'Lady Chatterley' is based on a version of one of the most famous and controversial English novels of the twentieth century. There have already been many screen variations on D. H. Lawrence's story of the wife of a paralyzed and impotent English aristocrat who finds sexual gratification and a new life with her husband's gamekeeper. One can see why this film won the Cesar last year. As they should be, the scenes between Lady C. And the gamekeeper are the unforgettable element, and the heart of the film is the actors. Marina Hands is radiant, a cross between Ingrid Bergman and Mariel Hemingway in looks but fresher and more authentic than either. When this Lady C. And the gamekeeper make love, it's as real and tender and sexual and quick as you could imagine, or, dare one say, as such things might really be. Jean-Louis Coulloc'h as Parkin is a rather burly fellow, slightly balding, with a sensitive face, taciturn but dignified, and not inarticulate. He is not simple and peasant-like. He is manly, but he's a loner, happiest by himself. Hippolyte Girardot as Sir Clifford is not a handsome man, but importantly he is neither angry nor excessively dignified. No one overplays his role -- they play things straight, and that's the overriding virtue of this movie. It lets the elements speak for themselves, and the result is a revelation.
Surely an essential element of the book Lawrence was trying to write was a realistic sexuality seen directly and tenderly, without embarrassment. But Lawrence saw it differently in the three successive versions he wrote, of which only the third is widely published and known. They are 'The First Lady Chatterley', 'John Thomas and Lady Jane', and 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. As Helen Croom explains, the second version introduces the "sexual healing" aspect not in the first, but is more tender than the third, in which the gamekeeper, his name changed from Parkin to Mellors, has become "hard and bitter" and the relationship has been made more purely sexual, with the addition of purple passages intermingled with a liberal use of Anglo-Saxon sexual "four-letter" words. The second version is simpler and more tender, and so is this film. Croom feels the well known third version really isn't the best. Its fetishizing of sexuality takes us away from what Lawrence does best, which is relationships, and the wonderful thing about Ferran's Lady Chatterley is how simply and directly the relationships are and how every moment changes them.
'Lady Chatterley' takes its time, and in the version shown at the San Francisco film festival, it's three hours long. The spaces between the scenes are as important, and so are the silences. As the story begins, Lady Chatterley becomes overwhelmed by lassitude. Her doctor tells her she must get out. This is what leads her to walk around on her husband's estate. She sees Parkin from behind with his shirt off washing up. He's not some aerobicized Natutilus male but a work-conditioned man with a solid, muscular, bull-like torso. She moves away at first and doesn't speak to him, but later it's obvious if not now that a desire has been planted to know what it feels like to touch this body. Later she asks for a key to the "cabane" where Parkin comes to work, and to go there herself. The utter quiet of the place awes her. There's a sense in the shots of big expanses of tree and grass, of immersion in the outdoors.
What's striking is that there's no tension in this story. One day she's there, and Parkin asks Lady C. If she wants it. She does and then they begin making love there on the floor of the "cabane" regularly. She comes to life. This is when Marina Hands begins to glow with natural happiness. No one is suspicious, there's never any danger that they'll be caught. Sir Clifford is stiff and uncomfortable, but it isn't overdone but in fact is very subtle. Much of the time it's notable how well he does. At dinner parties he's like anybody else. And Parkin isn't gruff and rough. Nor does he as in the published third version make up little pet names for their private parts.
Lady Chatterley is a vibrant young woman who needs sexual experience and comes to life when she begins having it; and she's beautiful and the gamekeeper wants her, and he isn't ashamed or afraid of having her. Then she goes away on a trip to Europe that's been planned before, with a lady friend and a man, and that gives her a chance to cover things up. But after the trip, things change. Because this is a Thirties period film set in France, Lady Chatterley and her husband are formal in addressing each other, and she and Parkin don't use the familiar "tu" till she comes back. Parkin isn't a romanticized Noble Savage, some incarnation of the physical. He's physical all right, but he dresses in a shirt and tie.
The most peculiar thing is that without any apology or explanation all the people and places are English, but everyone speaks French. This is as if to say: This seems very real, but it's a fable, and we're not going to fake it about that.
