The Woman In Black And The Genius Of Nigel Kneale Final Part

1. The Stone Tape theory of haunting is something thrown out by Nigel Kneale in his stories only to be later contradicted by events.Looking through his ouvre  as well as Quatermass And The Pit,The Road and The Stone Tape he also produced two ghost stories for his 1970s anthology Beasts. These were Buddy with its story of a deserted dolphinarium haunted by the spirit of a dolphin murdered by the owner and Baby in which the mummified body of a 17th century witches familiar is found in the wall of a country cottage by a trendy 70s couple.In The Stone Tape the initial haunting which is investigated is that of a 19th century servant girl who appears in a sealed up room of an old mansion  being used as the HQ of a scientific team trying to develop a new recording medium..Eventually the stone tape of the room is accidently wiped by the powerful electronic devices used to investigate it.The stones in that part of the house long predate the Victorian house and date back to Saxon times.It is found in the finale to harbour a malign ancient pagan force which garners a fresh victim and adds it as a new addition to the stone tape.This is reminiscent of the Martian spacecraft in the finale of Quatermass And The Pit which is actually alive in some strange way and capable of acting on human minds.In Buddy and Baby also the spirit forces involved turn out be be more than merely recordings and reach out to malign effect. In Kneale's version of The Woman In Black the ghostly replaying of the overturning of the pony and trap in the marsh is dealt with to great effect and seems a classic instance of the stone tape theory which probably attracted him to the offer to adapt the story. Nigel Kneale was a writer of great integrity who would only work on projects he thought worthwhile.He was very critical of the way television was heading and very much predicted today's age of TV dross in his satirical masterpiece The Year Of The Sex Olympics 1968.Another invention he used to great effect in his adaption of TWIB was a wax cylinder recording machine in Eel Marsh House a piece of state of the art late Victorian technology .The same piece of technology was also used in Bram Stoker's Dracula by Dr Seward as an audio diary.
2. The Martians in Quatermass and The Pit and the ancient force in The Stone Tape are reminiscent of the elder gods of H P Lovecraft.Nigel Kneale was asked about this but he said he had never read him which was likely as HP Lovecraft was pretty much an unknown American pulp writer during Kneales formative  years.Kneale said his two main influences were H G Wells and M R James.He actually wrote the script for the excellent Ray Harryhausen 1964 adaption of  H G Wells The First Men In The Moon.He also wrote the script for the 1962 18th century mutiny film HMS Defiant.I feel that The Road his 18th century future ghost story probably came from the research he did for this.His work will live on hopefully .Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen,Dr Who and Sherlock) is a great fan and tried at one time to remake The Road so his influence goes on . I have been a lifelong fan of Nigel Kneale and have dealt with his work elsewhere in my book on some of Britain's leading science fiction writers.

The Woman In Black And The Genius of Nigel Kneale

Nigel Kneale was the pioneer of the scientific ghost story.In his definitive science fiction story Quatermass and The Pit he features a haunted house but the house is actually being haunted by prehistoric ape men and Martians which emanate from a long buried and now excavated alien spacecraft.In The Road a play broadcast in 1963 he featured an 18th century English  wood subjected to a haunting thought to be a battle between Romans and ancient Britons. In actuality the wood is the site where a future road will be built which refugees from a nuclear strike will flee down and which is the true source of the haunting.In The Stone Tape broadcast in 1972 he set out the theory that ghosts are basically recordings of past events which have somehow impressed themselves on the physical surroundings in which they occurred and are then received by the minds of people now living.This is now actually called The Stone Tape theory after his play.Each of these programs proceeds as a form of scientific detective story in which the protagonists such as Quatermass, a scientific squire and a coffee house philosopher in The Road and a team of electronic engineers in The Stone Tape gradually solve the mystery surrounding the various supernatural goings on.   

