Adaptation of Henry James novella, "Turn of the Screw"

1. The Innocents
Dr Steve Gaunson
Textual Crossings
RMIT University

2. The novella
• There’s a strong resemblance between the
screenplay and the novella
– Both around twenty odd thousand words
• Both have room for subplots (two at a stretch)
• Characters established through minimal
explanation — but ambiguous enough to be
fleshed out

3. • The connection with film is the element of
performance
– Often there is a character telling their story (often
in flashback)
• Think of the pulp noir novels — heavy use of
voice-over (VO)
• There is also the sense that we’ll be told a
story quickly — and in ONE sitting
– The novella is often focused on few locations

4. Was Deborah Kerr the best choice?
• At 40 years of age she was not the young timid
women of James’s novella
– Flinching at the grim prospect of “serious duties
and little company”
• Does the gravitas of the role require a big and
capable star?
– Who would you cast in a remake?

5. Celebration — Heavy reluctance to change the exact
words or sentiment of the source.
• In prose – we’re being told/read a story by ONE author
– Greater opportunities for miscommunication/reinterpretation
• What we see on the screen is “truth”
– Because we’re seeing it
– We believe in what we see
• Film often only wants to give you one reading/answer
– HOWEVER — The Innocents want’s to adapt James’s ambiguity to the
screen
– Does this by questioning Mrs Giddens as a reliable narrator.
• Characters question her sanity? She questions herself?
• Is she seeing hallucinations or apparitions? Jack Clayton says YES to both.

6. Secondary adaptations — part of broader cycles

7. Adjustment — changes, and alters the source without
losing the sentiment.
• Follows the novella until Miss Jessel’s
disappearance
• Introduces a new sequence: Miss Giddens
notices a tear drop on the slate on the
teacher’s desk
– The tears are real. The ghosts must also be real
• Clayton gives evidence to support Giddens’s
POV

8. Analogy — these are often 'inspired by' or 'based on'
adaptations. Not literal adaptations but much of the
text seems akin to an earlier work.
• The story seems to be almost a sort of Jane Eyre.
– A young, inexperienced governess is sent to a mysterious and rather
creepy house.
– Jane soon meets the master of the house, falls in love with him, and
once they can meet on an equal footing, she marries him.
• In The Turn of the Screw, the governess also falls in love with the
master of the house (although she does not acknowledge this even
to herself)
– Once there, she finds another male presence – a very dominating
male presence, and possibly a substitute for the master who isn’t
there: this presence is Peter Quint, the former valet. And Peter Quint
is dead.
• If this link to Jane Eyre was more explicit it would be a parody

9. Colonisation — the adapter puts their own unique style
on the source.
• The end — Miles
• In the novella: “the poison of an influence that I dared but
half-phrase”
• Makes him appear “as accessible as an older person”
• “treat him as an intelligent equal”
• In the movie Miss Giddens kisses Miles full on the mouth —
as one would an adult
• It seems more explicit than the book.
• Has she developed an unnatural affection for Miles?
• Such an explicit ending puts the attention on the director
— for daring to produce such an ending.