The Turn of the Screw (1999)
The year 1999 was fruitful for The Turn of the Screw adaptations. There appeared two of them: a BBC TV film directed by Ben Bolt, with the homonymous title, and Presence of Mind (El Celo) by the Spanish director Antonio Aloy. They are very different versions of the story. The first one (the subject of this post) is renowned mainly for two things: 1) following the original novella very closely in the text and plot; 2) featuring Colin Firth as the charming Uncle. (I bet this second fact should send you ladies rushing to see this film regardless of what I might say about it. That is, if you haven't seen it already. *grins*)
It all looks very neat, carefully planned, beautifully and thoughtfully filmed, with Nick Dear's screenplay accurately following Henry James' text. While watching, I sometimes stopped the film and checked with my book: some lines were exactly the same!
It will delight you or annoy you, depending on what kind of viewer you are. To be just, the film is still not a series of illustrations to the novella; of course it has to add something new. For instance, the beginning of it.
We see water, its surface shimmering with little lights from the moon. A horse cart drives away a coffin. A dark-haired woman with a tear-streaked face stands on the bridge, looking at that shimmering water. Then she throws herself down.
Miss Jessel's fate is thus made clear to those familiar with the story; as for others, at least it should make them curious - as well as the subsequent appearance of the elegant Colin Firth, who is to lure the naïve governess into accepting a position of too much responsibility and the female viewers into watching this particular film.
Jodhi May's governess
This governess is a very simple country girl, simple in all senses of the word. Simple-minded. That is enough to characterise her briefly.
In more detail?... They keep it in mind that she is from the village, a poor parson's daughter; young and pretty, but inexperienced, gawky, not too intelligent.
She walks about open-mouthed, equally stunned and overwhelmed by the dashing gentleman who hired her -
(there is a certain charm in that lopsided shy smile, I admit)
- by the magnificent surroundings -
- by her clothes - (She exclaims that she wears such a beautiful dress for the first time in her life! Could it have belonged to Miss Jessel? But no, it would be too much.)
- by the beauty of nature -
- by the precocious children, much above her in position and wit...
All like in James' story!
She reacts as simply and spontaneously to the appearance of the ghosts.
In that, the film creators try to keep to the story again: the presences are silently menacing, appearing rarely but effectively. Quint has red hair, as James wrote it -
Quint at the window. He reminds me of a leprechaun. But the heroine -
Mrs Grose: Was he handsome?
The governess (breathless): Oh yes!! Remarkably so!!
I'm afraid I fail to really understand about handsome men... :(
And so it goes on and on, the heroine being more and more confused by the events she cannot possibly understand, grasp or, least of all, control.
Her simple mind construes what the ghosts want: to corrupt the children. That makes her suspicious of the boy and the girl, killing any chance for growing trust and making for uneasy, awkward atmosphere whenever they are together (it is shown very well in the film).
The boy sometimes seems to mock her quite openly. He quotes Hamlet to her. She seems not to understand and says, warily: 'I won't be an easy prey'. The boy then challenges: 'I've read MacBeth, too, Miss!' (That must be part of his showing off as 'bad'.)
The ambiguity remains. It is unclear whether the children do see their erstwhile friends, turned ghosts, or not.
The mystery of what exactly happened in the past remains a mystery. Personally, I am inclined to think that Quint and Miss Jessel were likely to have done nothing particularly horrible, to the children or otherwise, except dying in an un-Christian manner. They both were so silent, forlorn and unassuming!
Much more frightening than any ghost is the heroine's sincere fanatic religiousness, which really becomes a threat. It is the same as in the novella, only I believe in the film this quality of hers is intensified and enhanced, together with her possessiveness:
'Too free? With my boy? A serving man? In charge of my innocent babies?'
'Their souls are damned.'
And her final prayer:
'Never before did I comprehend the true nature of evil. But victory requires only another turn of the screw on human virtue. Success depends upon my wretched will. With your aid, Lord, I'll bring it out of him. I'll bring him to You. He'll confess. And if he confesses, he's saved!' (How, how not to be afraid for the boy whom she is going to attack?)
Mrs Grose is of no help. At first she tries to hide the secrets of the past. She lies. Then, after all the subterfuge, she is unable to stop or hold off the growing panic of the younger woman. When at last Mrs Grose suggests writing to the Uncle, she gets shouted at: 'He will not help you, silly woman!'
That is how rude the sweet girl has become! Later, in the lake scene, it is not Flora who is hysterical, but rather her governess ('She's within you!! I have lost you!'). Afterwards the young woman is afraid that Flora will discredit her before the uncle...
All of that shows the heroine in a rather ugly light, and the viewer has reasons to doubt her sanity.
The finale is particularly gruesome. (Big spoiler) Folks! She broke the boy's neck! She saw (or thought she saw) the ghost, clutched the child protectively, and pressed him so fiercely against herself that she broke his neck without even noticing it. How truly disgusting! I was shaken. (End of spoiler)
So, the heroine sees herself as a force of Good meant to defeat the Evil, but what does it lead to? I am tempted to think that, again, the master of Bly put the wrong person in charge of the household. When it was Quint, of low birth and coarse manners, it went badly. When it was our governess, also below the children in status and probably in intellect, it went no better. Ironically, she just completes the other's work in destroying the children, without realising it.
It is a hard story in any variant, let's face it.
Some curious moments
- How the camera films it
The events are sometimes shown from different points of view, not necessarily the heroine's. Her arrival is shown from Flora's.
And this is how Quint must see the governess from the tower (same device used in the 1992 film, so it is not really new, but effective).
In breathless dialogues with Mrs Grose the urgency and worry is conveyed not only by keeping the 'broken' sentences, but also by the unusual angle of the camera.
I cannot say I like this filming at unusual angles, for it often makes actors look ugly... and, frankly speaking, it is not always necessary: the device has become quite banal, used and abused in many modern films now. One gets tired of it.
- Miles is left-handed. A nice touch.
That would make him a gifted one, a talented boy (at least in today's popular knowledge). In earlier times, superstition linked being left-handed to the devil. The children were forcibly taught to write 'correctly'. The ambiguity is there; I am not sure that it was intended.
The poor boy. I feel sorry for him.
This shot is very good, for not only it hints at the boy being a virtual prisoner of the house and all that it stands for, but it also shows his essential loneliness and sadness as well: it is the moment when his sister is being driven away.
And he is to be left alone with her (and 'the others, but they don't really count').
- Flora is attaching the mast to the toy ship and singing What shall we do with the drunken sailor. :)
- The household, apart from Mrs Grose, contains several handmaids and a young servant Luke. Luke is fond of chasing pretty maids. When the governess questions them about the unknown man she saw on the tower, they answer with enough deference, but laugh at her behind her back. That much for her prestige! The child mocks her; the housekeeper agrees with her only to save herself trouble; the servants laugh at her. How pathetic.
- Lastly, some beautiful random shots:
The following seven shots could be entitled as "The Governess and the House":
And those are just interesting:
(I always notice the portraits behind someone's back :))
When they first dine together, it seems to me that she holds her cup a little gingerly - as if afraid to make some social lapse before the perfect little gentleman Miles!
Finally, a treat for certain ladies: Colin Firth's portrait with the white lilies in the background! :)))
That's all about it!