The Haunting of Helen Walker
This 1995 film by the American director Tom McLoughlin has got two titles, The Turn of the Screw and The Haunting of Helen Walker. The second one reflects better its particularity. The heroine deserves to be named and mentioned in the title, as she has got a distinctive character that makes her different from all the other governesses in those numerous screen adaptations of The Turn of the Screw.
Interesting fact: the film features Diane Rigg as the housekeeper Mrs Grose.
Now to the film. It begins beautifully.
The river
And the lifeless body of a girl, her long dark hair trailing in the water
This Ophelia-like scene is accompanied by... Frederick Chopin's Prelude No. 4 E-moll (Op. 28) that renders a certain gloomy charm to the whole film.
The image of the drowned woman fades into that of another, hurrying through the streets of London, mounting a cab that will drive her to her destiny. The camera snatches out the details: a neat boot, gloved hands holding a newspaper with a circled announcement, folds of a dress.
The viewer is caught into watching. Soon it is time to meet Helen.
The main character of the film is Mrs Helen Walker, an American woman who comes to grasps with English ghosts. Making the initially nameless English governess an American and a widow may seem audacious! Yet, being a deviation from Henry James's novella, it is oddly in tune with his other works featuring open, pure-hearted, somewhat naive Americans in conflict with the old, stale, overly-sophisticated Europe. :) The changes take nothing from the plot, add a little, and the film proves quite interesting as a result.
If ever, while reading the original novella, you were driven to exclaim involuntarily, 'Governess, you foolish hen!', 'Why don't you do something about it?', 'Hey, they are just kids!', or 'If only you were a normal, practical person!' - here you have a normal, practical person, a woman of reason and common sense.
Personally, that is what makes me love this character. Helen makes no nonsense about the house, the children, or, come to that, the ghosts. She admires the beauty of her surroundings, but is not carried away. She is eager to love her charges, having no children of her own, but she never drools over the little ones. In fact, she is quite strict sometimes and will not hesitate to stand her own.
When she gets the letter from school dismissing Miles as a dangerous person, she waits until she sees the boy herself and then, having observed nothing wrong, writes a stern reply demanding the headmaster to explain himself!
Is such a wonderfully level-headed, sane American woman able to invent supernatural events, to make them up out of her own befuddled mind? Of course not!
Then... it could only mean that, in this version of the story, the ghosts really do exist.
Helen sees them almost as soon as she arrives. A face of the former governess in the window. An outline of the former valet in the corner of her mirror. She dismisses both cases as a deception of the eye.
Then it is for real, and she cannot shake it off so lightly. The nature itself reacts to the supernatural. The deer are startled into running, birds set off into frantic flying, a gust of wind - all those real-life events precede the appearance of a strange man at the top of the tower when Helen has just been walking around peacefully. She can no longer dismiss that as a hallucination.
When a red rose pricks her hand, the vision is over. (Remember the unearthly Deborah Kerr and her white rose? It is not white, but red for Helen, a full-bloodied woman dreaming of the children's handsome uncle...)
Still she keeps it to herself and makes no fuss until Quint makes his other appearance at the window. Even then, she waits for some time before confiding in Mrs Grose - telling everything very sensibly, giving an exact description of the man she saw, without ever guessing that he is dead.
Now Diane Rigg's Mrs Grose is quite a testy elderly lady, and a stern one altogether! (I cannot help remembering that other housekeeper, Mrs Danvers from Rebecca, Ms Rigg's another famous role.) Although she does explain to Helen, briefly, what happened in the recent past, she would stand no further investigation! She berates Helen for meddling into the others' affairs, for sneaking into Quint's room (which must remain locked) and for pestering the servants with awkward questions. Mrs Grose tells the governess off so pitilessly and even cruelly that one should think Helen definitely beaten.
The fact that the governess still manages to convince Mrs Grose of her sanity and make the formidable woman believe her (by using reasonable arguments, logics and tact) says a lot about the strength of her determinate character.
Apart from working on Mrs Grose, Helen tries some clever moves with the children: like, she tells them about Hamlet and attempts to trick them into admitting that they can see the ghosts. A strategical mind!
See the kids:
Flora
Miles
She deals with them without undue sentimentality.
Yet we cannot say that Helen is such an iron lady. She has a softness to her; she dreams; she longs to be loved, to have a family. All so very human and simple. There is a secret about her, too, more pronounced at the beginning of the film: her marriage (to an Englishman) did not quite work out. It adds sadness and wistfulness to the character.
All in all, if you are not annoyed by the changes from the original, she is quite likeable! But -
(This paragraph contains a spoiler about the end) All her effort, all her courage and inventiveness is in vain. The boy really dies due to the interference of the malevolent supernatural force, and it is immensely tragic when Helen realises it. If she ever went mad, it is after the story is over. Believe it or not, that film actually made me cry at the end.
