294 The Browning Version

[Sloper]

I have no problem believing that, much like my highschool teacher was convinced Arthur Miller was establishing where modern tragedy takes place, Asquith's movie is demonstrating the shape of modern tragic drama: it's not elevated or loud or foreordained, it's quiet and filled with endless petty negative choices, it borders on farce without being particularly funny, yet it's sad to its hidden core if you look deeply at it, and in spite of this there is also dignity there. It's pretty thoroughly realism--it has an uneasy relationship with traditional genres--but it is a realism that has no interest in maintaining its bathos for satiric purposes. I think Crocker-Harris' dignity at the end is essential: it's the thing that stops this from being, say, Madame Bovary--the thing that makes it a movie that looks sadly on ordinary life without believing life is defined by its pettiness. It's not driven by the grand emotions like tragedy is, but neither is it bereft of them like farce.

I think that sums it up very well, and the comparison with Madame Bovary is instructive: I do think that her supremely undignified death has far more tragic weight because of that (far more than it would have had if she had died 'romantically'), but yes the tragedy there is precisely in the unremitting pettiness of it all, and Crocker-Harris' eventual dignity gestures towards an escape from that pettiness. I think the point we disagree on is whether this story is 'driven by the grand emotions like tragedy is', and again this all comes down to subjective response. But consider that moment when Hunter says to Millie, 'I think he's just been about as badly hurt as a human being can be'. It's a remarkable line in its way, because it refers to what Crocker-Harris himself tries to dismiss as 'a lot of fuss about a little book' - but Hunter (and the play, I think) insists that the emotions in play here are as grand as any in Greek tragedy. You do also say that the story is 'not bereft of' these emotions (the sticking point is whether it is 'driven by' them), so I'm not suggesting you're insensitive to what's going on in the drama: as I've said before, I think part of the brilliance of this film is that it allows for different levels of emotional response.

As I was watching the film, the villainy of the wife certainly stuck out to me, but like an earlier film club film, Miss Julie. In it, the mother in the film is seen as evil and is a fierce feminist. To me, there was less ambiguity there. Her feminism and resistance to traditional marital roles was the main source of friction in her marriage, and her innocent husband just wanted her to be a good old regular wife. She resisted this and caused the pain her family had to endure.

Yes, I thought of Miss Julie as well; I think The Browning Version is certainly more subtle and artful, and its misogyny is less pronounced and overt. On a trivial note, these two films were made in the same year, both based on plays, and both remade by Mike Figgis in the 90s (one far more successfully than the other).

The young couple from the cricket match seem to be fine, however.

Sorry, but I thought they were loathsome! 'Don't gossip, dear - oh, and do go on.'

Crocker fully trusts his wife! He is certain she has never lied to him.

Yes, but doesn't this make it all the more chilling? When Hunter finds out that Millie has been telling her husband all about the affair from the beginning, he says that this is 'too horrible to think of' (the Croc's response is wonderful: 'Nothing is too horrible to think of. It is simply a question of facing facts'). You can trust a Boa constrictor not to mess you around while it crushes you to death... And anyway, surely the real point about Millie's 'honesty' is that it is in fact a misrepresentation of the truth? Crocker-Harris believes the 'facts' Millie faces him with, including the 'facts' that he is 'dead', and that Taplow was simply manipulating him, but neither of these things is true. Not totally unlike the husband in Gaslight, Millie has taken advantage of the isolated conditions of marriage to instil certain ideas in her husband - about himself, about his career, about the way others see him, about his future - and escaping from these is seen as one of the main preconditions of his redemption at the end.

One of the things that really stuck out to me throughout the film was the use of lighting, especially on Crocker. There seems to be at play a use of light and dark that seems to showcase Crocker's feeling and there seems to be the idea of light as a source of power. At the first dinner we see Crocker and his wife sit down for, Crocker is in total darkness while his wife is in the light. At this point, she still holds all power in the relationship. But as the film progresses, there are examples of Crocker "coming into the light" as it were. When Crocker delivers his monologue to the teacher replacing him, he walks towards the windows and is shown in more light. He is opening up and becoming more emotional as he begins to come to terms with where his life and career really are. When he breaks down in tears in front of Taplow, he is nearly entirely in light. There are times when he also steps back into darkness, saying "not so very apt" after reading a translation, as if he is going back into the character he has been as a teacher for the last 18 years, the character at the end that he realizes is inadequate.

