![The Browning Version (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51xQ1hvZXaL._SX300_SY300_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
![The Browning Version [DVD]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/21X3gyRJy2L._AC_UL160_SR160,160_.jpg)
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.
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Top reviews from other countries
scootersda
The best version of one of Terence Rattigan's best plays/films.
Reviewed in Canada on August 19, 2018
Dale Scott
Wish there were more films like this one.
Reviewed in Australia on November 12, 2019Don Rowberry Wellington N.Z.
A Desert Island DVD
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2011