All language subtitles for Intro to A question of Attribution

A Question of Attribution
is a film about Sir Anthony Blunt,

the keeper of the Queen's pictures.

When he was exposed
as a Soviet spy in 1 979,

on spec, I made some notes
of the kind of conversation

he and the Queen might have had

as he was hanging a picture
in Buckingham Palace.

This later became the heart of the play

I wrote for the National Theatre
in 1 988.

The painting at the centre of the play

is actually a picture
in the Royal Collection,

a triple portrait attributed to Titian.

Originally, the painting had included
only two figures.

Cleaning revealed a third figure.

An x-ray revealed a fourth figure.

And when the painting was revolved,
there was the shadow of a fifth figure.

The analogy with the Cambridge spies
seemed obvious.

Say the two original figures
stand in for the first defectors,

Burgess and Maclean,

and the third figure the next defector,
Kim Philby,

the fourth figure is Blunt,

and the fifth figure is...
Well, who knows?

It was this painting
and related art historical matters

which provided the framework
of the play,

though the deeply ambiguous conversation
the Queen has with Blunt

is at its heart.

Blunt himself remains
a fascinating figure.

Hated by some of his colleagues,
adored by others.

I never met or even saw him,
but as with Guy Burgess,

I feel more kindly towards him
because he made such good jokes.

He was bisexual.

And at a party
at the Courtauld Institute,

of which he was the director,

a colleague saw him locked in the arms
of one of his female students.

Later on in the evening,

the same colleague saw him
still on the same sofa,

but this time
with one of his male students.

''Oh, Anthony,'' said the colleague,
''you're so fickle.''

''I know,'' said Blunt. ''But remember,
many a fickle makes a fuckle.''