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I'm looking forward to watching this version with Deborah Kerr from the '60s when it airs on TCM this week. Do you believe the ghosts were real, or were they a figments of the governess's imagination?
I just finished watching this one a couple of days ago. I think the governess was deeply disturbed from the start, and the ghosts were in her imagination.
If you haven't read the book and don't want some mild spoilers, don't read the rest of this until after you've viewed the film.
Spoiler
IMO, she came into a situation that was the perfect storm of everything she needed in order to be pushed over the brink from troubled to full-on crazy: an isolated manor where she was told she was totally in charge, the information that the former governess and groom (or whatever he was) were having an affair (when she was clearly an unfulfilled spinster), and a couple of young children who in her fevered mind had been subjected to sexual abuse. When you watch, note the two occasions where kisses were exchanged between the governess and Miles. Extremely inappropriate, yet in the first case, she does nothing to stop it and in the second case, even more inappropriately, she initiates (which as you will see, she would have to). Furthermore, she insists that the housekeeper has seen the ghosts as well, and the housekeeper, who is the voice of reason here, flat out denies having seen them.
I realize that the book presents your view, but I prefer to believe they were real. However, I understand that it reassures people to paint those who see thing that they can't see as "crazy." As in most things, the truth may lie somewhere in the middle? Love that Truman Capote had a hand in it.
What about "The Haunting" (or "Hill House"); same situation? Others were aware of the ghosts, but was it a crazy (sexually repressed) woman looking for a home and family, or did the house really know and want her? Was it suicide, or was she killed?
Last edited by otterhere; 10-23-2017 at 10:49 AM..
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