Product Description

This compelling rendition of the literary masterpiece is a visual stunner and very likely the mostsensuous film ever made (N.Y. Daily News). Glenda Jackson garnered the first of her two Oscars®* for her superb performance in director Ken Russell and writer Larry Kramer's brilliant exploration of the complexities of sexuality and romantic love. Growing up in the sheltered society of 1920s England, Gudrun (Jackson) and Ursula (Jennie Linden) know little about the ways of love. So when they pursue thrilling, torrid affairs with a notorious playboy (Alan Bates) and abrooding philanderer (Oliver Reed), what they discover about their lovers, and themselves, may be more all-consumingand dangerously volatilethan they ever dared imagine.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10940 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-03-04
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 131 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
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 D.H. 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 Bates and Linden learn to give themselves to each other; the more withdrawn Reed cannot, finally, connect with the demanding and challenging Jackson.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, it 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

Customer Reviews

Great performances but dated
The performances are first rate: Glenda Jackson certainly deserved her Oscar, Alan Bates is always wonderful and Oliver Reed captures your heart by his very presence. The story is filled with the personal obsessions that drove Lawrence--finding some sort of truth in physical passion being the most obvious one. This film adaptation is hardly subtle--driving the same ideas home again and again---starting with the lesson of the parts of the flower in the opening schoolroom scene. Then there's the famous picnic scene where Alan Bates likens the fig to a woman's sexual part. Then there are all of explicit love scenes, including the nude male wrestling by the firelight scene between Bates and Reed.

I guess all of this was pretty hot stuff when the film was made, but it strikes me as almost silly at this point in time. Likewise the dialogue, discussing over and over the nature of love stikes me as way overly ponderous. Especially because no one solved any of their problems that way. I guess that's one of Lawrence's demons--over intellectualizing and then trying to compensate by some sort of physical activity, mainly sex. I'm sure many others have analyzed Lawrence's psyche endlessly so I won't bother, here, except to mention that the incredibly creepy mother of the Reed character certainly bears attention.

The cinematography is great, the costumes are good, the English countryside and shots in Zermatt are beautiful. There's a lot of entertainment value in the film if you don't take it too seriously. Ken Russell did, and obviously most of the readers here did too.

Russell Does Lawrence Proud
This early Ken Russell film is certainly one of his top efforts. Stunning performances! Glenda Jackson won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Gudrun. As true to the Lawrence novel as it is possible to be on film. Not a silly, happily-ever-after lightweight, this is also D H Lawrence at his best. A MUST-HAVE for all fans of Ken Russell and D H Lawrence.

Women In Love - DVD
A most superb and touching period piece which unfolds the struggle of 4 adults - 2 couples - to come to grips, literatlly, with their sexuality including the homoerotic yearning of one of the males.