MovieChat Forums > The Innocents (1961) Discussion > Hmmm, maybe the kids are more evil than ...

Hmmm, maybe the kids are more evil than you thought

posted 9 years ago by xstrguy
15 replies | jump to latest

Just throwing this out there for the sake of conversation, lol.

By the way, I subscribe to the theory that the kids were molested by their caretakers and that Miss Giddens is a repressed, unstable person... not the literal "spooky ghost story/possessed demon children" version that some people see when they watch this movie.

But did anyone else think that maybe Miles and Flora had a hand in Miss Jessel's and Quint's death?

Some clues...

- Miles is the first person to find Quint dead at the bottom of the steps. I suppose it could just be by chance... but maybe not. Miles obviously wasn't afraid to go out alone at night as witnessed by his late night, barefoot stunt in the courtyard. Maybe he knew he could surprise a drunk Quint coming home late and easily push him down the icy stairs.

- Flora secretely knew how to row a boat even though Miles claimed she was a "baby" and couldn't handle a boat. Later Flora claims Miles taught her. Why the deception on Flora's part? Maybe she didn't want anyone to know that she had taken Miss Jessel out in the boat and caused her to fall in and drown.

- Miles "playfully" strangled Miss Giddens and it didn't appear that he had planned to stop his attack until he was interrupted. And then the pigeon with the broken neck. You know what they always say is the best way to spot a serial killer as a child, right?

- Flora's freak out at the pond. Was she overacting/overreacting because she thought the Miss Giddens knew the true cause of Miss Jessel's death and that's why she threw such a hissy fit?

- Mile's death. Miles had a similar reaction to the nonexistent "ghost of Quint" that Flora had earlier to the nonexistent "ghost of Miss Jessel" but taken to the next level, sudden death. Remember, these kids don't know why this lady keeps badgering them about their secrets. They don't know that she's seeing ghosts. They just think she's digging for the real truth. And they'll do virtually anything to hide their dark secrets.

- It's possible that Mrs. Grose knew (or at least suspected) the real story behind the deaths and what led up to cause the kids to be homicidal maniacs (molestation and abuse). That would help explain why she is so hesitant to speak of the past. She's afraid for her life and ashamed that she did nothing about the abuse. And not because of the spooky ghosts that only the new crazy governess sees.

If I've misremembered any of the scenes, please correct me.

Cheers!

[–] thepixinator 9 years ago

Oooh - that's a fascinating take on the character development of the children. This is what is so perfectly done about The Innocents - there are so many ways to interpret the motivations of the characters; how the dialogue was written to accomplish that is truly brilliant.

----------------

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived

... Strictly Ballroom

[–] boxerrebellion 9 years ago

I sort of wondered about the children's involvement at the time, although not due to molestation.

[–] tkech 9 years ago

your post spoilers the heck out of the movie. Please consider modifying your topic title if possible.

[–] hungson-nguyen91 9 years ago

I agree with the OP's theory. Remember the Hide and Seek scene where Giddens saw the ghost of the man? She then told Mrs Grose that his face looked like he is hunting something (probably looking for revenge against Miles). Then, in the study room, Jessel appeared in front of Giddens sobbing in tears. It could be Jessel trying to tell Giddens about the pain that she was murdered by Flora.

[–] justcallmepip 9 years ago

Very interesting theory and well thought out. I could easily believe it, except i think there is too much effort made to point in another direction. That is, to point to the kids' behavior as brought about by possession rather than an innate attraction to evil.

For instance:
1. In one of the later scenes Miss Giddens states that "the horrors" are using the children for their own indecent desires (or words to that effect), that it is a game Jessel and Quint are playing and she fears where it will lead.

2. In connection to Miss Giddens confronting the children about "the horrors," Mrs. Grose warns her about waking children from a bad dream, saying that it can create a shock and lead to them being deprived. "Shock" and "deprived" are the words i remember clearly. But why deprived? Deprived of what? It doesn't make sense in terms of dreams, but it could make sense in terms of possession. Perhaps she is saying that tearing them away from Quint and Jessel would deprive them of those whom they have been closely attached to...or even completely devoted to.

3. The poem that the boy recited implies a worshipful devotion to Quint and a wish for him to return, which of course seems unlikely if he had killed Quint. It is also interesting that he seems to be looking through the same door/windows where Miss Giddens saw Quint. (Though i could be wrong about that).

4. The boy's disturbing behavior can be explained by Quint's influence, either directly (through possession) or indirectly (through his worshipful devotion).

My supposition is that the things he did to Miss Giddens, such as kissing her and strangling her, are actually the things that he is doing with his sister. Obviously this couldn't be shown directly with such young actors and so Miss Giddens was essentially a stand-in for Flora. The implication is that this is what Quint and Jessel are using Miles and Flora for--as a means of reenacting their sometimes loving and sometimes stormy relationship.

