Regardless of how crazy you may think the governess is (I don't). That Miles poem is disturbing, and reinforces the outside control that the ghosts have over him.
The Kubrick film IS far superior, in every way.
THE INNOCENTS requires too much thought from the average movie fan. This is a film that will mess you up for life - if you really analyze it.
Again, I totally agree with everything you said. "The Innocents" really almost transcends itself as a movie. After you've watched it, you're changed. You can't go back. If you're inclined towards being on the sensitive and thoughtful (and imaginative!!!) side, you can't undo what you've come to understand. To me, "The Exorcist" (which I don't hate, but it was vulgar in the extreme) can't touch this masterpiece of unspoken fears.
share(whispering) "Enter, my lord....."
The Kubrick film IS far superior, in every way.
Yes, the scene where he reads the poem gives me chills with every viewing. It's one of my favorite parts of the movie. This film is so great in every way. I have watched it 4 times and it hasn't seemed to lose any of it's effect.
Death lives in the Vault of Horror!
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I just finished the movie a little over 2 hours ago and now I want to watch it again. It stuck with me more than usual this viewing for some reason.
Death lives in the Vault of Horror!
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Have you seen the newer version with Jodhi May?
"Not all who wander are lost."--J.R.R. Tolkien
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I get it from the library once in a while. I guess, although I like some B&W movies, I tend to like the newer versions of some things, and this is one. I think I had seen her in other things & was familiar with her, & I loved the setting in color. It was beautiful. And for me it was just more compelling. But the kids in this version were definitely creepier, especially the boy.
"Not all who wander are lost."--J.R.R. Tolkien
It was common in the 19th century, in aristocratic families, for children to learn by heart complete poems and recite them when the occasion arose.
The idea of the film is that Deborah Kerr's character now sees everything through the lens of her theory on what happened to the children. So an innocent poem becomes a message from the dead. Notice how the other maid finds nothing out of the ordinary about Miles' recitation.
I also point out that Martin Stephens himself was born in 1949 or 1948, and thus should have been about 11 or 12 when the Innocents was filmed. And in the original story, I calculated that the events were happening about the 1840s.
In the Victorian era, lower class children as young as Miles and Flora (or Martin and Pamela to make it more real), and sometimes years younger, often had hard and dangerous jobs in factories and mines, with maiming or a gruesome death an ever present danger.
In the Victorian era, lower class boys as young as Miles or Martin, and sometimes younger, could join the American or British army and navy. The youngest person to enlist as a drummer boy in the British army was five, the youngest officially recorded age of any US drummer boys was five.
And it was not unknown for middle and upper class British boys to become officers at young ages. During the Napoleonic Wars, and for many decades into the Victorian era, it was usual for middle and upper class British naval officers - including more than one future king - to go to sea as children and learn seamanship and leadership skills by watching and by doing.
Thus the TV Tropes site has a trope called Plucky Middie.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PluckyMiddie
And the plucky middies also had to learn navigation techniques if they were to pass the test for lieutenant and have a chance to be promoted. Which means they had to learn trigonometry and similar math. So some upper class boys like Miles could be studying trigonometry years younger than most of us do.
And the point of this is sometimes kids don't "act their age" Sometimes kids act years younger and sometimes they act years older.
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Perhaps his first governess, Miss Jessel, had a book of poems and that may have been a favorite.
He was putting on a performance and was going for dramatic effect.
Both films have their charm...
The poem does strike up discussion, perhaps that's its whole intent.
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True. This whole story is up for discussion because we can't make up our minds as to whether the happenings were all in in Miss Gidden's mind or if it was the supernatural at play....
Maybe a bit of both, according to some people here.
I go back and forth each time I watch this film. I really think it was all in her mind. We were looking through her eyes.
What do you think?
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It does appear to be the supernatural at play when you are watching the movie. Every now and then I change my mind and think it is, but then I think it must just seem that way to her. We must be seeing what she is seeing and thinking. Not what is real.
As I said I think it strikes up a conversation, a way of having either possibility be correct and both also being wrong should the banter go that way.
I'd say it was a marketing ploy if I were cynical or a reason to digest the story with others if I were benevolent.