Stripped down to the bone

Perhaps the last person you would expect to sympathise with the latter view is Pascale Ferran, director of the new Lady Chatterley, a film so starkly beautiful that I, for one, will be permitting my wife and servants to view it. "The book is not to my taste," explains the petite 47-year-old film-maker, who wears her silver hair short and is dressed in a grey suit. "The character of Mellors the gamekeeper is always commenting on the social significance of the affair. It's as though Lawrence was constantly justifying the story as politically relevant."

If you're wondering why Ferran went to the trouble of filming it, the answer is: she didn't. Her version of Lady Chatterley is adapted not from the widely read novel that Lawrence published privately in 1928, but from an earlier draft, John Thomas and Lady Jane, in which some of the characters' names are different. (Mellors, for instance, is known as Parkin here.) Lawrence wrote three drafts, putting one aside for months at a time before beginning from scratch on another one; it is the second of those drafts, originally called Tenderness, that Ferran has filmed. "I love it much more," she says with a smile. "Not only does it speak to me, and to my experiences, it has aged so much better. The characters live and experience, but they don't analyse."

What's most remarkable about this hypnotic film is its cinematic style, which reflects perfectly the more measured prose of the second draft. The camera's attentiveness to nature, combined with Ferran's insistence on documenting the minutiae of the lovers' relationship ("I liketo show how love is built," she says), suggests a collaborationbetween the directors Terrence Malick and Chantal Akerman. And the film is almost Dogme-like in its austerity: stripped down in a stylistic as well as a physical sense. Though lyrical, it can also be blunt - witness the abrupt ending, which has the feeling of a book being slammed shut. Music is rarely heard; the camera scarcely moves, preferring simply to observe Lady Constance as she picks her way through the forest, pausing to drape her hand in a brook or marvel at the prematurely blossoming daffodils. Consequently, the slightest departure from this trancelike state - such as the switch to a handheld camera for a scene of Constance tearing through the woods and flinging herself into Parkin's arms - feels as explosive as an action sequence.

Strangely for someone who has made a film that is far from coy, Ferran becomes reserved when I quiz her on this visual technique. "I don't theorise about that," she says firmly. "It's more about instinct. I was always trying to find the best position for the camera so the audience could get into both characters' heads at the same time."

For more insight into Ferran's methods, I ask the woman on whose shoulders the film arguably rests: Marina Hands, who plays Constance. "I feel Pascale is taking the audience gently by the hand," explains the subtly feline, brown-haired 32-year-old, her precise English the result of an upbringing divided between Paris, with her actress mother, Ludmila Mikaël, and London, with her father, the theatrical legend Terry Hands (former artistic director of the RSC). "I didn't see any disparity between the way Pascale looked at the story and how Lawrence told it," she continues. "Some directors will grab a book, say 'Very good, but here's what I think', then impose their own meaning on the text. Pascale stepped aside and honoured Lawrence's vision."

With such a background, you would expect Hands to be completely at ease with performing. But she was terrified at the thought of having to do things in Lady Chatterley from which all but the heartiest exhibitionists would recoil. "When I met Pascale, I told her, 'If I freak out on set, forgive me. Do you still want me for the part?' And she said, 'I'm not interested in casting an actress who would disrobe at the drop of a hat.'"

Ferran remembers that conversation: "I told Marina we would start from the fact of her fear and work on it. I knew that if she had a desire to play Constance, we could overcome it." The word "desire" doesn't begin to express how strongly Hands wanted the part. "When I read the script, I thought, 'I would admire the actress who could do this. I would know she was committed to her art.' "

Hands still remembers the first time she clapped eyes on Jean-Louis Coulloc'h, the burly middle-aged stage actor whom Ferran cast as Parkin. "I thought he looked perfect for the part," she says. "But I felt intimidated, probably because I was thinking about what we were going to have to do together. I didn't look at him in a normal way. Instead, I thought, 'Oooh!'" This last sound is delivered with a blend of fear and admiration, not to mention enough innuendo to guarantee Hands a place in any future Carry On movies.

It should be no insult to Coulloc'h, a theatre actor who makes his feature debut here, to say that he is strikingly ordinary-looking - which, in the context of cinema, populated as it is by toned and blemishless Adonises, ranks as paradoxically extraordinary. He had no problem with those same nude scenes that were giving his co-star cold sweats.

"Jean-Louis didn't mind being naked," Ferran recalls, "but he was very insecure when it came to delivering his dialogue. So I had to bear in mind that both my actors needed looking after." Hands chuckles at the memory of Ferran shepherding her and Coulloc'h through their various troubles. "It must have been like having two children with wildly differing needs," she says.

But if, as an actor, you are called upon to romp naked in the rain, or have flowers woven into your pubic hair, it seems Ferran is the best director to have around. When I ask Hands what bridged the gap between her initial nervousness and her candid on-screen performance, she says simply: "Pascale." To put her performers at ease, Ferran scheduled six weeks of intensive rehearsal, the aim being for Hands and Coulloc'h to become completely relaxed with one another, as well as with the material. The day would begin with a movement class led by a dance instructor, the emphasis strongly on fun - typical exercises included animal role-playing, with the actors pretending to be foxes or frogs. This was followed by close work on every movement, every gesture, in the screenplay.

"Something that is rarely shown well on screen," Ferran observes, "is how carnal desire transforms people. I wanted the lovemaking to be about the characters' hearts and minds, not just their bodies. So, just as you would rehearse a difficult piece of dialogue, finding the meaning behind every word, we strove to do the same with the body, breaking down every tiny gesture." For Hands, it was a struggle that got easier as filming went on. "I found it difficult, at first, not to lose the character and say 'Oh, Constance wouldn't do this', just because I didn't want to do it. I was fighting myself and my fears."

Ferran is justifiably proud of her actors, and believes the sex scenes in Lady Chatterley go against the grain of most portrayals of sex found in cinema. "Usually, those scenes don't tell you anything except that the characters are making love. At best, the spectator gets mildly titillated. Mostly, we feel excluded. I was determined my film would not change in nature during the sex scenes, and that we would feel as close to Constance and Parkin as we do in the rest of the film."

Her belief and determination has paid off. Lady Chatterley swept the board at this year's César awards, taking five prizes, including best film and best actress. At the end of June, an extended two-part version - including about 40 minutes not seen in cinemas - aired on French television; Ferran says it shattered records for viewing figures. And, though Hands maintains that she didn't play Constance to further her career (which has included a rolein the hit French thriller Tell No One), it certainly hasn't hurt:she can next be seen in the The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an award-winner at Cannes, and is about to play CocoChanel in William Friedkin's upcoming film about the iconic designer's friendship with, and patronage of, Igor Stravinsky.

Hands knows movies like Lady Chatterley don't come along every day. "It's the kind of film where the audience's reaction says so much," she reflects. "Some people scoff at it, some people laugh at it. One person told me they didn't find it erotic." She arches an eyebrow and gives another Carry On giggle: "Now what does that say about them?"

Lady Chatterley is released on August 24