5. The scene where Flora dances near the lake to me suggests that she is under the influence of Jessel and is dancing for Quint. Her sudden ability to row can also be explained by this influence. Moreover, she could have danced at home or at some other isolated spot on the estate. So why there? Perhaps this was the spot where Quint sometimes watched Jessel dance for him. And thus another reenactment.

Also, if she had killed Jessel, it seems to me that she would avoid the lake as much as possible unless she truly is a cold-blooded killer with no conscious. But that's hard to believe.

I really didn't think i could come up with a good signature, but happily i thought of this one.

[–] justcallmepip 9 years ago

Earlier i was going to add (to the end of my previous post) that i could more readily imagine Miles as a cold-blooded killer than his sister: for he was following in the footsteps of a rather sadistic man while Flora, for her part, was never shown having broken the neck of her tortoise. But that suddenly triggered a memory of Flora asking if tortoises can swim and it made me wonder if there may have been something sinister to what, at the time, struck me as a little odd but nothing more than that.

Just now i had a chance to skim through the movie again and found that scene. In it, Miss Giddens responded by indicating that tortoises can't swim. So Flora picks her tortoise up out of the water, saying she didn't think they could. How long it had been there, and whether it still lived, i couldn't tell. More significantly, though, this comes right after she mentions that Miles once told her that a hand print could be seen in the bottom of the lake.

This definitely seems to point to the possibility of Flora's involvement in Jessel's death. I'm inclined to think it was merely intended as a red herring (one which completely escaped me the first time through), but it does make me less certain of the true nature of her character.

I really didn't think i could come up with a good signature, but happily i thought of this one.

[–] theoctobercountry 9 years ago

That's an excellent interpretation, and it makes perfect sense! It's not one that had occurred to me as I was watching, but I could see how that could be the case.

[–] shadowolf2k 9 years ago

Wow, I hadn't thought up that interpretation, but it makes sense as a definite possibility! Wonderful analysis.

[–] alexferguson86 9 years ago

I definitely think you could be right. I think that the fact that the children really aren't "innocent" enforces the idea of Miss Giddens' madness. She doesn't want to believe that the children are capable of actual evil, so she invents an alternative explanation which is preferable to her - that they're simply possessed.

[–] yfguitarist 9 years ago

Interesting...

[–] SuCue 8 years ago

(Spoiler alert)

In the 1971 prequel with Marlon Brando, "The Nightcomers",the children do kill Quint and Jessel. It's not a very good movie, but it does fill in some of the blank spaces in a very satisfying way. I watched it recently on YouTube; it might still be there if you are interested.

[–] HenryCW 8 years ago

(******Spoiler Warning*****
The discussion here inevitably contains spoilers for the prequel, The Nightcomers).

Yes, I had watched The Nightcomers before, but while it was supposed to be a prequel it was not treated as canon and was seldom known to viewers. Based on The Innocents alone, I don't think there was enough support for the suggestion that the children killed Quint and Miss Jessel. The children did appear a little creepy, but that was through the eyes of Miss Giddens, whom we see to be high-strung and in a fragile mental state. She was hypersensitive to sounds and saw apparitions that no one else did, and drew sinister implications whatever the children did or said. We know the children had been close to Quint and Jessel and they had great influence on them – but not necessarily in the sense of possession.

I think the strongest argument against the "murder" theory is that based on this film alone we cannot see any motive(s) for the children to murder the two. That was precisely what The Nightcomers tried to do – setting up the back-story. The so-called prequel, however, was in my opinion silly to the extreme. The worst thing was that the prequel destroyed all that was ambiguous and left to the viewer's imagination in the original film. All things that were only hinted (or not even hinted) at in the original film were shown explicitly. Nothing was left to the imagination. We were told that the couple's rough lovemaking was seen by the children. So they did their own imitation of the BDSM with Miles tying up Flora, pressing himself against her body, and telling the horrified Mrs. Grose that they were having "sex". The motives for their murder of the couple were simply preposterous. In the film, we are asked to believe that the children killed them because they thought they were "in love" and so wanted them to be "together" - and Quint earlier had made the rather random remarks that sometimes if you love someone you have to kill him/her, and that you could be with dead people only if you yourself are dead. To be brief, the children actually wished them well and thought they were doing "good" by killing them. In real life, I would call these children not "innocent" but retarded instead. The prequel ended with the new governess Miss Giddens arriving at the scene. I wonder how they could explain when Miss Jessel was found drowned with a hole at the bottom of the boat and Quint's body with two arrows on it!