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The BBC tapped acclaimed director Ken Russell for its four-part 1993 adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Having filmed Lawrence’s Women in Love in 1969 and The Rainbow in 1989, Russell was no stranger to the writer’s explorations of sensuality and English society. In Lady Chatterley,Russell departs from his trademark cinematic flamboyance and renders this highly charged story with straightforward grace, stately visual grandeur, and period authenticity. Joely Richardson (The Patriot) stars as Constance Chatterley, a young upper-class woman whose husband returns from WWI paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. Breaking all the rules of polite society, Connie soon takes up with the estate’s gamekeeper, Mellors, played with rough-hewn intensity by Sean Bean (The Fellowship of the Ring). The novel sparked one of the most notorious obscenity trials of the 20th century, and the miniseries itself generated controversy for its nudity and graphic sexuality. Yet Russell gives equal attention to the class warfare and social drama featured in Lawrence’s novel. The DVD includes a number of special features, including behind-the-scenes photos, filmographies, and a lengthy interview with the director, who also appears in a small role as Sir Michael Reid, Lady Chatterley’s father.

All Movie Guide

Another of writer/director Ken Russell's D.H. Lawrence adaptations, Lady Chatterley (an amalgam of three Lawrence novels) was first shown as a British TV miniseries on BBC1 from June 6 to 27, 1993. In recounting the familiar details of young, bored Lady Chatterley (Joely Richardson), her elderly, infirm husband (James Wilby), and her hot-blooded stable-groom lover, Manners (Sean Bean), Russell took the opportunity to both celebrate and savage the British upper classes of the 1920s. One brief sequence of full frontal nudity caused a minor scandal in Britain, though by Ken Russell standards the scene was a model of taste and decorum. After its initial TV run, Lady Chatterley was edited down from 220 to 110 minutes and released theatrically in the United States. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 054961549191
• Source: ACORN MEDIA
• Sound: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Time: 3:25:00
• Sales Rank: 29,638

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