Lady Chatterley [DVD]

Lawrence's famous story of Lady Chatterley and her lover is given a fine Gallic twist here (English names and place names, French language) by a French production team. The narrative is actually based on an earlier draught of the novel called John Thomas and Lady Jane, the title a veiled sexual reference in English slang that Lawrence was probably wise to change.Lady Constance Chatterley (played beautifully by Marina Hands, an Anglo-French actress) is pure, guileless, warmhearted and sensitive. These qualities deepen our interest in her the more we see and feel her isolation and loneliness at Wragby Hall, the estate of her husband Sir Clifford Chatterley. Her compassion for Sir Clifford, a former officer wounded and paralyzed in The Great War, is real. She attends to him daily by helping how she can, dining with him, reading to him, bathing him. She is, among other things, young, beautiful, feminine, gentle and patient. He loves to see her and be in her calming, cheering, charming presence. She knows this and accepts her role devotedly. He was disabled before she married him, so the role of supportive wife is evidently what she wanted.But time passes and a certain tension begins to build in her. Thereafter it also builds between them. The platonic love of devotion that she thought would sustain her gradually cannot. Her body is whole, healthy, fertile and voluptuous, whereas his is disfigured and emaciated. The cause of this tension is the presence of another man on Sir Clifford's property, the gamekeeper Parkin (known as Mellors in the final version of the novel). Parkin is Sir Clifford's opposite. He is virile and earthy. He has strong shoulders and hands. He chops wood, hammers nails, shoots rabbits and pheasants. Connie sees this and also sees his character. His stoic independence mirrors her own. He is self-contained and serene in his solitude. He seems genuine in his deference to her and never speaks meanly, coarsely. He is also sensitive, which she knows from seeing a clutch of young chicks he is raising. He treats them gently, even tenderly. If he cannot be a gentleman by the social standards of rank and class, he is one in spirit, and it is this — the spiritual, soulful and emotional — that Connie seeks and needs.Theirs becomes an unconventional love story by suggesting love can exist beyond rank, class and convention. This was the radical and honest thing Lawrence wanted to say. The French director here (Pascale Ferran) understands this. In Marina Hands he has found the luminous and transparent Connie he needed. Jean-Louis Colloc'h, as Parkin, is a more masculine prototype of Lawrence himself. Toward the end of the story Lawrence speaks from the heart when he puts this confession in the mind of Parkin to speak to Connie:”The thing is I can't be like other folk. I'm so unhappy when I can't be alone. When I was a child my mother kept calling me a girl. She said there was something in my character that was more like a woman than a man.”This is the author's self-portrait.Connie says to Parkin:“Why do you say this as if it were a weakness? It is not. You should be proud of being sensitive.”This is Connie loving Lawrence or a figure of him for the sensitivities she understands and appreciates in him.The true gentleman, Lawrence suggests, may be strong, virile and masculine (as Parkin is), but if he is not also kind, gentle, generous and tender (as Parkin is but Sir Clifford isn't), then he is no gentleman at all. Connie comes to understand this. It is not just that Parkin's body is whole and virile, that he might bring her the child she realises she wants (as Sir Clifford cannot); he is also spiritually whole, good and generous and sensitive in nature. He is greater than Sir Clifford because he can satisfy her in ways that the master of Wragby Hall cannot. Lawrence is unsentimental is saying so, and knows that honesty does not need sentiment to be true.

I thought that Constance (Marina Hands ) and her husband ( Hippolyte Girardot )played the part of Lord and Lady of the manor excellently showing the upper class values of the time.However it was when Constance started meeting the Game Keeper Parking (Jean-Louis Coulloc`h) that started going downhill and when Constance is upset Parking puts his arm around her and on to her breast then says "Do you want to ? ) it sounds like a chat up line at a dance, but this was the Lady of the Manor and after Parking had groped her there was no apology to her no it was as if he was doing it to the woman next door.That said it did show one aspect of D. H Lawrence`s book and was quite pleasing.