Lastly, the scene towards the end where Hunter is trying to extend himself to Crocker, though Crocker resists the pleasantries, he is obviously overwhelmed by the gesture. And in this scene, he seems to rock back and forth in his chair from light to shadow.

I am not familiar with plays really at all, but there was plenty of strong staging and uses of light which really helped strengthen the appearance of Crocker's revelation about his life and his wife's use of power. Whether these would also work in a play, I don't know, but they sure seemed cinematic to me.

I think you're absolutely right, and this play with light and shadow is masterful throughout the film. That first dinner with Crocker-Harris and Millie is indeed a particularly striking moment. I'd also add to this the fireworks scene at the end, where husband and wife are alternately illuminated and cast into darkness as the explosions go off above them. Millie stares wildly and desperately into the sky as she repeats, referring to Hunter, 'He's coming to Bradford', visibly trying to cling to something she is losing her grip on; Crocker-Harris blinks up into the light with his mole-like expression as he begins, for the first time, to assert himself, visibly trying to accustom himself to a newly (though as yet ambiguously) illuminated existence. By the way, when he says 'not so very apt', I think he is ruefully (and wrongly) suggesting that the quotation, 'God from afar looks graciously upon a gentle master' does not really apply to him, because he is not gentle ('the Himmler of the lower fifth - I suppose that will become my epitaph').

Architecture plays a big role in these light/shadow dynamics. The film begins with a long shot of the school, an imposing old medieval building into which we see a stream of boys running for their morning prayers. When we go inside the chapel, too, we might assume that the film will be all about imposing, oppressive structures, but in fact the key note of the first few minutes is the way in which rules and structures are bent or simply broken: the porter indulgently lets the late boy into the chapel, the headmaster begins by announcing a change in the rules to accommodate the popular Fletcher, we learn that most masters don't observe the rules regarding 'promotions', Hunter lets his class off early, and so on. Most of these people, masters and pupils alike, operate comfortably and naturally within the seemingly forbidding world of this public school.

Even in the chapel scene, however, we can see that Crocker-Harris is an exception. We first see him seated at the end of a row, hemmed in by pupils on all sides and looking uncomfortable and isolated. Amid all the rule-bending we've seen by that point, it's particularly noticeable that he looks sharply across at the boy who was late, and that everyone waits for him to stand up before standing up themselves. The most obvious way to look at his character in the early scenes is to read him as a 'stickler for the rules' who tyrannises over his pupils by forcing them to conform to various pre-existing structures.

However, the light/dark imagery and the use of architectural space helps to show, even before we get to know this character, that he is the one trapped in and oppressed by these structures. In his classroom, unlike in Hunter's, there are too many shadows, and it's telling that this same quality seems to have crept into his comparatively modern home as well (notice how Millie, in her early scene with Frank, is associated with the clinging ivy that swarms all over the exterior of the building, and with the sharp, cage-like trellises on the walls, suggesting both the tangled trap into which Frank has fallen and the prison Crocker-Harris' home has become). That magnificent scene in the classroom where the Croc tells Gilbert about the trajectory of his career is, as you say, a case in point: your reading of that scene is certainly persuasive, though for me when the Croc looks up at the light coming in through the window this suggests a wistful memory of the better times he's recalling, when he was in his way a successful teacher. I'd like to point out a really wonderful touch in Redgrave's performance (and/or Asquith's direction) here: when the Croc says that 'a single success can atone, and more than atone, for all the failures in the world', he affectionately pats the front of one of the desks as he says 'and more than atone', evidently remembering the gifted pupil who once sat there.