The Woman In Black And The Genius Of Nigel Kneale

Nigel Kneale like Dennis Potter and Ken Russell emerged from the talent factory of the 1950s BBC.Television was a new medium  and young creative talent was attracted to it and allowed to make programs which were highly innovative.Nigel Kneale initially became famous through his Quatermass science fiction serials and also his adaption for television of George Orwell's 1984 which created a major stir due to its violence which led to questions in Parliament.The early 1950s version with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith and Andre Morell as O'Brien is still probably the definitive one .I prefer it to the Michael Radford  version with John Hurt and Richard Burton which was actually released in the year 1984 itself.Inspired by Orwell and also Aldous Huxley Kneale went on later to produce his own dystopian visions in particular The Year Of The Sex Olympics, Wine Of India and the apocalyptic vision of a broken Britain in The Quatermass Conclusion.However the dystopian visions came second to his reputation for being a master of the spooky and weird television serial and play.In particular three stories involved a mixture of science fiction and the supernatural which included novel theories about ghosts.I thought of these stories when watching the 1989 adaption of The Woman In Black .The three stories were Quatermass and the Pit 1958,The Road 1963 and The Stone Tape 1972. It Is these stories I will deal with in my next posting

The Woman In The Black And The Genius Of Nigel Kneale

I have finally seen the 2012 version of The Woman In Black and find my suspicions from the trailer fully justified.The setting has been returned to the Edwardian period of the book instead of Kneale's clever 1920s update.Crythin  Gifford  is depicted  as a village of the damned inhabited by superstitious peasants from a Hammer Dracula  movie and Eel Marsh House should have a sign up over it proclaiming Haunted House.It is a foreboding mansion in overgrown surroundings with everything inside dusty and cobwebbed like the house of Miss Haversham  in Great Expectations.The funeral of Mrs Drablow where in the book and 1989 version The Woman In Black first appears and is taken by Arthur for a mourner is omitted.In actual accounts by people who have seen ghosts they always say that the ghost looked like a real person and only later is it found out that the person is deceased.In Nigel Kneale's version Crythin Gifford is depicted as a prosperous 1920s Norfolk market town and there is a farmers market going on the day Arthur arrives.Likewise Eel Marsh house is a Victorian villa neat and tidy inside and even equipped with electric light from a generator.The spookiness only emerges later it is not immediately obvious.In the 1989 version The Woman in Black is in fact only seen five times in the film.Once in the Church at the start,then once in the churchyard,in the graveyard at Eel Marsh House then when she memorably visits Arthur at the inn in that scene. then right at the finale.The psychological terror comes from the expectation that she might appear rather then the actual appearance.

The Woman in Black And The Genius Of Nigel Kneale.

Although there are echoes of Henry James famous ghost story The Turn Of the Screw in Susan Hills The Woman In Black the Nigel Kneale 1989 adaption was more reminiscent  of M R James.The early 1960s black and white film adaption of The Turn Of The Screw with Deborah Kerr titled The Innocents is a superb film and the female ghost in it Miss Jessel is in fact a prototype for the ghost in The Woman in Black.She appears in daylight dressed in black as a figure seen in the distance through  rain  at one point in the film.However the model of the 1989 version of The Woman In Black is in fact the BBC 1970s adaptions of the M R James stories such as Lost Hearts.These were broadcast as ghost stories for Christmas as was the The Woman In Black which was broadcast by ITV not the BBC on Christmas eve 1989.Generally in the M R James story the protagonist is drawn into a haunting which generally starts in a low key but gradually the tension is ratcheted up .There is also a mystery involved with the protagonist gradually discovering what the events are which are behind the haunting.In his most frightening story Lost Hearts adapted in the early 1970s an orphan boy is sent to live with an elderly relative in a country house in the early 19th century. The house is haunted by the ghosts of a boy and a girl who it  turns out were murdered by the relative who is a Satanist who believes he can prolong his life by removing the hearts of children in a magic ritual.The period setting was unusual because M R James generally gave his stories a contemporary setting (contemporary being from the Edwardian age to the 1920s). The Woman In Black is sometimes referred to as a Victorian ghost story.I have noticed that people today often have only the haziest notion of period due to the Cultural Amnesia that Clive James refers to.The relation for example of the Victorian,Edwardian ages and the 1920s seems particularly hard to grasp.From my reading of the novel I presume it to be set sometime in the ten years prior to the Great War. Motor Cars and telephones for example are mentioned in the text, these are both late 19th century inventions but only became ubiquitous in the years prior to the First World War.There is no mention of this war so it is likely that it has not happened yet and there is a reference using the word Victorian as something related to the past. Nigel Kneale set his adaption in the 1920s.In fact it can be dated precisely.The junior clerks in the law practice where Arthur Kidd works are joking about the new Charlie Chaplin film The Gold Rush which came out in 1925.So the story begins in 1920s London with its cinemas ,motor cars and buses,elecrtic light and modern electric  subway system.The 20s was the first great era of modernity ,the Great War had shattered the 19th century world and people felt that they were in many ways living in a new world severed from that of the past.The unfolding story which follows shows how a horror from that past is able to wreak havoc on the protagonist.

