A BRACE AND A HALF OF GAMEKEEPERS
© Helen Croom (1996)
CHAPTER FOUR - Ken Russell's
Lady Chatterley
[It is rather difficult to appraise a film when you already know the story so well. I didn't watch the video until I had completed all of the chapters on the books as I didn't want the film to influence my opinions. But, of course, this had the effect of influencing my interpretation of the film.]
"Lady Chatterley is a passionate love story which portrays the tempestuous and scandalous affair between an aristocratic young woman and her husband's gamekeeper."1
The television dramatisation was shown in the UK in the early summer of 1993 on BBC1. It promised to be a faithful adaptation of Lawrence's story (all three versions were used in the writing of the screenplay) retaining as much of the original dialogue as possible. Most of the main events were there, little other than some additional dialogue seemed to have been added, so it be could said that the story was Lawrence's own. Although the gamekeeper was called Mellors his character seemed to owe more to the Parkin of JTLJ, he was not educated and no mention was made of him having been an officer in the war and he did not have Mellors' rather didactic manner.
In the main it was well acted. Sean Bean was very convincing in the role of Mellors, and Lawrence's dialogue came over well. However, Joely Richardson seemed to be hampered somewhat by the dialogue which often sounded unnatural or even silly, it was not entirely clear whether this was due to Ms Richardson's acting or Lawrence's dialogue. James Wilby was excellent in the role of Sir Clifford, portraying his steely arrogance, determined cheerfulness and childish petulance brilliantly. Another excellent performance was given by Shirley Ann Field, who was Lawrence's Mrs Bolton to a T.
Inexplicably, some characters names were changed: Connie Mellors became Betty; Sir Malcolm became Sir Michael (played enthusiastically by Russell himself) and Duncan Forbes became Donald.
Would Ken Russell's portrayal of the feeling between Connie and Mellors be successful? If Lawrence's emphasis on the naturalness and inevitability of their relationship was not portrayed then the film would merely show "a tempestuous and scandalous affair." It is, of course difficult to portray in a visual image the intrinsic ideas within the author's text.
Russell's success with regard to his portrayal of Lawrence's ideas varies rather; there is a dream sequence which works well. It follows Connie and Clifford's discussion of whether the black horse should be allowed his reasonable desires or denied them. In the sequence Connie is riding slowly through the park on a black horse. All around are young men gracefully stretched out, with naked torsos decorated with garlands of flowers. She dismounts by the lake to reach for a young man who is holding his hand out to her from the middle of the lake, where he is submerged to the waist; as he turns the viewer sees that it is Clifford. He tries to pull her in too but she lets him go, (so as not to be submerged to her waist) and he disappears under the water, when the camera cuts to Mellors (fully dressed) standing at the opposite side of the lake. The black horse rears and is set free and Connie awakens. Conversely, there is another scene of imagery which doesn't seem to work well at all. This scene is when Connie is going to see the 'daffs'. On the way to the cottage she leans against a tree, feeling the bark with her hands (this scene is very reminiscent of one with Birkin (Alan Bates), in Russell's "Women in Love") and looking up at the sun piercing through the new leaves. This is where the limitations of film detract from the story. Lawrence's imagery of the parallel between her feelings and the awakening wood works well in print, but in the film she merely looked rather foolish. It is difficult to see how it could be done visually at all.
Russell indeed manages to show the helplessness of the gamekeeper; his complete absence of control over the relationship. Connie frequently leaves him with a nonchalant "I must go" and on the occasion where Mellors calls "goodnight your Ladyship" there is a shot of him forlornly watching through the gate as she crosses the park. The viewer is given the impression that there is perhaps more feeling on his part than on Connie's and it was responsible of Russell to portray this as it gives depth to the characters.
No appraisal of a Ken Russell/Lawrence film would be complete without a discussion of the sex scenes. There were complaints from some members of the public following the screening. Necessarily, there were fewer sex scenes than in the novels but those that were shown were in keeping with Lawrence's descriptions (the scene which caused most complaints was the rather rough one when Mellors stops her on the way home from Marehay Farm, but Russell was true to the author on this point). Possibly, the tenderness of the novels did not come over so well on film as in the narrative, although, again, it is obvious that an attempt was made. After the encounter mentioned above, Mellors' gently brushes the leaves from Connie's hat and tidies her hair. It is difficult to be objective about the film when the story is so well known; each viewer will be looking for different emphases. Russell has included few of Lawrence's four letter words but these were not really missed. The censors would no doubt have precluded the inclusion of the long discourses between Connie and Mellors during their love scenes and so these words were largely redundant. Sean Bean is reported to have said, "If we had done every scene in the book, the BBC would never have shown it."2
The film ends with Connie, having rushed to Southampton, joining Mellors on a ship bound for Canada. Although this seemed an outright contradiction of Lawrence's intentions, to have left the lovers' future in doubt in this version, where the importance of their relationship was undoubtedly weakened by the medium, would have indeed made the whole affair seem not only "scandalous", but also promiscuous, which would have been a complete betrayal of Lawrence's wishes.
To sum up, it would seem that Ken Russell has been extremely faithful to Lawrence. While the film does not have the impact of the novels, it is entertaining, does not trivialise the relationships between the characters and makes as good a job of telling the story as is possible on film.