For much of the film, it's as if the archaic school buildings have oppressed and infected Crocker-Harris, to the point where he seems to have become part of those fixed, outdated structures, looking sadly down at the pupils and teachers living and working with more freedom and agency than he could ever muster. The play, which is set entirely in the Crocker-Harrises' living room, could not easily achieve these effects. And there's a similarly clever touch when the film opens the play out even further, to the cricket match, and despite the outdoor setting we see Crocker-Harris' painful conversation with the headmaster (the bit about the pension) against the background of the sad, grey, flapping canvas of the refreshments tent. Throughout this sequence, the Croc wears a hat with the brim turned down as though it has wilted, and it adds to the defeated air that hangs over him - the exact same effect is used in Figgis' film, but doesn't work at all because Albert Finney simply cannot suggest the same level of vulnerability as Redgrave. (I kept expecting him to take a swing at someone.) Notice Millie's hat, which appears to have two large, imposing, insect-like wings, and which makes for some clever lighting effects when we see her laying into her husband: the right wing of her hat is in the light, the left in shadow; in the other half of the screen, the right edge of Crocker-Harris' profile is in the light, the left in shadow; from the right, seeing only what appears in public, a woman and her son look on and comment on the contrast between the lovely wife and the horrid husband, but we have a privileged view of the dark truth about this marriage.

Later, there's a poignant moment where the Croc applauds Fletcher's performance in the cricket match, standing apart from the other spectators and clapping with the air of - I'm really not sure how to describe the effect, but here's a stab at it - a much older man, frail and decrepit, bringing his hands together with a sort of desperate intensity, but also a sense of utter detachment from what he is applauding; and then he sadly walks back towards the school. Another superlative bit of acting from Redgrave, though as I say it's hard to explain what's so good about it.

In the final scene, when the Croc is speaking to Taplow, he is framed against the school once more, but now we see an open window behind him - perhaps it would be misguided to read too much into this, but it does subtly contribute to the new, tentative sense that the Croc is 'opening up', that the school is no longer quite such a prison for him, and that he can function both within and without it. Far less subtle is the final shot itself, which is the same as the opening shot - there's the tall, imposing medieval building again - except that now Crocker-Harris is framed in the foreground, standing just as tall as the building itself, looking proudly up from his version of the Agamamenon, and striding confidently towards the school as though perhaps he does belong there and can be comfortable there. Not that he's likely to actually carry on working at this school, since that would hardly be fair on Mr Gilbert, but he seems to feel he may have some kind of future as an educator and as a human being.

I have to say that despite bingeing on Asquith's films lately - Cottage on Dartmoor, Underground (a new one for me, incredible film, especially with Chris Watson's innovative score), Pygmalion, The Way to the Stars, The Winslow Boy, as well as Cottage to Let and The Importance of Being Earnest a couple of years ago - I'm none the wiser as to what exactly it is that sets him apart and distinguishes him from other great directors of this time. You can rely on him to direct actors extremely well, to get the pacing just right, to break out flamboyant cinematic tricks when the material needs them but (as MichaelB said above) to leave well enough alone when that's appropriate (though it is interesting that so much of that youthful flamboyance seems to have been left behind in the space between the silents and Pygmalion)… But while my respect for him as an artist hasn't depleted at all, I'm at a loss to see any kind of personal stamp on these films. He clearly had a fruitful relationship with Rattigan, so perhaps exploring the common ground between them might help to enhance our understanding of Asquith's particular outlook and particular strengths.

I also have a question/point I'd like to make about the Britishness of the film. It reminded me a lot early on of David Lean's 1940s films, which almost seem to celebrate British manners while also laughing at / mocking them a bit. One of the lines early in the film that made me laugh was "Do you want to see the timetable for next term?" While now I see that it was, indeed, exactly the kind of thing the character would say, it made me laugh early on.

Ha! Having been a teacher for a few years, I have to say I completely empathised with the enthusiasm for the timetable. Before the start of a new academic year, there is nothing I'm more eager to find out than the schedule for my classes. A good timetable is like manna from heaven, and a bad one can mean a year of pure hell. Well, that's an exaggeration, but still…

Anyway, you're right again, I think the film is definitely making a wry comment on manners and conventions. And if you want to be reassured about this issue of British 'stereotyping', you might want to check out another Rattigan/Asquith collaboration, The Way to the Stars - it's a beautiful film in its own right, but among other things it explores the clash between uptight Brits and brash Americans on an airfield during World War II. Having said that, it's less about the 'clash' than the common ground they share, for instance the way that the Americans' outspoken manner is simply another way of not expressing what they really feel. The film is specifically about how the context of the war forces restraint on people, because in such a situation, when friends and loved ones are dropping like flies every day, expressing each and every feeling with undiluted honesty would make life intolerable, but part of the film's greatness is that the dynamics it observes operate well beyond the wartime setting. So this is clearly something that interests Rattigan and Asquith; see also The Winslow Boy, of course.

