Books to Movies: Achieving Ambiguity in The Innocents

If an ending or a character's reaction is ambiguous, how does the filmmaker show that?

One way to clarify ambiguity (an equivocal phrase) is with voiceovers. The problem? Film is the ultimate show-no-tell. A voiceover removes the need for the script and camera to SHOW us ambiguity. 

Another way is with avant-garde camera work. Frankly, I consider this a form of cheating--swooping angles and jerky camera movements might as well come with subtitles: We are now being AMBIGUOUS. 

I determined to rewatch the 1961 version of Henry James's Turn of the Screw, The Innocents. The novella leaves the "truth" up to the viewer: 

Did evil ghosts truly possess the children? Did evil ghosts drive the governess insane? Or did her obsession with her employer and her isolation drive her insane? She claims to love children but that claim appears to be code for "I wish I had a husband." In truth, isn't it more likely that she hates her job and has found a way to make the children depositories of her unhappiness?

There is ambiguity too over the children: 

Are they possessed or normal, highly active kids, or damaged in some way (possibly through neglect and abuse)? And if the latter, who is the abuser?

Can a movie provide that ambiguity?

I think The Innocents, directed by Jack Clayton, cinematography by Freddie Francis, does. So, how? How did these filmmakers make it work?

I suggest the following methods:

1. Deborah Kerr 

It helps if you have Deborah Kerr who can look innocent and borderline nuts at the same time. In the film, Kerr has the capacity to produce unsettling moments simply through her "concern." The character invests events with meaning/sub-text/deeper purpose, and Kerr captures this behavior perfectly. The most unsettling aspect of the story is the increasing feeling, "This woman is totally out of her depth."

 

2. Events are produced from a point of view. 

There is a little bit of Salvador Dali-dreamstate imagery, but it doesn't last long and it's entirely based on the governess's interpretation of what could be innocent conversations between the brother and sister. Almost all events, even the supposedly spectral Quint and Miss Jessel, are very much in the here and now, which makes them creepier than hallucinogenic scenes. Events can be more than one thing because they are not presented with an obvious "gloss" of strangeness.

 

3. The music.

The music is not used to alert viewers to "now, there's danger!" The music is used to heighten certain moments but not as commentary.

In the final scene, Miles--who believably morphs from a somewhat affected boy with adult mannerisms (likely in imitation of the uncle whom he has met maybe once) to defensive child--receives neither warning music NOR melancholy music. The music reflects the crazy confrontation, not the meaning.

Silence also becomes a way to convey ambiguity.

4. The video here discusses other techniques the film uses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpV5J91BnV0

My personal take? The movie is a great testament to how "you must confront your past to be free"--a popular idea in the 1960s--is, in fact, a terrible form of therapy.