The music
It is an interesting touch that the theme for the supernatural is Chopin's Prelude No. 4. Miss Jessel used to play it endlessly after her lover's death. The boy Miles also fancies the melody; and at night, Helen sometimes hears it played, although there is no one at the piano. Still more interesting is that the prelude is never finished: we hear the first several bars, and then it either fades away, or is abruptly silenced. Only at the end, (spoiler?) when all is over, the final chords will be played and the story, finished. I liked that.
Some beautiful imagery
The interiors of the house are beautiful, too:
The ghostly Miss Jessel. Helen feels definitely sorry for her. Helen is such a dear girl.
In case you are curious to see the master:
Another charming secondary character is the romantic big-eyed maidservant Connie:
'Miss Jessel... she died for love!'
Some funny moments
In my opinion, the weakest point of this film is... Peter Quint, that valet who, in life, governed the household and in death became a source of all unseen evil in it.
The actor playing Quint seems just delighted with being such a Bad, Bad Guy. You can just see it in his grinning face. And though it could be accepted - like, you know, Quint is an evil man enjoying his own wickedness - I could not help thinking that it was bordering on the grotesque (especially his final appearance).
This Quint is not quite the merry fellow of the 1989 Nightmare Classics TV episode (that one is unbeatable), but still has much of a vaudeville villain about him. Well, that is my personal perception,anyway.
It is quite weird that he seems interested in Helen herself (not only in the kids, as the book led to suggest): he beckons her more than once, calling her, inviting her to something.
Also, that kiss on the lips from the little boy to his nanny, which Jack Clayton introduced in The Innocents... I wish they would stop copying it, dragging it from film to film again and again! Here, it is suggested that Quint did the kissing, while the boy knew nothing - quite straightforwardly, just to ensure the viewers that the ghost did possess the child.
Another weird thing is that Quint's room must be kept locked... with nothing in it touched, remaining as it was on the day he died! Now - I would understand why Mrs Danvers revered Rebecca's room, but why would Mrs Grose do the same for Quint's?! (It is so impractical, after all. :))
Have a look into Quint's table: among indecent pictures, there is a volume of Tennyson's poems (!). A gift from Elizabeth Jessel to 'Peter, my love'. How romantic.
The cultural background of the film results quite diverse: Chopin, Shakespeare, Tennyson... It is only left to me to add the statues -
...at midnight...
...while Helen is sleeping and embracing her Bible...
...they watch the place...
Our well-loved Cupid and Psyche!!
(Let it be said in a very quiet whisper: I can never understand how a sculpture of such grace and refinement should be viewed as an Obscene Erotic Image.)
With all its faults, The Haunting of Helen Walker is a decent enough adaptation, beautiful and sad. As for me, I'm afraid I'll always have a soft spot for it because of the dear practical Helen!
Interesting fact: the film features Diane Rigg as the housekeeper Mrs Grose.
Now to the film. It begins beautifully.
The river
And the lifeless body of a girl, her long dark hair trailing in the water
This Ophelia-like scene is accompanied by... Frederick Chopin's Prelude No. 4 E-moll (Op. 28) that renders a certain gloomy charm to the whole film.
The image of the drowned woman fades into that of another, hurrying through the streets of London, mounting a cab that will drive her to her destiny. The camera snatches out the details: a neat boot, gloved hands holding a newspaper with a circled announcement, folds of a dress.
The viewer is caught into watching. Soon it is time to meet Helen.
The main character of the film is Mrs Helen Walker, an American woman who comes to grasps with English ghosts. Making the initially nameless English governess an American and a widow may seem audacious! Yet, being a deviation from Henry James's novella, it is oddly in tune with his other works featuring open, pure-hearted, somewhat naive Americans in conflict with the old, stale, overly-sophisticated Europe. :) The changes take nothing from the plot, add a little, and the film proves quite interesting as a result.
If ever, while reading the original novella, you were driven to exclaim involuntarily, 'Governess, you foolish hen!', 'Why don't you do something about it?', 'Hey, they are just kids!', or 'If only you were a normal, practical person!' - here you have a normal, practical person, a woman of reason and common sense.
Personally, that is what makes me love this character. Helen makes no nonsense about the house, the children, or, come to that, the ghosts. She admires the beauty of her surroundings, but is not carried away. She is eager to love her charges, having no children of her own, but she never drools over the little ones. In fact, she is quite strict sometimes and will not hesitate to stand her own.
When she gets the letter from school dismissing Miles as a dangerous person, she waits until she sees the boy herself and then, having observed nothing wrong, writes a stern reply demanding the headmaster to explain himself!
Is such a wonderfully level-headed, sane American woman able to invent supernatural events, to make them up out of her own befuddled mind? Of course not!
Then... it could only mean that, in this version of the story, the ghosts really do exist.
Helen sees them almost as soon as she arrives. A face of the former governess in the window. An outline of the former valet in the corner of her mirror. She dismisses both cases as a deception of the eye.
