Anthony Asquith

 Anthony Asquith




Pygmalion (1938)

The Woman in Question (1950)

The Browning Version (1951)





RANKED:


3. The Woman in Question (1950)


After the Second World War, the predominance of the population could have done with a greater amount of empathy for their fellow human. That's what Anthony Asquith's 1950 detective story "The Woman in Question" gets at the heart at. After the murder of a woman in her apartment, the police question various people in her life, all provide a very different viewpoint of the same woman. If it signifies anything, it signifies how much we distort the perception we have of one another, perhaps even for the worse.



2. Pygmalion (1938)


I think we all know the story of "Pygmalion," whether you realize it or not. Based on the famous 1913 stage play by George Bernard Shaw, "Pygmalion" tells the story of a linguist professor who turns a lowly street peddler into a duchess. Whether you know this story as "My Fair Lady," "Educating Rita," "Can't Buy Me Love," "She's All That," or even stories with a similar vein like "The Princess Diaries," for example. Regardless of its form, the story is ever-present and always timely. Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard's 1938 rendition of the story is perhaps the most celebrated in the film medium. It's themes and complex examination of 'properness' and 'etiquette' also inherently examine the very nature of being 'British.'




1. The Browning Version (1951)


Despite adapting from other source materials, there always seems to be common themes amongst Anthony Asquith films. These themes involve questions regarding our misconceptions about others, how we interact with other people, and the notions of what it means to be "British." In his 1951 adaptation of the famous British stage play, "The Browning Version," Asquith demonstrates how our misconceptions about someone reveal deeper truths about the changing nature of our society. The film centers on an embittered, authoritarian schoolmaster who must resign from his post after a health scare. In doing so, he reflects on the way he taught his students and the way he engaged with the people around him. The emotional outpour reveals a reflective side of the professor, as he questions whether he was a 'failure' on not. Perhaps the deeper understanding of the film comes from notions of etiquette, adherence, and authority that seem to represent a fading element of British society that is now gone with the way of the war. A new modernity takes root and "The Browning Version" seems to melancholically reflect on whether this sense of "Britishness" is now gone with the wind and whether it was ever beneficial to begin with.

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