"All I want to do is save the children, not destroy them. More than anything, I love children. More than anything. They need affection. Love. Someone who will belong to them, and to whom they will belong." ~ Miss Giddens
 |
| Deborah Kerr is Miss Giddens in The Innocents (61). Adapted by Truman Capote from the play, The Turn of the Screw by William Archibald, directed by Jack Clayton. If you're USian, you might have seen Clayton's big screen adaptations of The Great Gatsby ('74) and Something Wicked This Way Comes* ('83), but perhaps not his British films. |
Spinster (twenty-something in the James, Kerr was thirty-nine) Miss Giddens is hired to oversee a pair of Bad Orphans by their indifferent uncle. Are they so bad? Miss Giddens might be the only one who sees the ghosts of the former groundskeeper, Peter Quint (Jason King, future agent of Interpol's Department S), and the previous governess, Mary Jessel (Clytie Jessop). And the kids are liars, or perhaps just blessed with an abundance of imagination, or both. Too bad Miss Giddens is not experienced with children. Cobwebs and candelabras, a woman alone... The Innocents is based on "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James. Like The Haunting, it isn't terrifying, but a palpable dread seeps throughout. And like The Haunting (or any good ghost story told around Christmas, as the James novella is), the story resonates through the ages. I see its fingerprints on countless movies, including The Haunting.
 |
| Miss Giddens: Let's put away our books, and let's pretend it's Flora's birthday! |
 |
| Uncle: Miss Giddens, may I ask you a somewhat personal question? Do you have an imagination? |
 |
| Miss Giddens: Oh, yes, I can answer that. Yes. |
 |
| Uncle: Good. Truth is very seldom understood by any but imaginative persons... and I want to be quite truthful. |
- Miles: I'm not a mind reader, my dear. I've told you that before.
- But I do sense things.
 |
| Flora: Oh, look, a lovely spider: it's eating a butterfly. |
 |
| Miles: It was only the wind, my dear. |
There are echoes of it in The Babadook, The Others, The Lodge, The Shining, and many others. The Lodge in particular seemed like a spectacularly grim remake of The Innocents. One of the novellas in King's Different Seasons – "The Breathing Method" – adopts the framing of men telling ghost stories around a fire around Christmastime. Ghost Story by Straub employs it as a device too... Random musing really, sorry.
I have a fondness for the 1898 novella. Combine it with the music of another favorite, and it's magic. For me anyway. Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, libretto by Myfanwy Piper. WARNING! opera ahead, so put on your opera pants:
* Speaking of something wicked, here's a Tumblr with film gifs of women carrying candles, oil lamps, and candelabras alone in the dark:
ETA: RIP, Teri Garr. Now there was a woman who knew the difference between a large candlestick and an enormous schwanzstucker:
Happy All Hallow's Eve tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment