The Turn of the Screw adaptations and reworkings in a variety of media, and these reworkings and adaptations have, themselves, been analysed in the academic literature on Henry James and neo-Victorian culture. It was adapted to an opera by Benjamin Britten, which premiered in 1954, and the opera has been filmed on numerous occasions. The novella was adapted as a ballet score (1980) by Luigi Zaninelli, and separately as a ballet (1999) by Will Tucket for the Royal Ballet. Harold Pinter directed "The Innocents" (1950), a Broadway play which was an adaptation of "The Turn of the Screw", and a subsequent eponymous stage play, adapted
The Turn of the Screw (2009 film) Dowling, a columnist for "The Guardian", the film failed in this regard. The novella, Dowling explained, can be understood as a straightforward ghost story, but it can also be understood as a story about Ann's madness, and there is further ambiguity concerning whether the children are being controlled by Quint and Jessel, or whether the children are controlling Ann. He suggested that "there's probably a subtlety to all this ambiguity on the page which, when translated to the screen, just looks like having it both ways." As a result, "the narrative was at times more evasive than ambiguous". Whittaker felt