The British Ken Russell may never have reached the status that some of his compatriots had, but he was certainly quite a distinctive phenomenon and a refreshment on the local film scene. At a time when the kitchen sink style of social realism completely dominated British cinema, he made completely different, often quite controversial and even experimental films. Perhaps Russell came closest to the mainstream with his most famous film to date, a romantic drama based on a novel by DH Lawrence.
Previously, Russell mainly shot feature films and documentaries for television, even in the mid-sixties, he almost overtook Stanley Kubrick and filmed the film adaptation of Burgess’s “A Hell’s Orange”, in which he thought of hiring Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones for the role of the violent Alex and the rest of his gang, but gave up is after the British censor board pointed out that they will not allow the shooting of that film. It is interesting that Kubrick was one of the candidates for directing “Women in Love”, but producer and screenwriter Larry Kramer ultimately decided on Russell.
Even today, “Women in Love” is considered perhaps the best film adaptation of one of Lawrence’s novels, which at the beginning of the 20th century caused serious controversy and censorship due to sexuality, but at the same time were incredibly read. The action here takes place in a mining town immediately after the First World War, at a time when English society is changing. We still have that typical aristocracy, but the industrialists are already richer than them, and such is the young mine boss Gerald Crich (Oliver Reed). He seems like a raw, even somewhat cruel guy who has to take over the management of the mine from his father, while his best friend Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) is a free-thinking dreamer, an elegant, polished, eloquent and charming young man.
The two of them will end up with the Brangwen sisters, teachers Ursula (Jane Linden) and Gudrun (Glenda Jackson), emancipated young women who don’t think of being those typical obedient British women. Especially when it comes to Gudrun performed by Jackson, who earned an Oscar for the leading female role for her performance. So the relations between these two couples will be completely different and we will realize that none of the four of them have the same ideas, wishes and views on the relationship and the future, which will, of course, lead to problems. It is a film that is mostly remembered today for the scene in which Bates and Reed wrestle naked, but “Women in Love” is not only memorable because it is the first mainstream film in which we see pimps, but it is an extremely sensitive, stylized and worthwhile drama in which Russell brilliantly combined the spirit of that era with bohemianism, modernity, and the sexual revolution of his time.