have just seen this. at the beginning it said: based on the novel 'john thomas and lady jane'. having never heard of such a book, i thought this was a little joke by the film makers, referring to the names the couple give to their parts in the book.i therefore watched it as a version of 'lady chatterley's lover'. i observed that the gamekeeper's character was quite different from the book, as were various other details, and in a big way, the end. nevertheless, i was quite prepared to accept all this, in spite of being a fan of the book, as i accepted the makers' words that this was 'based on'. in fact i quite enjoyed the differences i have already cited, in this version. and the gradually developing affair is beautifully handled and portrayed.filmically, largely sans intrusive musical score, and taken at a slow burn through wonderful images of nature, it was a pleasure.subsequently, i discovered that there really is a second book, by lawrence, by this name and containing the differences that appear in the film!so all the negative reviews here, mainly posited on the dissimilarity to 'lady chatterley's lover', are out of order on two counts. (being 'based on', and even actually a different book.)as for the complaints about the characters not being 'beautiful' enough - puh-lease! this minor escape from the media body police was very welcome.and adjacent to this, the complaint that he wasn't attractive enough to warrant her response - again, puh-lease! she was a passionate woman, living without sex and the touch of a man, his body turned her on (her, dear viewer, it didn't have to turn you on), and he was the only feasible sexual prospect in her world! so - a bit fanciful in either version, but it is fiction, and beside that, sex can be a powerful drive to strange/ dangerous behaviour.

This is a most poetic French account of D.H. Lawrence's novel, "John Thomas and Lady Jane", his second version of the story that became "Lady Chatterley's Lover". The film concentrates as much on the beauty of nature as the other more sensational aspects of Lawrence's gospel of self through physical passion. Marina Hands is exceptional. Her characterisation of Constance is utterly convincing and captures her naive tenderness and hesitancy evolving into confidence. The political message is understated, and this is an excellent cinematic decision.The chateau de Montméry and its estate near Ambazac (in France) provides a very lovely setting for Wragby Hall. Possibly the rain-gambolling scenes involving two naked adult water babies speeding about in the greenery appear mildly ridiculous (at least to the observer if not to the participants) and derivative of the well-known British films of Lawrence's novels ("Women in Love"), but this is only worth a passing remark; the brief frolicking and cavorting do not detract from the quality of this rendition of the novel in any significant way.The film closes with a muted unusual mutual pact, an ending that is far more satisfying than the triumphalist Russell version with Sean Bean and Joely Richardson, however good the latter is in other respects.

ok

Depuis les années 30, cette oeuvre est l'objet d'une calomnie ressassée par des critiques malintentionnés, il s'agit d'une très belle et très pure relation amoureuse entre une jeune personne qui veut vivre sa vie de femme avec l'homme dont elle est amoureuse.L'important pour les persifleurs est qu'elle couche avec un domestique , c'est inacceptable pour les tenants du rang social , d'où l'accusation de pornographie. Constance est une marie couche --toi- la, victime de ses pulsions , une hystérique ( de "utérus") et le tour est joué. ceci dit le jeu de Marina Hands est d'une sensibilité rare.

J'aime beaucoup cette version française.

事故で車いす生活を送っている旦那と別々の部屋で寝ているレディーチャタレー。ある日　林の中で花を摘んでいると物音が聞こえ　音の方へ行くと、鳥小屋を作ってる男がいた。寝たきりの旦那と違い、いつも外で作業している新鮮な男に惹かれ通うようになる　そして不倫の関係になり、、、、、、、、　この小説が裁判になり問題視されたが　読んだ感想としては、どうということは、ない。問題のお互いのアンダーヘアーに摘んできた花を挿すとこがいけないらしいがこの作品では、ちゃんと再現されている　有名な作品なのでぜひ文学作品の好きな方には、見てもらいたい。

Objednala jsem si CD které mělo v popisu DE. Předpokládala jsem , že mi přijde z Německa. Bohužel mě kontaktoval Celní úřad s tím, že CD se musí proclít. Nechtěla jsem již tomu procesu investovat čas a ani peníze, tak jsem ho nepřijala. Mělo by být asi někde uvedeno, že se nejedná o zboží z EU aby lidé počítali s Celním řízením.

Très beau film, bien joué et le réalisateur a su nous mettre dans l'atmosphère de la situation par sa manière de filmer. Je ne considère absolument pas ce film comme érotique et encore moins pornographique. Certes les acteurs sont entièrement dénudés dans 3 ou 4 scènes mais c'est très joliment fait et correspond bien à leur histoire et aux sentiments qu'ils doivent exprimer. Superbe film d'Amour.