Word: film
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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...does GM define low level pollution in terms of standards that have been prescribed? Are you approaching them? How soon can you meet them? Does your film imply that it will be 1980 or 1990, 1970 or when...
Conveniently. Ken Russell's current film of Lawrence's Women in Love solves the problem quite neatly. Thanks to Larry Kramer's screenplay, which follows quite closely the plot of the novel, and thanks to Alan Bates's amusing but rather lightweight portrayal of Rupert Birken, Lawrence's protagonist and spokesman, the film turns poor old D.H. into the adolescent's adolescent. (Incidentally, someone along the assembly line was indiscreet enough to have Bates/Birklen wear a beard cut exactly like Lawrence's own. They seem to be daring us to make the connection.) And since (cautionary baritone) this film...
...there is a common denominator of failure in the film, it is a certain earthbound literalness that prevents us from taking the meaning of the characters' actions at anything but face value. In recreating Edwardian England, Russell has gone to a great degree of bother. The end product, however, is simply too much detail. When Russell attempts an outdoor scene, it looks more like he's constructed a horizonless hot-house. Consequently, in key sequences-as when Birken abandons the intellectual Hermione (Eleanor Bron) in order to submerge himself in nature-one never makes the necessary leap from physical facts...
...images that do work suggest the direction the film should have taken. The first few shots of a nude wrestling match between Birken and Gerald, deep, low-angle, lit by a darkly golden fire. are quite eerie in their implications. (Although, the inevitable pulsing soundtrack and tumultuous camerawork mar the development of the scene.) A shot of a drowned girl, entwined in the arms of her dead lover, as they are washed up onto a muddy shore is equally effective. (Although, it is mistakenly intercut with shots of Birken and Ursula making love. Properly, the omen is directed at Gerald...
Godard also spoke of the problems confronted by a group making political films together. "Each shot [should] be the result of a political discussion," he said. Dziga Vertou is now working on a film of the Palestine Liberation Movement...