But like the question of whether this film is anti-marriage, I think each person's response is heavily dependent on whether they view Millie to be a singular character, or representative of women in general.

Yes, absolutely: and from what little I know of Rattigan's other works (especially the two mentioned above), he was quite capable of writing female characters who were just as rounded and sympathetic as his male characters, and of offering a far more redemptive view of marriage. But I'd really have to know more about him and his other plays to say more about this.

[Drucker]

Architecture plays a big role in these light/shadow dynamics. The film begins with a long shot of the school, an imposing old medieval building into which we see a stream of boys running for their morning prayers. When we go inside the chapel, too, we might assume that the film will be all about imposing, oppressive structures, but in fact the key note of the first few minutes is the way in which rules and structures are bent or simply broken: the porter indulgently lets the late boy into the chapel, the headmaster begins by announcing a change in the rules to accommodate the popular Fletcher, we learn that most masters don't observe the rules regarding 'promotions', Hunter lets his class off early, and so on. Most of these people, masters and pupils alike, operate comfortably and naturally within the seemingly forbidding world of this public school.

Even in the chapel scene, however, we can see that Crocker-Harris is an exception. We first see him seated at the end of a row, hemmed in by pupils on all sides and looking uncomfortable and isolated. Amid all the rule-bending we've seen by that point, it's particularly noticeable that he looks sharply across at the boy who was late, and that everyone waits for him to stand up before standing up themselves. The most obvious way to look at his character in the early scenes is to read him as a 'stickler for the rules' who tyrannises over his pupils by forcing them to conform to various pre-existing structures.

However, the light/dark imagery and the use of architectural space helps to show, even before we get to know this character, that he is the one trapped in and oppressed by these structures. In his classroom, unlike in Hunter's, there are too many shadows, and it's telling that this same quality seems to have crept into his comparatively modern home as well (notice how Millie, in her early scene with Frank, is associated with the clinging ivy that swarms all over the exterior of the building, and with the sharp, cage-like trellises on the walls, suggesting both the tangled trap into which Frank has fallen and the prison Crocker-Harris' home has become). That magnificent scene in the classroom where the Croc tells Gilbert about the trajectory of his career is, as you say, a case in point: your reading of that scene is certainly persuasive, though for me when the Croc looks up at the light coming in through the window this suggests a wistful memory of the better times he's recalling, when he was in his way a successful teacher. I'd like to point out a really wonderful touch in Redgrave's performance (and/or Asquith's direction) here: when the Croc says that 'a single success can atone, and more than atone, for all the failures in the world', he affectionately pats the front of one of the desks as he says 'and more than atone', evidently remembering the gifted pupil who once sat there.

For much of the film, it's as if the archaic school buildings have oppressed and infected Crocker-Harris, to the point where he seems to have become part of those fixed, outdated structures, looking sadly down at the pupils and teachers living and working with more freedom and agency than he could ever muster. The play, which is set entirely in the Crocker-Harrises' living room, could not easily achieve these effects. And there's a similarly clever touch when the film opens the play out even further, to the cricket match, and despite the outdoor setting we see Crocker-Harris' painful conversation with the headmaster (the bit about the pension) against the background of the sad, grey, flapping canvas of the refreshments tent. Throughout this sequence, the Croc wears a hat with the brim turned down as though it has wilted, and it adds to the defeated air that hangs over him - the exact same effect is used in Figgis' film, but doesn't work at all because Albert Finney simply cannot suggest the same level of vulnerability as Redgrave. (I kept expecting him to take a swing at someone.) Notice Millie's hat, which appears to have two large, imposing, insect-like wings, and which makes for some clever lighting effects when we see her laying into her husband: the right wing of her hat is in the light, the left in shadow; in the other half of the screen, the right edge of Crocker-Harris' profile is in the light, the left in shadow; from the right, seeing only what appears in public, a woman and her son look on and comment on the contrast between the lovely wife and the horrid husband, but we have a privileged view of the dark truth about this marriage.

