I must say that I both like and dislike this film. First the good things about it: the cinematography is excellent and obviously, the cameramen have done their work very well. Most people tend to consider the nude wrestling scene as the most important one but my own preference is for the scene when Gudrun dances in front of the cattle and her talk with Gerald afterwards for its mysticism and symbolic significance. I think this scene is perhaps the key for understanding the whole film. The plot develops quickly and there is always something happening, so I was not bored as with other films. The actors are very good especially Glenda Jackson in her very demanding role.
Unfortunately, there are too many drawbacks as well. First of all: almost everything in the film is horribly exaggerated. The emotions, the conflicts, the dialogues, the love of the two couples etc etc. Everything is brought to some extremity which makes everything improbable and overdone. I simply fail to identify with such people and with their behavior—it borders on madness. I know very well that one of the main topics of Lawrence is the need for spontaneity but he has brought it to extremes. Especially Birkin ( he is a self-portrait of Lawrence) is pathetic with his endless and empty philosophizing. He was supposed to be a tragic figure perhaps but I am not persuaded in this. There is nothing tragic in this film because even when there are tragedies, the characters do not respond to them in the way that most people would. The irony is that D H Lawrence, who was so much against the mechanical civilization, himself treats his characters as if they were inanimate objects. Maybe this was considered bold and innovative in 1920 ( when the book was published and Freudism started to be fashionable) but this attitude of his inevitably led him to artistic failure. The desire to shock, to create scandal for its own sake kills the artistic sophistication of a work of art. This is the illness of our culture nowadays: artists do not try to explain and understand, they try to shock. And Lawrence was one of the artists who established this ( deeply wrong in my opinion) attitude to art. And how can you shock the public? The easiest way is to portray as much sadism, nudity and sex as possible. And Lawrence and Russell have done exactly this. There is an intoxication with violence in Lawrence that goes into sadism. And an author should never be sadistic. I think Lawrence fails to understand the true nature and meaning of love, which for a writer who had chosen the title of his book to be "Women in love" is a serious artistic failure. There is sex, there is battle for dominance, there is artistic attraction ( Loercke) but love there is not. Ursula believes in love and longs for it ( even desperately begging for it) but Rupert is unable to give love to her precisely because he himself is incapable of feeling it ( except perhaps to Gerald). But then why ( I ask myself) are these two, Ursula and Rupert, a couple? What is it that attracts them to each other? They are so different people after all. But Lawrence fails to answer this and to go deeper into their relationship. And this makes their "love" unconvincing and artificial. Gudrun and Gerald are the more realistic couple. But with them things are clear: this is not love but a life-and-death struggle for dominance, a titanic clash of two strong egos. I also think that their story is the best and the most valuable part of the book. What I miss in this book and this film is the depth. Lawrence is not a deep author, he is rather superficial. He tries to be deep but he cannot achieve this. Serious problems are just touched without going deeper into them. There is not a coherent set of values and ideas forming a single whole in Lawrence. This chaos is reflected in the book. Good insights and then some stupid and improbable event! Wise words together with flamboyant nonsense! Serious things mixed with trivial and petty details.! All this creates a terrible confusion! He sends contradictory messages to readers and leaves them confused and uncertain which is a serious weakness for an author, trying to be philosophical and psychological. I have the feeling that D H Lawrence was himself confused and tortured by his inner demons. Maybe that is why he had become a writer. But just describing your fears and doubts is not enough! You should try to overcome them, to give answers. His ideas ( expressed via Birkin) cannot be taken seriously. I think that D H Lawrence is an outdated author. His passions and subjects which might have been attractive and original in the 1920s and 30s have lost all their significance now. It is the same with the film ( shown 1969 at the height of the sexual revolution) . Yes, Lawrence was bold to speak about the taboos of his age and we should give him the credit for this. But great art is much more than that! Lawrence's greatest fault was that he subordinated art to depicting such phenomena but failing to go deeper into their contents and meaning. The result was that his works aged very quickly once the scandals passed. What was scandalous then is mainstream now. Sadly, because of their exaggerations and because Lawrence failed to contextualize these problems and dramas, they cannot be accepted as a correct and deep portrait of their age either. So, their historic significance is not very big either. Maybe someone would accuse me of being too harsh to Lawrence. But I do believe that great art does not age! Take Shakespeare! He lived in a much more distant age but his works generally do not age!
