Browning Version - James King

For: Stephen Samson, classicist

“I may have been a brilliant scholar, but I was woefully ignorant of the facts of life.”

-Professor Andrew Crocker-Harris

I could think of reasons ad infinitum why one mightn’t want see the Browning Version. For starters, it’s in black and white—an olden film about an ag-ed man. Not only ag-ed but sadly—an olden film centered around an ag-ed, sadly man. Now consider that this film is set in an English boarding school—a place inaccessible from our sunny, small, Southern public schools. Here, light never penetrates the walls of classrooms or repressed feeling. Expressions of human warmth and kindness could barely heat a kettle. Emotional Reticence is always the lesson of the day.

Ok, now I want to tell you why this movie is great and you should netflix it (advantage to the netflix age is that you could never find BV at a Movie Gallery, that being said, I very much miss the J’ville Movie Gallery—Thanks for the Memories).

v Acting ~ Every role is played to perfection. None more so than Micheal Redgrave in the lead as Andrew Crocker-Harris. Being desensitized by reality television and formulaic melodramas, it’s startling to see how much a talented actor can convey without histrionics or the need to blurt out feelings. You see something so much deeper by watching for subtle expressions or the things left unsaid.

v Simplicity ~ It’s a simple story of a retiring professor looking back over his life and realizing that he had somehow gotten it all wrong. Is it too late or can he yet atone and begin again?

v Entertainment ~ No drugs, explosions, or 3-way kisses, but somehow, someway this movie keeps you engaged to the point of riveted from beginning to end. Maybe the powerful, understated movie is now a lost art, the cinematic equivalent of ‘Greek fire’ (Stephen, yes!).

I do hope that you give poor Professor Crocker-Harris and his story a chance. Sometimes it’s the gloomy, colorless, difficult things that have the most to offer those willing to look.