Then it is for real, and she cannot shake it off so lightly. The nature itself reacts to the supernatural. The deer are startled into running, birds set off into frantic flying, a gust of wind - all those real-life events precede the appearance of a strange man at the top of the tower when Helen has just been walking around peacefully. She can no longer dismiss that as a hallucination.
When a red rose pricks her hand, the vision is over. (Remember the unearthly Deborah Kerr and her white rose? It is not white, but red for Helen, a full-bloodied woman dreaming of the children's handsome uncle...)
Still she keeps it to herself and makes no fuss until Quint makes his other appearance at the window. Even then, she waits for some time before confiding in Mrs Grose - telling everything very sensibly, giving an exact description of the man she saw, without ever guessing that he is dead.
Now Diane Rigg's Mrs Grose is quite a testy elderly lady, and a stern one altogether! (I cannot help remembering that other housekeeper, Mrs Danvers from Rebecca, Ms Rigg's another famous role.) Although she does explain to Helen, briefly, what happened in the recent past, she would stand no further investigation! She berates Helen for meddling into the others' affairs, for sneaking into Quint's room (which must remain locked) and for pestering the servants with awkward questions. Mrs Grose tells the governess off so pitilessly and even cruelly that one should think Helen definitely beaten.
The fact that the governess still manages to convince Mrs Grose of her sanity and make the formidable woman believe her (by using reasonable arguments, logics and tact) says a lot about the strength of her determinate character.
Apart from working on Mrs Grose, Helen tries some clever moves with the children: like, she tells them about Hamlet and attempts to trick them into admitting that they can see the ghosts. A strategical mind!
See the kids:
Flora
Miles
She deals with them without undue sentimentality.
Yet we cannot say that Helen is such an iron lady. She has a softness to her; she dreams; she longs to be loved, to have a family. All so very human and simple. There is a secret about her, too, more pronounced at the beginning of the film: her marriage (to an Englishman) did not quite work out. It adds sadness and wistfulness to the character.
All in all, if you are not annoyed by the changes from the original, she is quite likeable! But -
(This paragraph contains a spoiler about the end) All her effort, all her courage and inventiveness is in vain. The boy really dies due to the interference of the malevolent supernatural force, and it is immensely tragic when Helen realises it. If she ever went mad, it is after the story is over. Believe it or not, that film actually made me cry at the end.
The music
It is an interesting touch that the theme for the supernatural is Chopin's Prelude No. 4. Miss Jessel used to play it endlessly after her lover's death. The boy Miles also fancies the melody; and at night, Helen sometimes hears it played, although there is no one at the piano. Still more interesting is that the prelude is never finished: we hear the first several bars, and then it either fades away, or is abruptly silenced. Only at the end, (spoiler?) when all is over, the final chords will be played and the story, finished. I liked that.
Some beautiful imagery
The interiors of the house are beautiful, too:
The ghostly Miss Jessel. Helen feels definitely sorry for her. Helen is such a dear girl.
In case you are curious to see the master:
Another charming secondary character is the romantic big-eyed maidservant Connie:
'Miss Jessel... she died for love!'
Some funny moments
In my opinion, the weakest point of this film is... Peter Quint, that valet who, in life, governed the household and in death became a source of all unseen evil in it.
The actor playing Quint seems just delighted with being such a Bad, Bad Guy. You can just see it in his grinning face. And though it could be accepted - like, you know, Quint is an evil man enjoying his own wickedness - I could not help thinking that it was bordering on the grotesque (especially his final appearance).
This Quint is not quite the merry fellow of the 1989 Nightmare Classics TV episode (that one is unbeatable), but still has much of a vaudeville villain about him. Well, that is my personal perception,anyway.
It is quite weird that he seems interested in Helen herself (not only in the kids, as the book led to suggest): he beckons her more than once, calling her, inviting her to something.
Also, that kiss on the lips from the little boy to his nanny, which Jack Clayton introduced in The Innocents... I wish they would stop copying it, dragging it from film to film again and again! Here, it is suggested that Quint did the kissing, while the boy knew nothing - quite straightforwardly, just to ensure the viewers that the ghost did possess the child.
Another weird thing is that Quint's room must be kept locked... with nothing in it touched, remaining as it was on the day he died! Now - I would understand why Mrs Danvers revered Rebecca's room, but why would Mrs Grose do the same for Quint's?! (It is so impractical, after all. :))
Have a look into Quint's table: among indecent pictures, there is a volume of Tennyson's poems (!). A gift from Elizabeth Jessel to 'Peter, my love'. How romantic.
The cultural background of the film results quite diverse: Chopin, Shakespeare, Tennyson... It is only left to me to add the statues -
...at midnight...
...while Helen is sleeping and embracing her Bible...
...they watch the place...
Our well-loved Cupid and Psyche!!
(Let it be said in a very quiet whisper: I can never understand how a sculpture of such grace and refinement should be viewed as an Obscene Erotic Image.)
With all its faults, The Haunting of Helen Walker is a decent enough adaptation, beautiful and sad. As for me, I'm afraid I'll always have a soft spot for it because of the dear practical Helen!