ARTHUR MILLER’S TIMELESS TALE OF TRUTH ON TRIAL.
Salem, Massachusetts, 1692; a couple of girls are believed to be demonically possessed and another, Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder), claims to have seen one of the slaves talking to Satan… And so begins this adaptation of Arthur Miller’s most famous and influential play, one that was particularly relevant during McCarthy’s witch hunt for Communists, but still matters today whenever new “witches” are invented. In Nicholas Hytner’s hands, the movie overcomes its stage origins and becomes a fascinating and heartfelt cinematic study of the mechanics behind mass hysteria. Very good performances help, particularly by Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Scofield as the stern judge.
1996-U.S. 123 min. Color. Produced by Robert A. Miller, David V. Picker. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. Screenplay, Play: Arthur Miller. Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis (John Proctor), Winona Ryder (Abigail Williams), Joan Allen (Elizabeth Proctor), Paul Scofield, Bruce Davison, Rob Campbell… Jeffrey Jones, George Gaynor.
Trivia: Scofield’s last feature film. Drew Barrymore, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kirsten Dunst were allegedly considered for parts; Kenneth Branagh for directing duties.
BAFTA: Best Supporting Actor (Scofield).
Last word: “As I watched ‘The Crucible’ taking shape as a movie over much of the past year, the sheer depth of time that it represents for me kept returning to mind. As those powerful actors blossomed on the screen, and the children and the horses, the crowds and the wagons, I thought again about how I came to cook all this up nearly fifty years ago, in an America almost nobody I know seems to remember clearly. In a way, there is a biting irony in this film’s having been made by a Hollywood studio, something unimaginable in the fifties. But there they are – Daniel Day-Lewis (John Proctor) scything his sea-bordered field, Joan Allen (Elizabeth) lying pregnant in the frigid jail, Winona Ryder (Abigail) stealing her minister-uncle’s money, majestic Paul Scofield (Judge Danforth) and his righteous empathy with the Devil-possessed children, and all of them looking as inevitable as rain.” (Miller in 1996, The New Yorker)
