Welcome to Unstreamable! A column where I, arts writer and Scarecrow librarian Jas Keimig, recommend films and shows you can’t watch on major streaming services in the United States.
This week, I’m feeling sprung. I’ve decided to write about two groundbreaking films set in the interwar period following messy-ass bisexualish couples. One is deliciously complex, and the other leaves you wanting more.
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United Kingdom, 1969, 131 min, Dir. Ken Russell
This made me want to go to the Alps. Cuz duh.
Ken Russell’s Women in Love is a total revelation. An adaptation of a D.H. Lawrence 1920 novel of the same name, the Larry Kramer-written film follows two sisters — Gudrun (Glenda Jackson, who won an Oscar for the role) and Ursula (Jennie Linden) — who live in a drab English coal-mining town after the First World War. When they meet two best friends — intensely philosophical Rupert (Alan Bates) and industrial playboy Gerald (Oliver Reed) — Gudrun and Ursula instantly fall for the men, going on erotic journeys of self-discovery. However, Rupert and Gerald have a complicated, layered relationship in which one man openly yearns for the other. The homoeroticism isn’t subtext, it’s text.
At this point in his career, Russell was mainly known for his work in television. But in all its psychosexual glory, Women in Love launched him onto the international stage and became one of his most beloved films for the way it explores and picks apart love and commitment. I found it somewhat comforting that lovers across the decades were always debating monogamy and the concept of settling. Nothing new under the sun! The movie also features an erotic nude wrestling scene between Bates and Reed, one of the first in mainstream British cinema. In his 1994 memoir, The Lion Roars, Russell somewhat self-consciously recalls his decision to film the historic full-frontal fight scene:
I wonder if people would still be talking about the film today if I hadn’t included that particular sequence … It wasn’t in the original script. I didn’t think it would pass the censor and I knew it would be difficult to shoot. I was wrong on my first guess and right on my second. Olly talked me into it. He wrestled with me, jujitsu style, in my kitchen, and wouldn’t let me up until I said, ‘OK, OK, you win, I’ll do it.’ Hell! I was in pain. Thanks, Olly, we made history.
The film is lush, juicy, and bursting with sexuality. Perfect for sprung spring.
Find it in the Directors section under Russell, Ken.
FROM THE UNSTREAMABLE ARCHIVE (AKA 2020)
USA | France, 1990, 136 min, Dir. Philip Kaufman
Henry and June was one of the first NC-17 films in existence. Though, after watching the two-hour film, I had a hard time determining why. Sure, there’s (somewhat graphic) scenes of lesbian sex and a shot of Hokusai’s “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife,” but I finished the film feeling a little disappointed there was no explicit banging.
It’s a shame because I love the rawness of Anaïs Nin’s Henry and June. Published in 1986, the book is an unexpurgated diary detailing the Cuban-French writer’s sexual awakening as well as her erotic obsession with June Miller and her husband, writer Henry Miller. Taking place while Henry was writing his seminal Tropic of Cancer, the two have an intensely passionate and raunchy love affair while both are still married to other people. It’s a pre-WWII bisexual mess written in Nin’s rich and candid prose. And while there’s a great deal of fucking and monologuing about art and desire in director Philip Kaufman’s film, I think it lacks the lustful and analytical heart that makes Nin’s writing so horny. I will say that both Maria de Medeiros and Fred Ward do an excellent job channeling Anaïs and Henry. — 2020
Find it in the Directors section under Kaufman, Philip.
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*The fine print: Unstreamable means we couldn’t find it on Netflix, Hulu, Shudder, Disney+, or any of the other hundreds of streaming services available in the United States. We also couldn’t find it available for rent or purchase through platforms like Prime Video or iTunes. Yes, we know you can find many things online illegally, but we don’t consider user-generated videos, like unauthorized YouTube uploads, to be streamable.
