Ghosts and the Governess

The Supernatural vs. the Psychological in The Turn of the Screw and The Innocents

In translating Henry James' ghost story The Turn of the Screw into film, writers William Archibald and Truman Capote managed to create something different - not completely new from the novel, but changed. While the events of the book remain in tact, although often shuffled about, the screenwriters create a psychological twist that the heartfelt confession of James' story does not allow. The result is a compelling, eerie, movie called The Innocents (1961) that offers a better scare than James' novel.

James' story originally appeared as a twelve-part serial in Collier's weekly in 1898. The framework of the story began as a retelling of a tale to a group of people who were spending time together in the country on Christmas Eve. The narrator recounts that one of the gentlemen, Douglas, teased the group with promise of a story, but the story would need to be read. The manuscript, in the hand of the governess who wrote it, was obtained from London and presently read to the assembled listeners.

This device setting a story within a story, one may assume, allowed James to write in the first person from a female point of view. It also gives the story a sense of authenticity, for the manuscript in the governess' handwriting, is copied verbatim for the text. For the film The Innocents (1961), director Jack Clayton dispenses with the story-within-story framework. Because this is no longer a first-person story, Clayton allows the camera to be an objective narrator, telling the story as it happens.

The film begins with a chilling confession of Deborah Kerr (the governess, named Miss Giddens in the film) with folded hands crying and whispering that all she wanted to do was save the children. The opening aside, the film and novel progress in a similar fashion. A governess is hired by a busy uncle (Michael Redgrave in the film) to care for two children for whom he has no time. He wants nothing to do with the children, and he instructs Miss Giddens that in all things she should be the sole decision-maker. Miss Giddens is soon off to the country estate in Bly where she meets the niece Flora (Patricia Franklin) and the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins).

While James builds the story slowly, only vaguely hinting at possible strangeness, the film quickly makes the children seem unnerving and odd. When Flora hears mention of her brother's name, she begins chanting "Miles is coming home!" While the housekeeper and the governess do not expect Miles until holiday, a letter from the school (by way of the uncaring uncle) quickly proves Flora correct. Miles (Martin Stephens) has been suspended from school for being an "injury" to the other boys there. This seems in contrast to the beatific nature of the young boy.

Likewise, a scene from later in the book in which Miss Giddens is tucking Miles into bed is inserted early in the film to further instill a sense of foreboding toward the children. As the wind blows into the room, snuffing out the candlelight, it gives the governess a start. But Miles, in his well-mannered tone, assures her saying "It was only the wind, my dear." The wise child assuring the adult has a creepy effect. Ironically, the moment in the novel is made more chilling because the wind in the room cannot be explained. The window is closed and the curtains are not blown. When the candle goes out, Miles confesses, "It was I who blew it, dear!" (Pg. 63)

Further adding to the sense that the children are not ordinary is a scene not taken from the book wherein the children and the governess play hide and seek. Miles finds Miss Giddens and playfully wraps his arms around her neck. But it is quickly apparent that this is hurting the governess and she cries out. Despite her protests, Miles continues to enforce his chokehold on her until Flora enters the room.

In juxtaposition of the director's attempt to make the children seem stranger is the psychological twist in the film regarding Mrs. Grose. While James is clear that only the governess has seen the apparitions of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, Mrs. Grose is wholeheartedly a believer in the novel. She recognizes the governess' description of the specters, and she identifies them as Quint and Miss Jessel. Later in the novel, after they have found Flora by the lake, James offers this confession between the two women, beginning with Mrs. Grose:

"I can't stay."
The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. "You mean that, since yesterday, you have seen - ?"
She shook her head with dignity. "I've heard - !"
"Heard?"
"From that child - horrors!" (Pg. 74)

Clearly Mrs. Grose did not see the specter, but her denial comes only with the confession that the horrors she has heard the child speak were enough to justify Miss Giddens' beliefs. In the film, however, when Mrs. Grose suggests that she could not see Miss Jessel's ghost, the twist makes the audience second-guess the governess and wonder if perhaps she is the mad one. Likewise, there is speculation that Miss Giddens may have seen Quint's picture upstairs providing for her description of the specter she sees.

By the end of the film, the terror is not one of supernatural proportions, but one of psychology. The audience, being an objective observer, must decide if the events shown are true or merely in the mind of the governess. Certainly, early scenes of Miss Giddens wandering the halls with a candle while hearing voices are evocative of dementia. Even the "strangeness" of the children could be - in retrospect - merely the distorted images of a paranoid mind. When Miss Giddens decides to send away Mrs. Grose, Flora, and the house staff, it seems like further descent into madness. Her decision to stay alone with Miles becomes frightening, not because we are afraid for Miss Giddens, but because we are suddenly afraid for Miles. What does she have in store for him? What does she hope to accomplish when alone? Her need to "save the children" has already traumatized poor Flora, whose wailing could be heard all over the house. Now that Miss Giddens is sending everyone away, what will be young Miles' fate?

Fittingly, the creepy air around Miles continues in the absence of the household staff. He claims there is still a man around the house. Miss Giddens' expression is one of shock, and she is certainly thinking of the ghostly Quint. But Miles assures her he is speaking of himself. In the end, however, the film sets aside the possibility of madness and we see Miles "channeling" the dead Quint as he vents his rage in despicable epithets. In this scene, Miss Giddens is finally "vindicated" in the film. There can be no more doubt. The ghosts are real and Quint does have some kind of hold on Miles. The film, like the novel, ends abruptly, with Miles dying suddenly after he is freed from Quint's damning influence.

One can imagine the governess' manuscript ending with those words "his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped." As unsatisfying as the ending is in the novel, it seems downright abrupt in the film. The plea by Miss Giddens in the opening of the film is not echoed at the end, nor is any attempt made to embellish on James' work. In the novel, Douglas' audience in the novel was told that the manuscript came from a woman dead for twenty years, who had worked as a governess for his sister. One can make an inference then that the incidents of the story did not destroy her. There are no such assurances in the film, however. Miss Giddens is left alone with the dead boy at the country estate to a fate undecided.