Later, there's a poignant moment where the Croc applauds Fletcher's performance in the cricket match, standing apart from the other spectators and clapping with the air of - I'm really not sure how to describe the effect, but here's a stab at it - a much older man, frail and decrepit, bringing his hands together with a sort of desperate intensity, but also a sense of utter detachment from what he is applauding; and then he sadly walks back towards the school. Another superlative bit of acting from Redgrave, though as I say it's hard to explain what's so good about it.

In the final scene, when the Croc is speaking to Taplow, he is framed against the school once more, but now we see an open window behind him - perhaps it would be misguided to read too much into this, but it does subtly contribute to the new, tentative sense that the Croc is 'opening up', that the school is no longer quite such a prison for him, and that he can function both within and without it. Far less subtle is the final shot itself, which is the same as the opening shot - there's the tall, imposing medieval building again - except that now Crocker-Harris is framed in the foreground, standing just as tall as the building itself, looking proudly up from his version of the Agamamenon, and striding confidently towards the school as though perhaps he does belong there and can be comfortable there. Not that he's likely to actually carry on working at this school, since that would hardly be fair on Mr Gilbert, but he seems to feel he may have some kind of future as an educator and as a human being.

Your point about the architecture is well-taken, Sloper. I wonder if the most tragic thing about Crocker-Harris is that he was his own worst enemy. So many questions remain about his early days: why did he give up his translation? Why did he get assigned to the upper-level class he was assigned to as his first assignment? All that promise he showed: where did it go? And I think your point about being trapped inside structures and conventions helps to point the way.

I would posit that his early successes must have had something to do with toeing the line, doing what he perceived as the right thing to do, and never questioning those rules. He was probably the most qualified candidate for his job, and he then received it. But did he marry his wife merely because it was the "right thing to do?" He doesn't put up any fight when he is denied a pension because the rules are the rules, and his situation was not an "extraordinary circumstance." His love of rules also comes into play when he admonishes the student who was late for chapel, and refusing throughout most of the film to let Taplow know if he got a promotion. Again, I have to assume that at some point, or for most of his early life, following the rules led to great success for him, and he never learned to buck the trend.

Reinforcing it, the film never shows those who broke the rules and get away with it as honorable characters. Hunter is clearly going throughout a personal, moral turmoil about his affair. Crocker-Harris knows his wife isn't exactly happy in her life, and her affair hasn't seemed to bring her much happiness. The cricket player is painted as getting a bit of pre-mature glory, and the Headmaster who doesn't give Crocker-Harris a pension is seen as negative in many ways.

Not only is Crocker-Harris bound in a structure, but staying there almost seems to afford him the moral high ground, no matter how miserable his life becomes.

[jindianajonz]

Reinforcing it, the film never shows those who broke the rules and get away with it as honorable characters.

I agree with you as far as the fact that the Croc ended up where he is because he stuck to the rules, and that he is comforted by the fact that his path is the moral one, but (and perhaps I'm misunderstanding you) I don't think the film reinforces that breaking the rules is dishonorable. Hunter, despite his affair with Millie, is shown as being very honorable- he is the only character to stand up to the injustice Crocker-Harris faces, while everybody else is content to walk all over him. And the two actions that are the clearest indicators that Crocker-Harris is undergoing a personal transformation for the better- leaving his wife and telling Taplow he can proceed to upper fifth- celebrate the fact that he has broken social and administrative rules, respectively.

EDIT: Thinking on it a bit more, I think you could make a fair case that those who follow the rules are at the mercy of those who are willing to buck them, which certainly sums up Crocker-Harris' relationship with the headmaster, and also applies somewhat to his wife, though his wife is just as trapped in the relationship as Crocker-Harris is.

[Drucker]

Totally agree with your last point (the edit), though of course his wife doesn't mind bending those rules.

But I'd still maintain that Hunter is shown to be a troubled character. While he is certainly likeable, it's mostly because of his unease in going through with what he knows to be immoral actions. And he doesn't break it off with Millie because he can't stand being dishonorable, he breaks it off more to stand up for his friend.

Perhaps Crocker and Hunter are occupying a similar place within the movie. It's as if they have been ignoring an instinctive nagging feeling that has caused...internal harm in their life. They know they've degraded themselves, and are ready to come together at the end of the movie to take the next step in rehabilitating their lives.

