Romantic Elements in the Film My Fair Lady (1964) : Examining the Likelihood of a Romantic Union between the Phonetician Henry Higgins and the Cockney Flower Seller Eliza Doolittle

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2018 im Fachbereich Englisch - Literatur, Werke, Note: 1,0, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: When looking at the intermedial adaptation process of Shaw's Pygmalion it soon becomes clear that the most central and controversial aspect of any adaptation has been the romantic resolution between Higgins and Eliza. Surprisingly, there are only few academic articles which focus on the analysis of the cinematic adaptation of the My Fair Lady musical in greater detail. It has therefore not been widely discussed yet in what specific ways the film's plot and its aesthetics convey or deny the likelihood of a Higgins-Eliza romance. However, as every movie should be considered as an individual work of art, it is highly important to not only examine the depiction of the relationship between Eliza and Higgins in Shaw's play Pygmalion and Lerner's musical adaptation, but also to have a look at the film version of My Fair Lady. The paper therefore seeks to analyse to what extent the cinematic adaptation of My Fair Lady conveys or denies the likelihood of a Higgins-Eliza romance. In order to do so, it will be important to look at different scenes of the movie while examining to what extent the film's plot and aesthetics suggest the possibility of a romantic relationship between Eliza and Higgins and how these romantic implications change our perception of the main characters. It will be shown that even though the screen version of My Fair Lady includes many romantic elements which hint at a possible romance between Higgins and Eliza, the film is still quite ambiguous on their relationship and leaves the audience much room to speculate about the nature of the character's feelings for one another.