The Woman In Black And The Genius Of Nigel Kneale

The original Susan Hill novel published in 1983 is a tribute to the ghost stories of Henry James -The Turn Of The Screw and the short ghost stories of M R James.One of the chapters in the book is actually entitled Whistle and Ill Come To You which is the title of one of M R James most frightening stories.The name of the protagonist in the novel is Arthur Kipps.Nigel Kneale in his adaption changed the name from Arthur Kipps to Arthur Kidd which apparently annoyed Susan Hill. So why did Kneale effect this small change in nomenclenture?. Arthur Kipps was originally the hero of H G Wells comic novel Kipps. This was a best seller in its time and virtually every literate person in Britain had heard of Arthur Kipps.The novel was adapted as a film starring Michael Redgrave in 1941 and was adapted into the musical Half a Sixpence which was also filmed in 1967 staring Tommy Steel.I would be surprised if Susan Hill was not aware of this so why give her character what was at the time the well known name of a popular fictional character?.In the current 2012 adaption  the leading character has once more become Arthur Kipps and I doubt if one person in a hundred would be able to tell you who the original Arthur Kipps was.I think this is part of the phenomena which the critic Clive James has entitled Cultural Amnesia which title he has given to a brilliant book on his cultural heroes. published several years ago.A lot of things people used to know they don't know any more and they don't know what what they are missing.

The Woman In Black And The Genius Of Nigel Kneale

So what is it that raised my suspicions with regard to the new film version of  The Woman in Black?. When viewing the trailer I immediately noticed that they had three spooky little girls in it. These girls are conspicuous by their absence from the original novel and Kneale's adaption,the only child ghost in the story is a little boy who is in fact The Woman in Blacks son.So where have they come from?.In fact they seem to have wandered into the film from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. In Stanley Kubrick's version of Steven Kings story his haunted house The Overlook Hotel is haunted by the specter  of two twin girls the Grady twins .They spookily  appear wearing party frocks and holding hands in the corridors of the hotel to the young son of Jack Nicolsons caretaker.It is quite a spooky unsettling image that only a director of Kubrick's quality could come up with.The spooky twin girl image was sent up brilliantly in the BBC black comedy series of the early 2000s The League Of Gentlemen.The twin Denton girls obviously based on the Grady twins from The Shining continuously and unexpectedly appear to torment Harvey and Val Denton's normal nephew who has come to stay with their eccentric obsessional family.The twins are called Chloe and Radcliffe .Radcliffe I always presumed as a camp reference to Radcliffe Hall the author of the 1920s Lesbian novel The Well Of Loneliness.Obviously the writers and director of the new version of The Woman In Black decided to go for three little girl ghosts. Is this a rather feeble attempt to use a key trope from The Shining but by increasing the number to three be able to deny it is a direct steal.?.To me it suggests a lazy imagination and an underestimation of the audiences intelligence many of whom will obviously be horror film fans who will immediately spot the reference.

The Woman In Black And The Genius of Nigel Kneale

Daniel Radcliffe's first post Harry Potter film The Woman In Black based on the 1983 novel by Susan Hill has apparently done well at the box office since its release in the USA and comes out this week in the UK.As well as the original novel there has been a long running London stage version with a cast of three actors.a BBC radio version and a made for television film version scripted by veteran horror writer Nigel Kneale first broadcast in 1989.I have not seen the stage version or heard the radio version but have read the original novel and seen the 1989 TV version which is one of the best scripts that Nigel Kneale ever produced. Naturally I was intrigued as to how the new movie version would stand up.Having seen a couple of trailers and read a synopsis of the new film my heart sank.From what I have seen and read of the new film it only seems to highlight the skill of Nigel Kneales adaption which pace Susan Hill I consider to be an improvement on the original novel.From what I have seen of the new film version it is no more faithful to the original novel than Kneale's version but cliched and derivative of other ghost story  movies in a way that Kneale managed to avoid.

Books -The Last Chapter Final Part.