I don't mean to have the words "moral" and "honor" necessarily obscure my larger point about the good people trying hard to do the right thing, though circumstances may inhibit it and bad people almost seemingly using negative circumstances to harm someone (Headmaster and Millie's treatment of Crocker Harris). Those people, in the end, are not shown in a favorable light. Of course good and bad does sound a bit reductive.

[jindianajonz]

Some interesting points, but I'm still having a tough time seeing Hunter as a "troubled" character. After all, it isn't guilt that drives him to end the affair, it's his discovery of Millie's cruel streak, and that he had the victim and aggressor of the relationship switched around. Aside from a few apologies, he never broods over the fact that he has done Crocker-Harris a great wrong- he quickly jumps into the role of fixing Crocker-Harris' life as if it were a passion project of his. I'd almost compare his character to Spike Lee's "magical negro"- Hunter seems to exist only to help the downtrodden find their way. He gives Taplow an ear to vent about his problems with the Croc, he gives Millie the love that had been missing from her relationship (until he found her undeserving of that love), and he helps set the Croc on the path towards a more satisfying life. I don't really see growth in Hunter's character, I just see him changing direction.

Also, although I don't have anything to add to your already excellent post Drucker, your observations about the use of light in this film has me wanting to go back and watch this a fourth time!

[Sloper]

I think you've both hit on some really good points there, and this seems a complex (and perhaps insoluble) issue. But reading Drucker's comments made me think that there is something a bit 'Letzte Mann'-ish about Crocker-Harris, and that the film is in a sense quite critical of the way rules are routinely bent or broken, because as jindiana puts it, 'those who follow the rules are at the mercy of those who are willing to buck them'. My emphasis was more on the way that supposed 'jokes' are shown to have serious and wounding effects, but it's also true that much of the Croc's suffering stems from the ease with which others can make compromises. There's another telling moment at the start, when the headmaster comments disapprovingly on Hunter's failure to impose discipline on his class - but a minute later, as the headmaster passes by Hunter's classroom again, he indulgently ignores the raucous noise coming from it. This is a culture where there are lots of rules, but everyone just pays lip-service to them (see also Hunter's ostensibly disapproving but actually quite indulgent attitude to Taplow's mockery of the Croc), and weirdly we do end up feeling quite indignant on Crocker-Harris' behalf about his isolated position as the only rule-follower around.

And the two actions that are the clearest indicators that Crocker-Harris is undergoing a personal transformation for the better- leaving his wife and telling Taplow he can proceed to upper fifth- celebrate the fact that he has broken social and administrative rules, respectively.

Maybe these two points can be disputed: does Crocker-Harris really 'leave his wife', or does he just decide to allow her to leave him? It's a big step nonetheless, and you can see this from the way he looks up in alarm (and with a touch of relief, and even pride) when Millie finally walks out, but he's still being quite passive, and not technically breaking any rules.

Also, technically, he never tells Taplow that he has his promotion. In fact he refuses to do so, insisting that the decision will be communicated through the usual channels, and Taplow doesn't express an ounce of resentment or frustration at this moment, perhaps having developed a new-found respect and understanding for Crocker-Harris' ways. What Crocker-Harris does then is to say, in parting, 'And Taplow - if you have any regard for me, you will refrain from blowing yourself up next year, in the science upper fifth.' The effect would not be nearly so powerful if he simply said, 'Yes, Taplow - you've got your promotion.' He communicates this good news indirectly, and in such a way as to affirm the bond of friendship that has formed between him and his pupil: he asks Taplow to show 'regard' for him by looking after himself. And of course it's another one of those lame little jokes that Taplow has been laughing at (politely, as the Croc knows), so it subtly references that aspect of their relationship as well. On the surface, the stress seems to be more on continuity than change - he is the same old Croc as before - but the key difference is in Crocker-Harris' new-found capacity to form and maintain a meaningful bond with another human being.

So I'm not convinced that he has learnt to bend the rules by the end of the film. Indeed, his triumph comes from his admission that he himself has consistently broken the most important rule there is, by failing to live up to his responsibilities in 'the noblest profession a man can follow - the care and moulding of the young'. He concludes, 'I will not find it so easy to forgive myself'. His strict sense of right and wrong is ultimately part of what redeems him at the end, and maybe that's one of the reasons why the pupils all cheer him and say 'Good old Croc'; he's applied that relentless stringency to himself, and shown that he was at least trying (though failing) to do the right thing all along.

