Benjamin Britten the apex of his reputation: it was almost universally hailed as a masterpiece." Shostakovich told Rostropovich that he believed it to be "the greatest work of the twentieth century". In 1967 the BBC commissioned Britten to write an opera specially for television. "Owen Wingrave" was based, like "The Turn of the Screw", on a ghost story by Henry James. By the 1960s Britten found composition much slower than in his prolific youth; he told the 28-year-old composer Nicholas Maw, "Get as much done now as you can, because it gets much, much more difficult as you grow older." He did
The Turn of the Screw Mexican miniseries entitled "Otra vuelta de tuerca" ("The Turn of the Screw", 1981); a 1982 adaptation directed by Petr Weigl primarily starring Czech actors lip-synching; a 1990 adaptation directed by Graeme Clifford; "The Haunting of Helen Walker" (1995), directed by Tom McLoughlin; a 1999 adaptation directed by Ben Bolt; a low-budget 2003 version written and directed by Nick Millard; the Italian-language "Il mistero del lago" ("The Mystery of the Lake", 2009); and a 2009 BBC film adapted by Sandy Welch, starring Michelle Dockery and Sue Johnston. Literary reworkings of "The Turn of the Screw" identified by James scholar Adeline R.