Articles/Interviews

Among twentieth century writers there has been no more acute observer of the human condition than D. H. Lawrence. Although he loved the countryside, its despoliation often moving him to anger, it was upon people that his artist's eye was mainly focused, and especially the relationship between man and woman.

Lawrence firmly believed in the freedom to feel and express emotion, especially love, in full and intense measure, without inhibition and certainly without guilt. As Lawrence was contemporary with men and women who had been born in the Victorian era (his first novel was published in 1911) it is easy to understand why his ideas met with such a hostile reception. He had little support and few friends, and it is only today that the Notts miner's son who became a schoolmaster and then an author, is being acknowledged as the genius he certainly was.

Lawrence's major work is not, as many suppose because of its legal notoriety, "Lady Chatterley's Lover"; nor is it that superb novel which is the story of his own youth: Sons And Lovers. D. H. L.'s greatest novel is the one which director Ken Russell has now made into a great motion picture - Women In Love.

This film has taken London by storm and has received the widest possible critical acclaim, rightly summed-up by Alexander Walker of the Evening Standard as the best film of the year. Very high praise indeed in a year which gave us such motion picture giants as Oh ! What A Lovely War, If..., The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Killing Of Sister George, Where Eagles Dare and The Wild Bunch.

Women In Love is the story of Ursula Brangwen (Jenny Linden) and her sister Gudrun (Glenda Jackson), emancipated young women of the 'twenties whom state scholarships had just begun to produce. They live in the depressing coal mining town of Beldover in the Midlands, where Ursula is a schoolteacher and Gudrun has just returned from a London art school where she has been studying sculpture.

The girls go off to see a wedding at the local church. The bride is Laura Crich (Sharon Gurney), a member of the wealthy mine-owning family which is now largely dominated by eldest son Gerald (Oliver Reed). The best man is Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates), a schools inspector who is also a cynic and a wit. Among the guests is wealthy, aristocratic and slightly eccentric Hermione (Eleanor Bron) who has a very possessive attitude towards Birkin.

In communities such as this in Beldover, it is (or was) customary for the classes to mix more readily than in some other parts of the country, so it comes as no surprise when Hermione invites the sisters to her estate for the weekend along with Gerald, Birkin and the newlyweds. The girls see Gerald swimming naked in the lake and Ursula tells her sister that since Gerald has taken charge of the colliery (his father no longer feeling himself capable) he is both feared and hated by the miners. All the same Gudrun is drawn to him, his brute strength and callous behaviour seeming to her more attractive than repellent.

Gerald's toughness is demonstrated one day at the pit top where an old miner, unable to lift a hunk of coal, is helped by Gerald who then sacks the man because of his incapacity. Another day Ursula and Gudrun are approaching a railway crossing when a horseman appears. It is Gerald who is riding furiously in an attempt to race the train to the crossing. The horse fails to make it and to check it he brutally uses reins and spurs, severely lacerating the horse's sides. Ursula is appalled at his cruelty but her sister Gudrun is enthralled.

Once a year the Crich family share a little of their wealth with the miners and townspeople and a garden party is held in the grounds of their house. Gudrun and Ursula are there, but tiring of the crowds they persuade Gerald to allow them to take a canoe to the other side of the lake which they intend to explore. The girls swim naked, then picnic, then sing and dance. Sometime later Gerald and Birkin arrive and after some misunderstanding, Ursula and Birkin pair off. Gerald tells Gudrun he loves her but she remains enigmatic, greatly attracted by his animal magnetism, but seeming to remain heart-whole.

Then tragedy strikes. The sisters were not the only nude swimmers; the newlyweds, too, slipped into the water in the altogether. With a cry for help Laura disappears under the water. Her young husband (Christopher Gable), diving in search of her, also fails to surface. Gerald dives repeatedly in a desperate effort to save them but it is to no avail and he has to give up. His aged father orders the lake to be drained and the sluices are opened . . .

Birkin and Ursula are walking together, the girl stunned by the tragedy and Birkin still philosophising. Ursula, tiring of his eternal verbiage, asks for just one simple statement of love. Passion is rising. "I love you right enough", he says. They make love, savagely, passionately, animal-like. "Must it be like this ?" Birkin asks himself introspectively afterwards.

As dawn breaks the bodies of the newlyweds are found, with the strangling hold of the young bride's arm around her husband's neck. Gerald is distraught by the deaths of his sister and brother-in-law, and after the lapse of some time Birkin goes to visit him. Seeking some sort of distraction for his friend, Birkin suggests a wrestling match in the Japanese style he once learned. The two men strip completely naked and a gladiatorial combat ensues which, despite its intensity, remains friendly. The two men are on the point of reaching a deeper relationship which, however, is entirely masculine. Birkin discourses on friendship between man and man and recalls how German knights used to become blood brothers, swearing life-long fidelity to each other. He is obviously hankering after something of the sort to take place between the two of them, but Gerald shrugs it off until he can get to know more about it.

And the powerful tale moves on, its four passionate characters in search of complete sexual harmony, man with woman, and of ideal friendship, man with man.

Women In Love is beautifully photographed, almost entirely on location. The scorching love scenes were photographed in Sherwood Forest; the picnic scene at Bretton Hall near Wakefield; the Lucky Strike Bingo Club at Conisborough, Yorkshire, was converted back to a cinema for one sequence; the Crich society wedding was filmed at St Giles Church, Matlock; funeral scenes at Belper U.D. Cemetery; the English Sewing Machine Company at Belper allowed the film makers to empty their sluice gate to reveal the naked bodies of Sharon Gurney and Christopher Gable; Elvaston Castle became Shortlands in the film, the home of the wealthy Crich family; Hermione's mansion was Kedleston Hall, the home of Lord and Lady Scarsdale; Gateshead and North Shields provided the background for the colliery scenes; and the unit finally moved to Zermatt in Switzerland for the alpine scenes.

Ken Russell has long been renowned as one of television's most outstanding directors, and it can be truthfully claimed that his magic touch has been enhanced by its transfer to the big screen. His first film was Billion Dollar Brain, and Women In Love now puts him in the big league among film directors. Incidentally he made both films for United Artists.