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 (2009 film) "The Turn of the Screw". The children, Flora and Miles, were played respectively by Eva Sayer and Josef Lindsay. However, due to the sexual content of the film, the child actors did not attend the preview screenings. "The Turn of the Screw" was first shown at 9 pm on BBC One on 30 December 2009, as part of the BBC's Christmas 2009 season. It has since been broadcast on other BBC channels and on Drama. In the UK, the film was released on DVD on 1 March 2010, and distributed by Acorn Media UK. The DVD was rated "15" by