Unfortunately, there are too many drawbacks as well. First of all: almost everything in the film is horribly exaggerated. The emotions, the conflicts, the dialogues, the love of the two couples etc etc. Everything is brought to some extremity which makes everything improbable and overdone. I simply fail to identify with such people and with their behavior—it borders on madness. I know very well that one of the main topics of Lawrence is the need for spontaneity but he has brought it to extremes. Especially Birkin ( he is a self-portrait of Lawrence) is pathetic with his endless and empty philosophizing. He was supposed to be a tragic figure perhaps but I am not persuaded in this. There is nothing tragic in this film because even when there are tragedies, the characters do not respond to them in the way that most people would. The irony is that D H Lawrence, who was so much against the mechanical civilization, himself treats his characters as if they were inanimate objects. Maybe this was considered bold and innovative in 1920 ( when the book was published and Freudism started to be fashionable) but this attitude of his inevitably led him to artistic failure. The desire to shock, to create scandal for its own sake kills the artistic sophistication of a work of art. This is the illness of our culture nowadays: artists do not try to explain and understand, they try to shock. And Lawrence was one of the artists who established this ( deeply wrong in my opinion) attitude to art. And how can you shock the public? The easiest way is to portray as much sadism, nudity and sex as possible. And Lawrence and Russell have done exactly this. There is an intoxication with violence in Lawrence that goes into sadism. And an author should never be sadistic. I think Lawrence fails to understand the true nature and meaning of love, which for a writer who had chosen the title of his book to be "Women in love" is a serious artistic failure. There is sex, there is battle for dominance, there is artistic attraction ( Loercke) but love there is not. Ursula believes in love and longs for it ( even desperately begging for it) but Rupert is unable to give love to her precisely because he himself is incapable of feeling it ( except perhaps to Gerald). But then why ( I ask myself) are these two, Ursula and Rupert, a couple? What is it that attracts them to each other? They are so different people after all. But Lawrence fails to answer this and to go deeper into their relationship. And this makes their "love" unconvincing and artificial. Gudrun and Gerald are the more realistic couple. But with them things are clear: this is not love but a life-and-death struggle for dominance, a titanic clash of two strong egos. I also think that their story is the best and the most valuable part of the book. What I miss in this book and this film is the depth. Lawrence is not a deep author, he is rather superficial. He tries to be deep but he cannot achieve this. Serious problems are just touched without going deeper into them. There is not a coherent set of values and ideas forming a single whole in Lawrence. This chaos is reflected in the book. Good insights and then some stupid and improbable event! Wise words together with flamboyant nonsense! Serious things mixed with trivial and petty details.! All this creates a terrible confusion! He sends contradictory messages to readers and leaves them confused and uncertain which is a serious weakness for an author, trying to be philosophical and psychological. I have the feeling that D H Lawrence was himself confused and tortured by his inner demons. Maybe that is why he had become a writer. But just describing your fears and doubts is not enough! You should try to overcome them, to give answers. His ideas ( expressed via Birkin) cannot be taken seriously. I think that D H Lawrence is an outdated author. His passions and subjects which might have been attractive and original in the 1920s and 30s have lost all their significance now. It is the same with the film ( shown 1969 at the height of the sexual revolution) . Yes, Lawrence was bold to speak about the taboos of his age and we should give him the credit for this. But great art is much more than that! Lawrence's greatest fault was that he subordinated art to depicting such phenomena but failing to go deeper into their contents and meaning. The result was that his works aged very quickly once the scandals passed. What was scandalous then is mainstream now. Sadly, because of their exaggerations and because Lawrence failed to contextualize these problems and dramas, they cannot be accepted as a correct and deep portrait of their age either. So, their historic significance is not very big either. Maybe someone would accuse me of being too harsh to Lawrence. But I do believe that great art does not age! Take Shakespeare! He lived in a much more distant age but his works generally do not age!