I have on my bookshelf an edition of a book which is over 100 years old.It is an edition of an illustrated novel by George Du Maurier the author of Trilby entitled The Martian and is a mystical novel with science fiction overtones.It was published in 1908 and is a handsome book with a dark blue cloth cover embossed with gold leaf.It is perfectly readable and the quality paper it was printed on remains pure white with no yellowing or foxing.It has obviously been well looked after and sat on various book shelves during the past century.During this period as it sat there The First World War happened as did The Russian Revolution,The Great Depression ,The Second World War,The Cold War,The 60s .,men landed on the moon,The Berlin Wall fell,911 occurred. During this time countless books were destroyed sometimes deliberately as in the Nazi book burning sometimes    accidently. This particular book survived and there is no reason why it may not survive for another century if it is looked after.I possess an electronic edition of the same book on my Kindle .The e book edition cost me nothing from Amazon and it is also possible to down load for nothing from Project Gutenberg..However I feel I possess the physical book in a way that I do not with the electronic one.The physical book is also worth something while the electronic one is freeware.James Lovelock one of the worlds leading  scientific prophets has dismissed the whole idea of submitting the sum of human knowledge to cloud computing.He thinks such networks which after all consist of extremely sophisticated complex technology may be all too vulnerable to the breakdown for example of the economic and ecological systems they depend on.I was in London on the day of the terrorist attacks on the 7th of July 2005.One of the first things I noticed happening was that the cell phone network collapsed under the weight of calls and everyone's phones became useless.Combined with the closure of roads and public transport people were essentially returned to 19th century conditions in which they had to walk and ask strangers for news by word of mouth - all in just a few hours.James Lovelock has suggested that basic scientific knowledge should be collected in a sort of primer which would be printed in a solid bound book something like a church bible which could be produced in large numbers and distributed to various educational, military and medical foci .He thinks this is far more likely to survive than an e reader or laptop which without power or its network just becomes a piece of unusable junk.Such devices are also produced in a small number of  industrial centers in Asia ,easily accessible now but in the future who knows ?. Of course people would have to look after the books and know how to read them.I a reminded here of a scene from the George Pal 1960 version Of H G Wells The Time Machine.This has always been a favourite film of mine ever  since I saw it as a child.In the scene Rod Taylor the time traveler is stranded among  the child like Eloi in the distant future.In the film they are depicted like vacant 50s American teenagers who show a total lack of curiosity about anything.Rod Taylor asks them if they have any books and that books will tell him all he needs to know about them.They say they have and take him to some book shelves in a room at the back of their building.When Rod touches the books they simply crumple into dust.Rod tells them ,yes books have told me all about you.

Books- The Last Chapter ?.

The question is being raised as to whether those coming generations who will learn to read from screens will engage with books in the same way as those previous generations who grew up with the printed book.Will they ever read a whole book ? or merely be contented with extracts and precis ,a sort of literature light.The critic George Steiner in his masterful work In Bluebeard's Castle ,Some Notes Towards a Re-Definition Of Culture prophesied as long ago as 1970 that Western literature of the last few centuries would gradually become inaccessible  to the common reader.Just as classical literature has become a minority interest with few reading Plato or Homer these days so will modern literature with the great authors of the past largely unread. The culture of the past would in effect become the property of a minority of intellectuals rather in the way that Mustapha Mond the Controller in Huxley s Brave New World has The Bible and Shakespeare in his safe while the lower castes are restricted to the feelies.The modern feelies are only too obvious from Reality TV to Video Games.If everything is left to consumer choice with one choice as good as another the majority may well  prefer the feelies in the same way that someone who has never eaten a proper meal will prefer branded junk food to one.

Books- The Last Chapter ?.

At the moment we live in the golden age of information.Massive amounts of books which would have been out of print or hard to find are either available online or ordered online if only available in a printed edition.It is truly a wonderful time to be alive if you are a bibliophile.Back in the 1960s Marshall McLuhan coined the phase The Global Village.This conjures up an image of a cosy friendly community of equals.In real life villages tended to be very unequal places with the squire and other wealthy families owning most of the land and the poorest members of the community agricultural laborers who worked for them for a pittance.The present information global village is pretty much the same and it is only too obvious to name the squires who actually own the land.When it comes to information you actually have to know what information you are looking for.To do this you have to have a  level of education which many people are denied these days.Actually reading a printed book from cover to cover was once part of such an education.There are many snake oil salesmen who will tell you that we now live in a new paradigm and this no longer applies.Such people were only a few years ago telling us that there we now lived in a New Economy which would grow perpetually. Book titles such as The World Is Flat and Living on Thin Air give a flavor of the period of the 1990s and early 2000s. Everything's Coming Up Roses was the general  message. money would make money and trickle down to even the poorest in good time.Such people now seem quite happy and enthusiastic about the demise of the printed book the bringer of literacy and civilisation  for nearly six centuries.