Ken Russell

Women in Love

Women in Love

With this film, the audacious Ken Russell vaulted onto the international stage, drawing on the psychosexual radicalism of D. H. Lawrence’s classic novel to shatter taboos in his own time. Set in an English mining community on the crest of modernity, Women in Love traces the shifting currents of desire that link the emancipated Brangwen sisters (Jennie Linden and an Oscar-winning Glenda Jackson) to a freethinking dreamer (Alan Bates) and a hard-willed industrialist (Oliver Reed)—as well as the men’s own erotically charged friendship. Coupling earthy sensuality with kaleidoscopically stylized images, Russell pursues this quartet to the heights of agony and ecstasy, crafting a breathtaking drama of human sexuality at its most liberating, dominating, and destructive extremes.

Film Info

  • United Kingdom
  • 1969
  • 131 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.75:1
  • English
  • Spine #916

Special Features

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Two audio commentaries from 2003, one featuring director Ken Russell and the other screenwriter and producer Larry Kramer
  • Segments from a 2007 interview with Russell for the BAFTA Los Angeles Heritage Archive
  • A British Picture: Portrait of an Enfant Terrible, Russell’s 1989 biopic on his own life and career
  • Interview from 1976 with actor Glenda Jackson
  • Interviews with Kramer and actors Alan Bates and Jennie Linden from the set
  • New interviews with director of photography Billy Williams and editor Michael Bradsell
  • Second Best, a 1972 short film based on a D. H. Lawrence story, produced by and starring Bates
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by scholar Linda Ruth Williams

    New cover by Kent Williams

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Two audio commentaries from 2003, one featuring director Ken Russell and the other screenwriter and producer Larry Kramer
  • Segments from a 2007 interview with Russell for the BAFTA Los Angeles Heritage Archive
  • A British Picture: Portrait of an Enfant Terrible, Russell’s 1989 biopic on his own life and career
  • Interview from 1976 with actor Glenda Jackson
  • Interviews with Kramer and actors Alan Bates and Jennie Linden from the set
  • New interviews with director of photography Billy Williams and editor Michael Bradsell
  • Second Best, a 1972 short film based on a D. H. Lawrence story, produced by and starring Bates
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by scholar Linda Ruth Williams

    New cover by Kent Williams
Women in Love
Cast
Alan Bates
Rupert Birkin
Oliver Reed
Gerald Crich
Glenda Jackson
Gudrun Brangwen
Jennie Linden
Ursula Brangwen
Eleanor Bron
Hermione Roddice
Alan Webb
Thomas Crich
Catherine Willmer
Mrs. Crich
Vladek Sheybal
Loerke
Credits
Director
Ken Russell
Adapted from the novel by
D. H. Lawrence
Written for the screen and produced by
Larry Kramer
Coproduced by
Martin Rosen
Associate producer
Roy Baird
Cinematography by
Billy Williams
Edited by
Michael Bradsell
Music by
Georges Delerue
Art direction by
Ken Jones
Set design by
Luciana Arrighi
Costume design by
Shirley Russell
Sound by
Brian Simmons

Current

Playing with Color and Light in Women in Love
Playing with Color and Light in Women in Love

Cinematographer Billy Williams talks about his experience creating the lush images and expressive lighting in Ken Russell’s boldly stylized adaptation of Women in Love.

Women in Love: Bohemian Rhapsody
Women in Love: Bohemian Rhapsody

At the height of his career, Ken Russell brought D. H. Lawrence’s classic exploration of human sexuality to the screen with frank eroticism and visual panache.


By Linda Ruth Williams

Jack Reynor’s Top 10
Jack Reynor’s Top 10

A voracious cinephile with wide-ranging taste, the star of Midsommar shares a list of favorite films that shows his particular affinity for the provocative and the macabre.

More Is More: Lessons in Excess from Women in Love

One Scene

More Is More: Lessons in Excess from Women in Love

The director of the Sundance hit The Last Black Man in San Francisco reflects on what he learned from Ken Russell’s extravagant style and approach to the subject of male relationships.

By Joe Talbot