The Turn of the Screw

Starring:John Barron (II), Eva Griffith, Jasper Jacob, Megs Jenkins, Anthony Langdon, James Laurenson, Lynn Redgrave, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Benedict Taylor
Director: Dan Curtis
Studio: Mpi Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Henry James' The Turn of the Screw
Starring: Jodhi May , Pam Ferris , Colin Firth , Joe Sowerbutts , and Grace Robinson
Director: Ben Bolt (II)
Manufacturer: Wgbh Boston
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0001WTUJO
Release Date: 2004-04-13

Amazon.com

Henry James's classic ghost story of psychological suspense provides the basis for this Masterpiece Theatre presentation. Jodhi May, with her warm and open demeanor, is perfectly cast as "Miss," the generically named governess at a grand British estate. Her charges are two seemingly angelic little orphans. Miss can't believe her good fortune at landing such a delightful job. "Am I dreaming?" she asks kindly, corpulent housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Pam Ferris). But dream turns to nightmare as the house's spectral inhabitants reveal themselves to her. Miss becomes obsessed with protecting her precious "little creatures" from the vile phantasms. The movie is satisfyingly spooky and makes us jump in all the right places. The children, Flora (Grace Robinson) and Miles (Joe Sowerbutts), are genuinely creepy. "When I'm bad, Miss, I really am extremely bad," asserts little Miles, and we believe him. This provocative adaptation of The Turn of the Screw breathes new life into James's morbid Victorian obsession with sexuality and morality. --Laura Mirsky

Description

A naive, young governess (May) is hired by a charming bachelor (Firth) to look after his two young children in a grand mansion in rural England. She is determined to make the most of her situation, despite the Master's strange stipulation that she never contact him. Her first impressions are all good—the house is beautiful, the housekeeper (Ferris) is friendly, the children are lovely and the job is a perfect delight. But then, she sees the ghosts of the former valet, Peter Quint and a previous governess, Miss Jessel, and everything changes. The young governess is convinced that the children can see the ghosts, that they can communicate with them, and and that their very souls are in danger. She feels she alone can save them from a horrifying fate.

Jodhi May (A World Apart), Pam Ferris (Matilda) and Colin Firth (Pride and Prejudice, Shakespeare in Love) star in this chilling adaptation of Henry James' gripping horror story, The Turn of the Screw.

Special DVD features include: link to the Masterpiece TheatreWeb site; scene selections; and closed captions.

Amazon.com

Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw is a masterpiece of atmosphere, ambiguity, and eerie foreboding. Britten's vocal lines mirror the characters' thoughts and feelings and his brilliant orchestration, with its variety of moods and colors, adds fresh nuances to the narrative, pushing it to its inexorable conclusion with emotional power. Richard Hickox conducts expertly and the small orchestra plays with mood-sustaining feeling and projects Britten's inventive scoring with expressiveness and tonal beauty. Lisa Milne in the pivotal role of the governess is superb, singing and acting the role as if born for it. The veteran soprano Diana Montagu as the old housekeeper matches her vocally and acts wonderfully; the interactions between the two singers convey their shared fears, overt in the governess, largely suppressed by the housekeeper. The ghosts are as good; the evil Quint well-portrayed by Mark Padmore, whose beautiful high lyric tenor bends notes and phrases with suitably honeyed malevolence. The children and the former governess are on the same exalted level.

Customer Reviews:

A Riveting Production of Britten's Masterpiece of Horror.......2003-05-20

Benjamin Britten's 1954 opera based on Henry James's spooky ghost story, 'The Turn of the Screw,' is acknowledged as one of his masterpieces. The libretto by Myfanwy Piper is as allusive, poetic and psychologically powerful as James's original.

This production, from the 1990 Schwetzingen Festival was a co-production of Covent Garden and the Cologne Opera. The British cast includes Helen Field (Governess), Menai Davies (Mrs Grose), Richard Greager (Peter Quint), Phyllis Cannan (Miss Jessel), Machiko Obata (Flora), and Samuel Linay (Miles). The orchestra, conducted by Britten expert (and artistic director of Britten's own Aldeburgh Festival) Steuart Bedford, is the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (well, fifteen players from that group anyhow - Britten's orchestration for chamber orchestra is a miracle of colorful economy). The stage direction, by German Michael Hampe, is suitably eerie, catching the increasing tension ['the turn of the screw'] as the story unfolds. The set and costume design is not credited in the DVD's booklet, but requires mention because the black, gray and white colors that predominate are so apt to the shadowy ambience of the story. Finally, the direction for video and TV by Claus Viller is as effective as it is unobtrusive.

The opera is in a prologue (sung by the tenor who later sings Peter Quint) and two acts comprising eight scenes each. Each scene is preceded by an orchestral interlude - a theme and fifteen variations. It tells of the arrival of a governess at an isolated English country house where her absent employer's niece and nephew and an elderly housekeeper live. She soon learns that the employer's butler and the children's former governess have both died but are now ghosts who haunt the estate, exerting a hidden but powerful and malevolent influence on the two children. The governess, good-hearted but barely more than an innocent herself, determines that she must protect the children and try to rid them of these evil influences. In the end that is accomplished, but only after young Miles has himself died. This simple bare-bones retelling of the story, of course, cannot relate the building terror of the story, nor the widening circles of its allusive text. I leave it to others to speculate about the psychological ramifications of the story; it works as a piece of theater alone without any need for psychologizing, although that can make it seem a richer, deeper work.

Suffice it to say, I found this production to be extraordinarily effective in all departments: the singers are all wonderful, both as musicians and as actors; the direction by Bedford is taut and musical; the playing of the orchestra could not be bettered; the stage direction and visual effects are fairly straightforward (none of the Eurotrashing of the opera that has become so frightfully common in German productions) and dramatically telling. I shall come back to this DVD again and again.

My highest recommendation.

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