The Innocents. GB.. bfi. Blu-ray (Region B) and DVD (Region 2 PAL). 96 minutes + extras. £19.99
About the reviewer: Dr Suzanne Speidel is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Sheffield Hallam University. Her research interests are principally in the field of film adaptation, and her current research project is a monograph, Adapting Forster, for Palgrave Macmillan. She has published in such volumes as An Introduction to Film Studies (Fifth Edition), Jill Nelmes (ed.) (Routledge, 2011); Joseph Conrad and the Performing Arts, Katherine Baxter and Richard Hand (eds.) (Ashgate 2009); and The X-Files and Literature, Sharon Yang (ed.) (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007).
Edmund Wilson’s 1938 essay ‘The Ambiguity of Henry James’ made popular the notion that the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw are figments of the narrator’s hysterical imagination, and since then readers of James’s novella have been divided in interpreting the tale either as a chilling story of supernatural possession or as a disquieting representation of Freudian repression. More recently structuralist readings have posited the view that the novella is about its own unreliable narration, and so have conferred on it the Hamlet-like status of irresolvable ambiguity.
Jack Clayton’s 1961 adaptation is above all a brilliant study in cinematic ambiguity, which ingeniously heightens both readings of the story, with the additional ‘turn’ in the tale that whilst the first half of the film creepily evokes the sinister, otherworldly qualities of Bly House and two children in the governess-protagonist’s care, the second half provides a genuinely disturbing portrait of an unhinged adult whose evangelical zeal can only harm the ‘innocents’ she seeks to protect. Deborah Kerr and child-actors Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens (whose memorable appearance in The Village of the Damned (1960) the previous year effectively haunts his presence here) deliver remarkable performances, by turns genteel, menacing, fearful and hysterical, without ever sliding into the ridiculous. Conventional wisdom dictates that film adaptations of literature that derive their power from linguistic ambiguity must automatically lose the complexity of the original. Here, however, the multi-track effects of cinema – combining Gothic scenery, expressive lighting, off-screen sound and skilful use of point-of-view editing, deep focus and CinemaScope – achieve a narrative which is every bit as contradictory and irresolute as James’s. Clayton’s direction, Freddie Francis’s cinematography and Truman Capote’s screenplay (adapted from William Archibald’s play as well as James’s novella, and with additional dialogue by John Mortimer) all served to re-animate James’s ghostly tale, finding new ways to pose its mysteries which still disturb and enchant us today.
The BFI release of The Innocents offers a wealth of DVD extras, including a feature commentary and filmed introduction by Christopher Frayling, a gallery of production stills, costume designs and publicity posters, and an illustrated booklet (which contains biographies of key cast and crew, a reproduction of a page of shooting script, as well as an essay by The League of Gentlemen co-writer Jeremy Dyson, and a 1961 Sight and Sound onset report). Together these provide production history and anecdotes as well as information about cut lines and scenes. In addition to commenting on the relationship of the film to Henry James’s novella, the extras offer further material for the student of adaptation by suggesting a whole host of additional sources and allusions, ranging from Benjamin Britten’s opera of The Turn of the Screw, to cinematic influences such as Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête (1946), Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941), and Ealing’s Dead of Night (1945). Also included on the DVD is Jack Clayton’s rarely seen directorial debut, the Oscar-winning, two-reel short The Bespoke Overcoat (1955), which is loosely connected to The Innocents by virtue of the fact that it is also a ghost story. Based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story, ‘The Overcoat,’ this is a modest, sometimes comical movie which is also gently moving – a low-key, yet rich opening to Clayton’s eclectic (if not prolific) directorial career, of which The Innocents was certainly a highlight.
Dr Suzanne Speidel
See also Josephine Botting's review of Christopher Frayling's BFI Classics book on the film, which is available here.