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Posted: |
Oct 25, 2020 - 2:14 AM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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Excuse me for dropping in briefly from another planet. I've been so out of touch that I didn't even know these shows existed until a few days ago.
First of all, in a rare moment of ennui, I found myself flicking through Netflix and came across BLY MANOR. So far I've seen the first two episodes. Good enough to keep watching, although some of the characters seem a little jarring. It's doubly interesting though (and thus potentially irritating) in that it's, as you know, a modernized - or "partially" modernized - version of the Henry James story. And with THE INNOCENTS being one of my favourite films, I'm really intrigued by all the references to it. They even use the "Willow Waly" nursery rhyme, which I think was originally written for the Clayton film by Georges Auric and Paul Dehn (?). Thankfully no pop songs yet.
And then just last night I became aware of the earlier series, HILL HOUSE. As with BLY, I had no idea that this was an adaptation of an earlier novel which became a classic '60s film. I watched about ten minutes of it but really ought to try to keep up with the two shows at the same time.
As I mentioned, no pop songs yet, but don't the two shows have almost identical music for the titles?
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Posted: |
Oct 25, 2020 - 5:15 AM
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By: |
brofax
(Member)
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There have been several movies and TV adaptations of The "Turn of the Screw", even an opera by Benjamin Britten but nothing beats the original.
"The Innocents" hit our screens in 1961. It was a stunning film superbly photographed in black-and-white CinemaScope. So as not to ruin the atmosphere Fox even dispensed with the Fox Fanfare.
The opening is on a black screen with the haunting "O Willow Waly" on the soundtrack. The ending is quite a shock but the audience was left "wondering". There was much discussion in those days as to what exactly was going on. Even Deborah Kerr who gave her finest acting performance asked director Jack Clayton what was it really all about and she was told to work it out for herself.
I watched "Bly Manor" with interest and found it it quite good early on. It seemed to me that Mike Flanagan, the creator, may well have been an ardent fan of "The Innocents" including the song and may have set out to weave a story that might attempt to explain what MIGHT have been going on. If that WAS the case then he didn't succeed.
That said, I thought the first, maybe, 6 episodes were very good but it lost its way after that. Was it scary? Nah. The back of the sofa remained unoccupied throughout the series.
If I hadn't seen "The Innocents" all those years ago I possibly would have enjoyed it all but, here we are, nearly 60 years later and we still don't know what was really going on.
Possibly, the slow pace of the original might not appeal to modern audiences but anyone who considers themselves a movie buff should not miss it. Fortunately, it's all there for free on youtube in all its black and white CinemaScopic glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0P4yNjMUvA
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Posted: |
Oct 25, 2020 - 5:50 AM
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By: |
Graham Watt
(Member)
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That's an excellent YT upload, brofax. Such a great, great film. As I mentioned before, I'm only two episodes into BLY, but I'm already wondering how - or if - it will manage to keep my attention over... how many episodes? Still, I suppose it's a handicap to go into it already prepared to compare it to THE INNOCENTS.
Same would go for HILL HOUSE. In this case I feel that the Robert Wise film version is overrated - it strikes me as being overly pompous - but it does make for a pretty compelling 90-odd ("very odd") minutes. So I'm already pre-judging the Netflix series, and have decided that it's "overstretched". I suppose if we should be comparing anything at all, it should be as an adaptation of the original literary material. Or just take them on their own merits? Still, that's hard when (in the case of BLY) the references back to the film are so evident.
The title music for both Netfix series is the same, isn't it????
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