If you ask anyone over 45 if they have seen the film "Women in Love," assuming they remember it, they will often remark, "Yes, that's the movie with the two naked guys wrestling each other in front of a fireplace." In celebration of its 50th anniversary next year, Criterion has reissued this #87 of the British Film Institute's Top 100 British Movies of the 20th Century for the first time in Blu-ray and with 4K digital resolution. Billy Williams' cinematography has never looked more breathtaking. "Women in Love" was one of the first pictures to display full frontal male nudity, and the famous au naturel Japanese wrestling scene still ranks as perhaps the greatest homoerotic sequence (at an astounding five minutes) in a mainstream movie. Besides the masculine flesh, it has numerous gay connections, mainly that the producer and screenwriter (nominated for an Oscar) was Larry Kramer, the later gay AIDS activist and founder of ACT UP. After director Silvio Narrizano (Georgy Girl) declined the job after leaving his wife for a man, Kramer hired Britain's cinema enfant terrible Ken Russell. "Women in Love" became his most successful artistic and commercial achievement, shattering taboos.
The story, based on the scandalous 1920 D.H. Lawrence novel, revolves around the Brangwen sisters, the sculptress Gudrun (Glenda Jackson) and schoolteacher Ursula (Jennie Linden), and their respective relationships with Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed), the son of the town (Beldover)'s wealthy mine owner, and Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates), a school inspector and Gerald's best friend. WWI has ended, and sexual and class mores, as well as rigid social conventions, are being upended. Gudrun is the petulant, feisty, sarcastic feminist who has little interest in traditional marriage but is not sure if she wants love at all. Ursula is more traditional, though wonders if "marriage is the end of experience." Yet she's insecure to the point of periodic mental instability. Still she convinces Rupert, after his affair with the ludicrous rich Hermoine (Eleanor Bron) has ended, to marry her. Rupert, serving as Lawrence's existential freethinking mouthpiece rejecting bourgeois constraints, believes one can have both an emotional and physical relationship with a woman as well as an "emotional union" with a man. Gerald, the sadistic alpha male and modern capitalist, who fires elderly workers for lack of productivity, is cruel to animals, and feels inadequate compared to his father, seems incapable of loving anyone. These four unlikeable, combustible characters will explode during the final scenes at a winter getaway in the Swiss Alps, with Gudrun's affair with a bisexual German artist Loerke (Vladek Sheybal) leading to tragic consequences.
It's no coincidence that the best chemistry is between the physically imposing Reed and the effete intellectual Bates (a bisexual in real life). Had this movie taken place in the 1970s or later, they would have been a male couple, but neither can express their true love for each other, substituting violence for physical intimacy. Their inability to connect with their homosexuality (Rupert to Gerald: "There is a golden light in you which I wish that you would give me") drives them to the Brangwen sisters, neither of whom is right for either man. Jackson justly won an Oscar as Best Actress, propelling her to become one of Hollywood's bright lights during her 1970s heyday. With her earthy sensuality, independence, and intelligence, she is able to elicit the audience's sympathy for a woman caught between two eras, desperate to express her inner desires and creativity, but lacking the emotional tools to do so. Her Gudrun is one of the first feminist heroines in film. She left acting in the late 1980s to become a Labor member of Parliament, and returned to the theater at age 81 with spectacular performances and critical raves as King Lear last year in the West End, and this spring on Broadway in Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women." One can only hope she will have at least one last great film role. The same cannot be said for Jennie Linden, the weak link in an otherwise stellar cast. The role of Ursula was offered to both Vanessa Redgrave and Faye Dunaway. Either would have been excellent, but both declined because they knew Gudrun was the superior part. The unknown Linden strives to be good, but outstanding is required to keep pace with Jackson.
Oddly, "Women in Love" serves as much commentary on the late 1960s as it does on the 20s, especially regarding sexual freedom and open relationships. The characters running naked through the woods (more in emancipation than titillation), or Jackson dancing in front of a rambunctious cattle herd to calm them down, elicit memories of the hippie era. It's hard to tell if Russell is satirizing or promoting them, though these scenes highlight Russell's flair as a visual filmmaker. Parts of the dialogue sound pretentious and preachy, especially speeches on the nature of art and the illusiveness of lasting love, but there is enough bitchy repartee and homoerotic allusions to keep it interesting. Russell largely succeeds in drawing a contrast between the lavish exterior settings and the inner turmoil of the characters, using his trademark stylistic excess and episodic narrative to campy advantage, highlighting the story's emotional intensity. Fifty years later we can grasp the film's insights into the drama of modern sexuality in all its liberating and destructive elements.