claimed to be one of the most sensuous films ever made. Beautifully shot, and capturing the real character of the D.H. Lawrence novel, Women in Love explores the relationship between two best friends and two sisters in a mining town just after WWI. It’s fascinating study in the complications of romantic love and sexuality, and at the time, eyebrows were raised with a notorious wrestling scene between the two manly men, Reed and Bates.
This was the film that would launch Ken Russell into a league of his own. From 1969 to 1974, Russell would tackle and create films like no one else. His visions were a delight with great and complicated films that felt like classics the moment they hit the big screen, and for many years, played revival theaters (including Women in Love) to a dedicated audience.
With an array of films that displayed such raw energy sometimes steeped with hidden meanings, it was no wonder Hemdale and Robert Stigwood tapped Russell to direct their phantasmagoria of a film, the rock opera Tommy. Warner Brothers picked him to direct the mind bending, Altered States, but it was Russell’s earlier work that actually felt more grounded – the examination of the conflicted love life of Tchaikovsky in The Music Lovers, and the film that was banned in several countries and still has no official home entertainment release involving the Church, a Cardinal and a sexually repressed nun in The Devils, and The Boyfriend, a bouncy and joyous musical to a bygone era. Savage Messiah explored the tortured life of French sculptor, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and the life of Gustav Mahler was examined in a series of flashbacks, sometimes capturing the composers music with a visual splendor in Mahler. But, it’s Russell’s Women in Love that started it all, and makes the film a compelling must see.
Once again, Criterion spares no expense to bring this classic piece of filmmaking to life. The original MGM DVD was hindered by a 1.66:1 presentation that left black bars not only on top, but on the sides as well. This presentation is a new 4K digital restoration with uncompressed monaural sound (as originally intended). Other extras are:
¥ Two audio commentaries from 2003. One from Ken Russell, the other from Larry Kramer
¥ Segments from a 2007 interview with Russell for the BAFTA Los Angeles Heritage Archive
¥ A 1989 biopic on the “Enfant Terrible,” Russell’s own life and career
¥ A 1976 interview with Glenda Jackson
¥ Interviews with Kramer, Alan Bates and Jennie Linden on the set
¥ New interviews with the DOP, Billy Williams, and editor Michael Bradsell
¥ 1972 short based on a D.H Lawrence story, produced and starring Alan Bates
¥ A trailer
¥ An essay by scholar, Linda Ruth Williams
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