The whole issue of the Croc's 'jokes' is a fascinating one, though I'm not sure what to say about it. He explains (to Gilbert) that in his early years as a teacher, he exaggerated his own little mannerisms, tricks of speech and bad jokes in order to make his pupils laugh at him, because 'you can teach far more through laughter than through earnestness'. But then, as the years went on, the pupils stopped laughing, apparently because of the sickness that has crept into the Croc's soul - not, he insists, because of his physical illness. Perhaps this gives some insight into the Croc's reliance on conventions, structures, mannerisms and so on.

[Drucker]

Sloper, one thing I found...I almost want to say infuriating was how banal the cricket player's speech was! Am I wrong in thinking that the speech is the only time where we get to see Croc's greatness on display? His translation was never finished, his day teaching is really nothing significant. Part of the tragedy of the man is that he never lived up to his potential. But that speech, especially coming after the person who was originally supposed to upstage him, must have touched a nerve with the students, who are used to a pretty stuffy atmosphere in their school. This must have felt like quite a relief from the boring day to day.

[Black Hat]

With regard to the film's title the Browning version of Agamemnon was and continued to be what shaped the course of Crocker-Harris' life. The importance of the gift wasn't the act of kindness in and of itself but rather a recognition of this fact. The book drove Crocker-Harris to be a scholar but his scholarly contribution to what he cared most about ultimately defeated him, turning him into the villainy figure of 'The Crock'. Taplow's gift reminded him of the idealism he'd lost, the man who he once aspired to be. The realization that he failed failed in that aspiration was a crushing blow, a shattering of every illusion, 'The Crock', he had created to protect himself from this fact. In effect the Browning version of the book initially served as Crocker-Harris' inspiration but as with every intoxicant, when it wears off your spirit is left for dead right unless you are somehow lucky to have life reintroduced to you.

At first I agreed with Jindiana about the ending. Teenagers are nothing if not a cynical lot and for an assembly of them to turn on a dime from those words the way they did struck me as incredibly implausible. Implausible not necessarily for the turn itself but rather for turning in that fashion, reacting to a consistently frightful man having an emotional breakdown that even then was cold and distant. Then I watched the scene again and realized I was projecting my own cynicism on to the characters, I wanted Crocker-Harris to be someone he was not. Now I understand that the scene is handled masterfully. The shots of a clearly engaged, rooting for Crocker-Harris, Hunter and Gilbert work as building blocks to reconciling that disconnect. Then you have Taplow's classmate asking if he 'meant all that' but what makes it all come together are the few beats of silence until the first wave of clapping which is then followed by the students encouraging each other, in contrast to what Crocker-Harris just said he failed to do for them, to clap louder for him. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was redemption for 'The Crock' as a teacher but I would argue that it was redemption thru acceptance of Crocker-Harris as a flawed, vulnerable man.

Some interesting points, but I'm still having a tough time seeing Hunter as a "troubled" character. After all, it isn't guilt that drives him to end the affair, it's his discovery of Millie's cruel streak, and that he had the victim and aggressor of the relationship switched around. Aside from a few apologies, he never broods over the fact that he has done Crocker-Harris a great wrong- he quickly jumps into the role of fixing Crocker-Harris' life as if it were a passion project of his.

The great wrong Hunter, as Crocker-Harris made clear himself, wasn't the affair. The wrong was that it was his presence that worked as an enabler to Millie's emotional abuse. It was the realization, 'If I live to be a hundred I won't forget this glimpse you've just given me... He's been about as badly hurts as a human being can be', that he was in any way responsible which motivated him to help Crocker-Harris.

To pivot from that, a question I'd like to pose is there any room to view Millie as a tragic figure?

Yes she behaves abhorrently but she's also a person who has been stuck in prison and the man she's lashing out at is her captor. Contrary to the belief in some circles the film is misogynistic I feel it made an effort to have us sympathize with Millie. Her, "I know you don't give two hoots about me as a person but i never minded as long as you wanted me as a woman" is as an equally painful declaration as Crocker-Harris' final speech. In a respect you can give her credit for at least acknowledging that her spirit was dead and attempting to do something about it long before her husband, which I'm sure was yet another source of frustration for her.

