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.