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DVD The Browning Version (Criterion Collection)
Michael Redgrave etched his subtlest and, in its peculiar way, most beloved screen performance in this classic film version of Terence Rattigan's play. Play and film chronicle the final day of teaching for Andrew Crocker-Harris, a cold-fish public school instructor who has long since outlived his early promise. That his classics students, his colleagues, and even his somewhat younger wife refer to him as "the Crock" is not a mark of affection. Wheezing pedantically, making arcane classical puns without hope of raising a laugh, he's an anti–Mr. Chips to whom nearly everyone will be happy to say goodbye. Except that on this last day, with his health failing, his wife (Jean Kent) openly carrying on an affair, and his headmaster (the redoubtably smarmy Wilfrid Hyde-White) eager to whisk him off to retirement, Crocker-Harris achieves an order of triumph that the film marks without a whiff of sentimentality.
Rattigan was a meticulous composer of the "well-made play," and Anthony Asquith, who directed 10 films from Rattigan scripts over a quarter-century, was a reliable craftsman who never tried to upstage his material. (Asquith's best film apart from Rattigan was the delicious rendition of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest he and Redgrave did the following year.) It's easy to protest that this is not a formula for exciting "cinema": every scene of The Browning Version could be (and had been) performed on stage. Yet this subtly shaded and finally very moving immersion in "human nature"--to use a phrase "the Crock" scorns at one point--makes a virtue of reticence. By the time it's over, you know it has all the cinema it needs. --Richard T. Jameson
Review(s): DVD The Browning Version (Criterion Collection)
an interesting film with an academic theme
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
The Browning Version is the story of a school teacher who is beginning to feel that he is flunking life. He reevaluates it and student of his offers his assistance. The film has some nice scenes and is well made.
The DVD has some good special features also. There is part of a 1958 interview with actor Michael Redgrave, an interview with Mike Figgis who directed a 1994 remake. There is also audio commentary by Bruce Eder.
Definitive "Version"
We all try to lead a good life but along the way labels are placed upon us. Are we considered a 'good person', 'bad person', 'happy person', 'sad person'? People will remark we are cold and heartless or sweet and gentle. The kind of person that would never hurt a fly. Sometimes we are fully aware of what people think of us other times we have no clue what people truly feel about us. Anthony Asquith's "The Browning Version" does deal with this subject among other things.
Andrew Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave) is about to leave the school he has worked at for many years this however does not seem to bother his students. They are glad he is leaving. They claim he is a cruel, heartless man who never offered his students a fair chance. Are they right? When we see Crocker-Harris teach his class he is stern but no worse than any teacher I ever had. But in the course of the day Harris is learn much about himself, his students, his wife, his school and about life.
In many ways "The Browning Version" reminds me of Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries". Both film are about a man who realize his life has not added up to what he thought. He has been in fact a failure. Lost dreams and hopes have crowded his life. There is no passion anymore. In Bergman's film though the only hope the main character has is his son. If his son would not follow in his footsteps then perhaps there is hope.
"The Browning Version" is a quiet, subtle film that is very powerful. It could considered by many a "slow movie". But the imprint it left on me will last forever. It is a deep thoughtful study of who we are and how we've become this person. Many people may feel Michael Redgrave isn't doing much. You hear the same agrument against Bill Murray lately for the film "Broken Flowers", what people don't seem to realize is that is the character. They are doing something. They are in fact doing more with silence and reserve than most actors do with wild gestures.
"The Browning Version" is one of the greatest movies I have seen. I love these kind of thoughtful examination about who we are and our place in the world and I realize they are not for everyone still I recommend as many people as possible make an effort to see this movie.
Bottom-line: One of the greatest films ever made. A quite film that is admittedly slow but still powerful. Comparable to "Wild Strawberries".
Probably Redgrave's Greatest Screen Performance
In a classroom of a British public school modeled on Harrow, students are waiting for their classics master, Andrew Crocker-Harris. "I don't think the Crock gets a kick out of anything," says Taplow, one of the students. "In fact, I don't think he has any feelings at all. He's just dead, that's all...He can't hate people and he can't like people. And what's more, he doesn't like people to like him. If he'd give me a chance, I think I'd quite like him." "What"" says another student. "Well, I feel sorry for him, which is more or less the same thing, isn't it?"
Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave) is a middle-aged teacher, pedantic, precise, not so much dead inside as numb. He has taught 18 years at the school as the lower fifth classics master. He was once a brilliant scholar and could see a wonderful career as a teacher. His wife, Millie (Jean Kent), has become a shrew. She had her ambitions, too, and they eroded in the face of the couple's incompatibility. Millie longs for passion, intensity and respect; Crocker-Harris can provide none. His view of love has been almost platonic. It is apparent their intimate life has been nonexistent for years. "I may have been a brilliant scholar," Crocker-Harris says at one point, "but I was woefully ignorant of the facts of life." In this mix of frustration and deadened emotion is Frank Hunter (Nigel Patrick), the charming, smart upper fifth science master, a colleague of Crocker-Harris, who is cuckolding him.
The story takes place over two days at the end of term. Crocker-Harris is having to retire because of ill health. He'll be moving to a much smaller school, earning very little money, and is resigned to further failure. No one is particularly sorry to see him go, including the avuncular head of school, Frobisher (Wilfred Hyde-White), as supple as a snake. Crocker-Harris has no illusions left about himself. He says to the new teacher who will replace him next term, "I did try very hard to communicate to the boys...some of my own joy in the great literature of the past. Of course, I...I failed. As you will fail nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine times out of a thousand. But a single success can atone, more than atone, for all the failures in the world. And sometimes, very rarely, it is true, I had that success. That, of course, was in the early years."
Things come to a head when Taplow makes a gesture of friendship to Crocker-Harris. He gives his teacher a used copy of a verse translation of the Agamemnon, the Robert Browning version. Crocker-Harris' dull shell nearly breaks. Millie takes the gratuitous opportunity to say that Taplow was merely trying to curry favor. Hunter, long looking for a way to break off with Millie, sees the cracks that have appeared in Crocker-Harris. He is appalled at Millie. He discovers a greater appreciation for what destroyed Crocker-Harris' humanity, but also for what Crocker-Harris might have been. And Crocker-Harris finally faces his own feelings when he addresses the school and the boys at the end of term ceremony. The last scene we see is of Crocker-Harris walking across the school grounds, reading anew a verse translation of Agamemnon he had begun years ago and thrown out. Taplow found it and has given it back. He tells Crocker-Harris how exciting he thought it was after reading it, that it was like a real play with real people. Crocker-Harris, we believe, is beginning to rediscover what it is to be a teacher and a human being.
If any word characterizes this movie, it is restraint, and in the very best sense. Redgrave gives a superb performance as the repressed, sad Crocker-Harris. Only slowly do we see what has happened to him. Even then, as we learn more about his failures as a teacher and a husband, as pity turns into sympathy, the movie is careful not to make Millie a complete termagant. In many ways, she has become as sad and desolate as her husband. Terence Rattigan, the playwright, and Anthony Asquith, the director, have constructed a seamless story of apparent personal failure which, nonetheless, builds to a satisfying emotional ending. Redgrave, however, is what makes it work. His performance really is extraordinary.
The Criterion DVD picture is in excellent shape. There are a couple of extras.
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