Later, at the dinner party, what works perhaps against this notion and what some may feel even condemns Millie is when the wives are remarking on the Crocker-Harris' calling their marriage as one 'between mind and body'. The younger, attractive lady comments, "My sympathies always side with the body", which led to one of the few funny lines of the film from the old lady who looking her up and down first deadpans, "I have no doubt". The joke aside this to me is a very key scene and all three women, despite what the feel about her personally, clearly sympathize with Millie's plight. How do we feel about this scene? Is this a form of misogyny or does it succeed in making us feel for Millie?

[Shrew]

Millie and Misogyny
I don't think accusations of misogyny are unfounded, as Millie is a dreadful harpy and clearly the worst thing to ever happen to Crocker-Harris, but there's equal room in the text to argue against it. As everyone's mentioned, she's a fully realized and specific character, which makes it hard to apply the flaws of her character to femininity in general. Further, I think there's enough material there to manage a more feminist reinterpretation of the character. To me, she seems like Lady MacBeth if her husband had refused to listen to her and quieted his ambitions. She's a vibrant and ambitious woman, but marriage ultimately ties her fortunes to those of her husband, and so her railings against him are as much against the institution that traps her as they are against the man himself. So while I think her behavior approaches a form of hysteria at points, there are other motivations which make her anger less essentially "feminine" and easy to dismiss as misogynistic.

With the homosexual undercurrents, the relationship reminds me to that of the parents in 2011's Beginners. There again, a more passionate and ambitious woman is married to a gay man and stuck at home raising a child, all the while developing a cold and futile dissatissfaction toward her husband. While it's a much brighter movie, it's a similar view of marriage as a potential trap in which the frustrated desires of husband and wife can give birth to darker and crueler emotions.

Hunter
Calling Hunter "troubled" seems inapt, as he acts quite carefree throughout the film, up until the point he realizes how much Millie has done to hurt Crocker-Harris. He doesn't seem particularly guilty about his adulterous affairs up to that point, and further it seems that there have been several over the years. His anxiety seems to be more over how to gently leave Millie, about whom he doesn't care enough to remember a concert date, and ending the relationship without having to be haunted by her jealousy.

But overall, I think he's mainly meant as the foil to Crocker-Harris. Carefree, flexible, and beloved by his students where the Croc is not. Interestingly it's the scientist who's laid-back and the humanitarian who's not, which seems an inverse of the usual roles (though granted, classicists don't have the best reputation for being fun and loose either). Up to the point where Hunter sees Millie torture Crocker-Harris, it seems he never really paid attention to the effect he and his actions might have on others. Whereas Crocker-Harris seems to be acutely and tortuously anxious of how others see him, and it gives him great pain to think he is so feared. I do think this is a major moment of growth for Hunter.

The Croc as a Joke
I think the bit of dialogue Sloper quoted above is key insight into Crocker-Harris. What's not said in the exchange, but implied by Crocker-Harris's mortified reactions to so many jokes, is how much it must have hurt him to be laughed it. In many ways, this is the same field of psychology that's been explored by a lot of comedians--mainly comedy as a way of coping. But here, Crocker-Harris is never able to take control of that laughter, and so he is forced to eternally be the butt of jokes, and I think that's a major part of what must have been so poisonous to him. I think what happened to Crocker-Harris isn't that students stopped thinking he was funny, but that he slowly internalized the pain of being a joke, until he metamorphized into the Croc.

As seen in the brief classroom scene, there really isn't anything funny about the Croc and his mannerisms anymore, but it doesn't seem like he's intentionally cruel either. Somewhere along the line he took on this cold, robotic, and unfeeling demeanor to deal with his own pain. Unconsciously he may be externalizing that pain upon his current students.

The Browning Version
Mr. Sausage's explanation of Browning's translation is enlightening. I assume that the old-fashioned style of translation is the one that Taplow is being forced into by Crocker-Harris during their tutoring session (where he is corrected from "you" to "thou" and "can" to "canst"). The Browning Version may represent a move away from that, but it also doesn't seem fully formed or easily understandable, like Crocker-Harris.