There have been many film versions of 'Lady Chatterley'. Ferran's is an elegant production, in many ways conventional (it was made for television, in a longer version), and it's without self-conscious stylistic gestures -- with the one notable exception of the very measured pace. Nothing gets in the way of the actors and the setting -- the big aristocratic house, the great lands around the property. There's not much more to say. If you want to experience a revolutionary moment in twentieth century English fiction that's still quite alive today, you will have to see this. It's a remarkable film. Some boning up on the writer and the period won't hurt.
SFIFF 2007.
Surely an essential element of the book Lawrence was trying to write was a realistic sexuality seen directly and tenderly, without embarrassment. But Lawrence saw it differently in the three successive versions he wrote, of which only the third is widely published and known. They are 'The First Lady Chatterley', 'John Thomas and Lady Jane', and 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. As Helen Croom explains, the second version introduces the "sexual healing" aspect not in the first, but is more tender than the third, in which the gamekeeper, his name changed from Parkin to Mellors, has become "hard and bitter" and the relationship has been made more purely sexual, with the addition of purple passages intermingled with a liberal use of Anglo-Saxon sexual "four-letter" words. The second version is simpler and more tender, and so is this film. Croom feels the well known third version really isn't the best. Its fetishizing of sexuality takes us away from what Lawrence does best, which is relationships, and the wonderful thing about Ferran's Lady Chatterley is how simply and directly the relationships are and how every moment changes them.
'Lady Chatterley' takes its time, and in the version shown at the San Francisco film festival, it's three hours long. The spaces between the scenes are as important, and so are the silences. As the story begins, Lady Chatterley becomes overwhelmed by lassitude. Her doctor tells her she must get out. This is what leads her to walk around on her husband's estate. She sees Parkin from behind with his shirt off washing up. He's not some aerobicized Natutilus male but a work-conditioned man with a solid, muscular, bull-like torso. She moves away at first and doesn't speak to him, but later it's obvious if not now that a desire has been planted to know what it feels like to touch this body. Later she asks for a key to the "cabane" where Parkin comes to work, and to go there herself. The utter quiet of the place awes her. There's a sense in the shots of big expanses of tree and grass, of immersion in the outdoors.
What's striking is that there's no tension in this story. One day she's there, and Parkin asks Lady C. If she wants it. She does and then they begin making love there on the floor of the "cabane" regularly. She comes to life. This is when Marina Hands begins to glow with natural happiness. No one is suspicious, there's never any danger that they'll be caught. Sir Clifford is stiff and uncomfortable, but it isn't overdone but in fact is very subtle. Much of the time it's notable how well he does. At dinner parties he's like anybody else. And Parkin isn't gruff and rough. Nor does he as in the published third version make up little pet names for their private parts.
Lady Chatterley is a vibrant young woman who needs sexual experience and comes to life when she begins having it; and she's beautiful and the gamekeeper wants her, and he isn't ashamed or afraid of having her. Then she goes away on a trip to Europe that's been planned before, with a lady friend and a man, and that gives her a chance to cover things up. But after the trip, things change. Because this is a Thirties period film set in France, Lady Chatterley and her husband are formal in addressing each other, and she and Parkin don't use the familiar "tu" till she comes back. Parkin isn't a romanticized Noble Savage, some incarnation of the physical. He's physical all right, but he dresses in a shirt and tie.
The most peculiar thing is that without any apology or explanation all the people and places are English, but everyone speaks French. This is as if to say: This seems very real, but it's a fable, and we're not going to fake it about that.
There have been many film versions of 'Lady Chatterley'. Ferran's is an elegant production, in many ways conventional (it was made for television, in a longer version), and it's without self-conscious stylistic gestures -- with the one notable exception of the very measured pace. Nothing gets in the way of the actors and the setting -- the big aristocratic house, the great lands around the property. There's not much more to say. If you want to experience a revolutionary moment in twentieth century English fiction that's still quite alive today, you will have to see this. It's a remarkable film. Some boning up on the writer and the period won't hurt.
SFIFF 2007.