The Turn of the Screw is a British television film based on Henry James’s 1898 ghost story of the same name. Commissioned and produced by the BBC, it was first broadcast on 30 December 2009, on BBC One. The novella was adapted for the screen by Sandy Welch, and the film was directed by Tim Fywell. Although generally true to the tone and story of James’s work, the film is set in the 1920s in contrast to the original 1840s setting.
About The Turn of the Screw (2009 film) in brief
The Turn of the Screw is a British television film based on Henry James’s 1898 ghost story of the same name. Commissioned and produced by the BBC, it was first broadcast on 30 December 2009, on BBC One. The novella was adapted for the screen by Sandy Welch, and the film was directed by Tim Fywell. Although generally true to the tone and story of James’s work, the film is set in the 1920s, in contrast to the original 1840s setting. The film’s story is told in flashbacks during consultations between the institutionalised Ann and Dr Fisher. Some critics considered it to be genuinely scary, while others suggested that the horror was not fully effective. It was released on DVD on 1 March 2010 in the UK and on 28 April 2015 in North America. The BBC had previously adapted several horror stories as Christmas films, with their series A Ghost Story for Christmas including adaptations of the M. R. James stories The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral and The Treasure of Abbot Thomas. The original story has been much analysed owing to its ambiguity, and critics disagreed about the extent to which the film succeeded in portraying this trait. Academic analyses found the film considerably less ambiguous than the novellas. The adaptation generally mirrors thenovella’s tone, but accentuates sexual elements that some theorists have identified in the novellas. It also adds a theological element not present in James’s story; Ann’s father is a preacher, although Ann herself is unsure of her faith.
The psychiatrist, by contrast, is an atheist. When he asks Ann about her faith, she replies that she believes in the Devil. This, for some viewers, ties to the title of the film: “it’s the writer who puts the screw in the hole in the best ones to ask the audience to turn themselves to the turn themselves”. The film was filmed in the West Country of England, beginning in August 2009. The scenes were filmed at Bly House, a manor house near Yeovil, Somerset, which was chosen because of its extensive grounds and large lake, described by James as “the most beautiful house in the world” It was also filmed at the East Somerset Railway, including scenes at the Dock of the River Mersey, and at the Somerset Railway Station, where the train station used to be. The movie has been described as a “chilling reimagining of the classic Henry James tale. It fits into this \”mini-genre\” of the Christmas horror film. The film is not a screaming-banshees-and-horrible-corpses style of ghost story, but a subtle horror, including details such as a broken doll on a window ledge, to discover certain elements of the story and the fact that viewers never discover the story. This is why viewers never find the story of The Turn of The Screw in the first place. It has been called a “Christmas film for the adults to watch in front of the fire”
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