Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"The Tractate Middoth" is a British 36-minute live action short film from 2013, so this one will have its 5th anniversary next year. It was written and directed by Mark Gatiss, an Emmy winner for Sherlock, and he adapted the original work by M.R. James for the small screen here. If you hear the name of the latter, then you realize probably right away that this is among the most recent installments to the long-running British Ghost Stories for Christmas series that existed in the 1970s already. This BBc production features a bunch of actors that may not be well-known to non-English audiences, but nonetheless they still seem to be enjoying prolific careers, some also appeared on the previously mentioned "Sherlock". But just as overrated as Sherlock may be (starring the incredibly overrated B. Cumberbatch), just as overrated is also this little film we have here. Yes it is fairly atmospheric and the actors aren't bad (not great either though). I'll give them that. But the story struggles with authenticity on more than just one occasions and I am of course not referring to the inclusion of ghosts as this is the center of it all. I am referring to a librarian, who gets the hell scared out of him and still we are supposed to believe he keeps investigating in this spooky matter. Also how he does end up at the two women's house is a bit dubious and very much for story's purpose than convincingly realistic. I have not read James' original work, so cannot say if the problem lies there or in the adaptation here, but as a whole it is still a weak outcome, even if not a failure I guess. I give this little tale a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
Leofwine_draca
THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH deserves commendation purely because it's a traditional ghost story and an adaptation of an M. R. James story to boot. Unlike the previous version of WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU, which starred John Hurt and unwisely tried to update the story to the modern day (very unsuccessfully, I might add), THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH is extremely traditional and true to the original story.It's a labour of love for writer/director Mark Gatiss, who turns out to be a better writer than he is director. It's not that his direction is poor, it's just rather straightforward and perhaps slightly too subtle, even when adapting an author known for his subtlety. The story adaptation also has a few flaws, including some rather large coincidences, but then it does have to all tie up neatly in a rather short running time.The period look and feel is spot on, and the plotting is quite a bit of fun. Most importantly, it feels true to the classic adaptations of the '70s, even if it is a lesser being. The horror does feel very gentle and the two 'scare' sequences aren't entirely successful, but I'm just happy that the BBC are going in the right direction for once. Let's hope Gatiss gets to do another one next year!
James Hitchcock
Although only one feature film ("Night of the Demon") has been based upon the ghost stories of M R James, a number of them have been adapted as short plays for British television, a format to which they are possibly more suited. During my childhood in the 1970s, I remember that the BBC regularly used to dramatise one every year under the title "A Ghost Story for Christmas", and this tradition has been revived in recent years. "The Tractate Middoth" is the latest offering in this series. The story opens in an unnamed university library. Mr Garrett, a young librarian, is asked by a man named John Eldred for an obscure Hebrew religious text. (In the original story Garrett has the Christian name William, but that is not used here). In some ways, this is as much a detective story as a ghost story. The detective element derives from a will made by an elderly and malicious eccentric, Dr Rant, who has ingeniously concealed it within the book in question. Eldred turns out to be the nephew of the testator and the inheritor of his estate. The ghost element derives from the fact that Rant, although long dead, still seems to take a protective interest in the old book. A frequent theme of James's work was the irruption into the rational, ordered world of his gentleman-scholars of dark, irrational forces, and this contrast between the seemingly rational and the uncanny is what gives them a lot of their force. "The Tractate Middoth" was first published in 1911, but was probably written earlier, and James probably envisaged the action taking place around 1895. Mark Gatiss, however, the writer and director of this version, has updated it to the 1950s, and I think that the change works quite well. The fifties, often seen as a brief interval of peace and stability between the turmoil of the war years and the social changes of the 1960s, were, like the late Victorian and Edwardian period, an era when it seemed, at least temporarily, that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. Gatiss sticks quite closely to the plot of James's story. The main difference is that in the original the ghost only appears once, near the beginning. We are doubtless meant to infer that Eldred's death is due to the agency of Rant's ghost, as malevolent in death as he was in life, but James never makes this explicit. Here, Gatiss takes the opportunity to have the ghost reappear at this point, probably to make the tale more frightening. This film is not really in the class of the best James adaptations, such as Jonathan Miller's famous black-and-white version of "Whistle and I'll Come to You" (not part of the "A Ghost Story for Christmas" series), although the reason for this may be that "The Tractate Middoth" is perhaps not James's greatest story. The main problem is that it relies too heavily on an improbable coincidence; after his meeting with Eldred and his encounter with the ghost, Garrett goes to the seaside to recover- where the landlady of his boarding-house turns out to be none other than Eldred's cousin and the beneficiary of the missing will. Gatiss, however, handles his material well, telling quite a complicated tale in just over half an hour, and the ghost is suitably scary. This was enjoyable viewing for a Christmas evening. 6/10
Spondonman
I always enjoy a good ghost story, but having only intermittently watched these intermittent BBC Christmas schedule fillers over the last four decades can't consider myself a genre expert. And this one is also based on one of M. R. James' lesser short stories that I've not read. My reading of horror short stories peaked with H. G. Wells' The Cone and my appreciation of horror films hasn't progressed beyond Night Of The Demon.Rather serious young male student helping out at university library is asked by a mysterious hopeful borrower for a copy of Hebrew book The Tractate Middoth – which apparently merely relates to the measurements of a temple – but is thwarted twice by uncanny events. The fabulous title might have been less impressive sounding if the book had been even more mundane, however it's what has been enclosed within the pages by a dying man and what it's worth that is the McGuffin. Suspend belief because! The uncanny events lead to the student's nervous breakdown, complemented by a breathtakingly outrageous plot contrivance and on the way to the (apparently faithful) trite but swift conclusion there's more unsettling spooky moments. This is my key experience of James: there always has to be a couple of unsettling spooky moments in his stories, and Mark Gatiss as writer/director gets this requirement over well. Acting and production were high quality; my cleverer daughter gave it a thumbs up although niggled by the updating of the setting to the 1950's. The programme was lean and slick and all I'd hoped, expected and desired, overall imho a good directorial debut by Gatiss who appears to be swarming all over the BBC at present. If only for the sake of continuing a good BBC Christmas tradition I can only hope it leads to many more James' from him!
