Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, Powerful, Heart-Rending, Delicate, Deft!, September 29, 2002
Terence Rattigan's screenplay for "The Browning Version" expands and greatly improves his short stage play of the same name. The title refers to a translation by the poet, Robert Browning, of "Agamemnon," a classical Greek tragedy. The film's protagonist, Andrew Crocker-Harris, an English private school teacher brilliantly played by Michael Redgrave, once wrote a translation of "Agamemnon," and has been trying for years to teach 14-year-old boys to read the Greek original. Because of poor health and general dissatisfaction with his performance, he has resigned his position. In the tragedy, Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, aided by her lover. In the film, Crocker-Harris is spiritually dead, partly from spousal "murder," although the slaughter has been reciprocal, and his wife, Millie, is in worse shape than he. In tragedies, the hero starts out happy and becomes miserable. In this film, full of the sadness of professional and domestic failure, Crocker-Harris moves away from misery, via understanding and heartfelt repentance, to the possibility of happiness. The reversal owes much to the intervention of Taplow, one of Crocker-Harris' students, and of Frank Hunter, his colleague and Millie's lover. The film deftly introduces these "good Samaritans" in a lively dispute, in which they display the personal qualities that will make them helpful to Crocker-Harris. Both are spirited, bold, good-natured, intelligent and well-rounded. An interesting question is why they come to the rescue of Crocker-Harris and not of his wife. Her coarse brutality toward Crocker-Harris is hard to forgive, but so is his refined humiliation of students. At the outset, two huge defeats, heart disease and forced resignation, invite our compassion for him. His language, beautifully dressed, raised in pitch but never in volume, quiet, clear, restrained, invites attention and leaves room for helpers. Following Taplow's lead, we start the film wondering what is wrong, and hoping to fix it. But most important, Taplow and Hunter appreciate this man, who is really dying to be liked. They like him, and they don't like Millie. My only criticism of the screenplay is the audience response, at a school assembly, to Crocker-Harris' farewell speech. The reaction is not realistic, I think, given the school's long-established fear and rejection of this man. But it is surely our reaction, after what we have just experienced. At the Cannes Film Festival, Terence Rattigan was awarded Best Screenplay and Michael Redgrave, Best Actor. Emphatically deserved! The film is beautifully directed by Anthony Asquith, with a fine cast, especially Brian Smith as Taplow and Nigel Patrick as Hunter. (This review is based on the VHS edition.)
|
|
|
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps the finest movie I have ever seen -- a true classic, November 10, 1999
I watched this movie many years ago on PBS simply by chance. I have since acquired my own copy and have watched it many times. The story and characters have remained with me ever since. Michael Redgrave gives a performance that is, quite simply, stunning. Redgrave plays an aging and depressed schoolmaster at an English boarding school who, despite a promising start as a teacher many years before, has now failed as a teacher and as a husband. His wife is a nightmare -- conniving, duplicitous and unfaithful. His tolerance of her maliciousness, and of his own failings, is touchingly played out in one heartrending scene after another. Into this malaise comes a young student who, unlike his fellow students, recognizes the brilliance and potential of the old schoolmaster. When he gives the old man the present of a book of poems by Browning, it reawakens a long lost spirit. If you see no other movie, see this one -- please. You'll never forget it. I never will.
|
|
|
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heartrending & Timeless Achievement of One Man's Failure..., July 7, 2005
Distant and removed from the immediate environment is how one could illustrate Andrew Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave) who is notorious as the Crock among the students at an English public school where he teaches the Classics. He is the archetype for a hated teacher, as he plagues his students with precise etiquette and dreary epigrams. In essence, he is a eloquent and subtle bully that oppresses his students whenever they fail. Like a cold reptile the Crock snaps at all available opportunities for him to be perceived as an authoritative source. This causes his students to become preoccupied with what is wrong rather than what is right, as they strive to avoid error instead of learning.
In the light of present educators, it should be noted that teachers should try to catch the students doing good, as it will promote a positive learning environment. It does not suggest that the teachers should turn a blind eye to harmful or negative behavior, as this can be detrimental to academic achievement for the students. Here in the Browning Version Anthony Asquith directs a very different film compared to his other accomplishments such as Pygmalion (1938) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). This film deals with failure rather than success. The failure of Mr. Crocker-Harris to fulfill his life calling to the potential and to be revered as a superior colleague and educator by both students and faculty.
Nonetheless, Asquith remains honest to what he does best by making adaptations of novels and plays. The Browning Version does not bring the flamboyant joyfulness that many of his other films do. Instead, he delivers a dark and emotional story, which is the result of a play that Asquith visited in the late 1940s. He felt that he needed to make the film, but struggled with financial backing. Eventually, the money came around and he could focus on directing a personal epigram through the character that Michael Redgrave so delicately performs in this memorable film. The film went on to win the awards both for best actor and screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952.
Asquith opens the story with an external perspective of Mr. Crocker-Harris who emerges with an authoritarian and humorless persona. He follows a rigid schedule, as the students even have their watches set after his. In many aspects, it seems like nothing is allowed to bother Mr. Crocker-Harris, as if he has already been put to rest. To strengthen this notion, his wife Millie (Jean Kent) says, "You can't hurt Andrew. He's dead." On top of this, the only thing that seems to provide some form of joy for him are the Classics of long ago fallen philosophers and scholars such as Socrates, Plato, and Aeschylus. Amidst all of this there is an overwhelming sense of gloom and lifelessness around Mr. Crocker-Harris who also has acquired severe health problems.
The film rubs on the surface of contempt and hatred while it slowly submerges into a personal tale. It is through Mr. Crocker-Harris's lifeless persona a remarkably tender story begins to brew. The surfacing true thoughts of him begin to unsettle his disciplined and razor sharp mind, as some even refer to him as the Himmler of the lower Fifth. One true notion follows by another, which begins to rupture the strong and cold front that he has put on to be perceived as a strong individual. Meanwhile, his wife is cheating on him with another younger and more dynamic teacher, as her contempt for him continually increases. It is emotionally torturous to watch this old man being struck with one setback after another despite his past.
The film discloses the failure of one man, which is something that Asquith was accustomed to on a personal level. Maybe, it is here where he discovered the emotional turmoil that he implemented in the film, as he grabs the audience over the throat with iron grip of melancholic sympathy. Asquith's father was a former Prime Minister and his mother, an eminent woman in high society. Thus, when their son became a film director, it must have been frowned upon with the notion of failure since their son had all the opportunities in the world. Failure, or not, Asquith and Mr. Crocker-Harris' lives could only be successes, if love were to be given to themselves through the small victories of self respect and personal forgiveness.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
See all Editorial Reviews
DVD ~ Albert Finney
DVD ~ Alec Guinness
DVD ~ Alec Guinness
DVD ~ Kirk Douglas
DVD ~ Charles Laughton
