Not only one of the first significant historical events to take place on American soil, the witchcraft trials of Salem, Massachusetts were also pivotal in the forging of the American conscience (or lack thereof). The story has the relevance that the passing of three centuries couldn't alter, mass hysteria and mob mentality being as prevalent in our social DNA as in 1692. Maybe more than ever.
"The Crucible" was originally a play written by Arthur Miller as a frontal reaction to McCarthyism. When I saw the film shortly after its release, I didn't get the reference to the HUAC (although I was familiar with that chapter). But watching it again in 2022, another parallel struck me, the Weinstein affair's aftermath or any scandal affecting the career of a celebrity. I know the comparison is hazardous as none of the nineteen people hanged in Salem were witches; as for communists, whether they were or not was beside the point; destroying one's career for that reason was a heavy weight for any sound conscience, with all due respect to the cinematic legacy of Elia Kazan.
Salem, Red Scare, Me Too might be different but there is a common denominator in the fact that the accused could be guilty by suspicion and people would rather blend in with the crowd, persecute rather than being persecuted. That's the issue raised by "The Crucible", when society establishes laws and rules that can put you in a situation where the only escape is to accuse your neighbor, self-preservation is likely to triumph over conscience.
And it's a delightful coincidence that Paul Scofield plays Judge Thomas Danforth, echoing his Oscar-winning performance as Thomas More, a man coerced into betraying his own soul to obey the law. Roles are reversed and Scofield is scarily effective as a civil servant of God, juggling between religious abstractions and judicial concepts with quite a verbal dexterity and a faux neutral looking composure. Along with Scofield, the film directed by Nicholas Hyther reassembles many "it" names of the 90s, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joan Allen and of course Wynona Ryder as Abigail Williams, the one that started it all.
It opens when she and a group of young girls engage in some pagan ritual with a slave from Barbados named Tituba (Charlayne Woodard). The scene is graphic, a girl is dancing naked and Abigail smashes a poor chicken's head and drinks his blood to cast a spell against the woman married to the man of her dreams, John Proctor. All this scene plays under the shocked eyes of Bruce Davison who plays Abigail's uncle, a reverend contested by his own parrishers and who doesn't need a scandal to tarnish what's left of his credibility.
Roger Ebert considered the scene a misstep as it validated the suspicion of witchcraft. I both agree and disagree, I agree because the frenzy is a little overdone and counter-productive, we shouldn't doubt the girls sanity because this is what emphasizes their malice. And Abigail mustn't be considered a witch but rather the term that rhymes with. But then again, this is cinema and you know what they say about "show and don't tell".
More problematic is the way it portrays Salem's people as hysterical bigots willing to believe that anything against their interests is the work of the devil or that any confession obtained by the power of the whip is a honest one. Maybe it works for dramatic purposes or it's historically accurate but I wish there was more subtlety in the characterizations. Even Ryder sometimes just overacts with her eyes. Maybe an antagonist who just didn't anticipate the consequences of her actions and lost control could have weighted the tragedy with a sad irony.
Basically there were three kinds of people: those who didn't believe it, those who did and those who pretended to do. John Proctor belonged to the first category, thus making a potential target of himself, even more when he rejected Abigail's advances. Later, he has a conversation with his wife Elizabeth (Nancy Allen). She doesn't like the sound of her husband meeting the very girl he had an affair with when she was her servant. Allen perfectly conveys the icy passive-aggressiveness of the wife who doesn't judge her husband because only God or his conscience would, which is another way getaway to avoid forgiveness. In other words, she's a tough one.
And Proctor's passionate reaction betrays a certain vulnerability, trapped in a honorable marriage, he might have needed one little sparkle from hell to cure the marital frostbites. It's all in the dynamics between Proctor and his wife that lies the film's heart, a man who's not religious but determined to raise his voice and there's a woman so virtuous she doesn't need to signal it. Yet neither positions protected them and in a pivotal and well-executed scene, it's precisely Elizabeth's virtue that seals her husband's fate.
More than a film with a message, "The Crucible" is a fine time capsule of an era seldom portrayed in movies and a character-study of bravery and cowardice. There are good people like Giles Corey (Peter Vaughan) his wife Martha (Mary Paul Gleason) and Rebecca Nurse (Elizabeth Lawrence), some are cowards for the sake of prudence like the other Judge played by George Gaynes and you have the opportunists like Putnam (Jeffrey Jones) who uses the witch-hunt to gain more land and there's Rob Campbell as the young Reverend Hale who comes off as a cocky individual but ends up sympathizing with Proctor's cause and turning into the voice of reason..
Lewis is excellent and the heartbreaking climactic "it's my name" breakdown is a credit to his talent but it's Allen's most restrained performance that will earn her an Oscar nomination. The film would also be nominated for Best Screenplay. Despite a few overdone moments (too much noise and weird camera angles at times), I liked the film... and the Simpsons parody even better.
"The Crucible" was originally a play written by Arthur Miller as a frontal reaction to McCarthyism. When I saw the film shortly after its release, I didn't get the reference to the HUAC (although I was familiar with that chapter). But watching it again in 2022, another parallel struck me, the Weinstein affair's aftermath or any scandal affecting the career of a celebrity. I know the comparison is hazardous as none of the nineteen people hanged in Salem were witches; as for communists, whether they were or not was beside the point; destroying one's career for that reason was a heavy weight for any sound conscience, with all due respect to the cinematic legacy of Elia Kazan.
Salem, Red Scare, Me Too might be different but there is a common denominator in the fact that the accused could be guilty by suspicion and people would rather blend in with the crowd, persecute rather than being persecuted. That's the issue raised by "The Crucible", when society establishes laws and rules that can put you in a situation where the only escape is to accuse your neighbor, self-preservation is likely to triumph over conscience.
And it's a delightful coincidence that Paul Scofield plays Judge Thomas Danforth, echoing his Oscar-winning performance as Thomas More, a man coerced into betraying his own soul to obey the law. Roles are reversed and Scofield is scarily effective as a civil servant of God, juggling between religious abstractions and judicial concepts with quite a verbal dexterity and a faux neutral looking composure. Along with Scofield, the film directed by Nicholas Hyther reassembles many "it" names of the 90s, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joan Allen and of course Wynona Ryder as Abigail Williams, the one that started it all.
It opens when she and a group of young girls engage in some pagan ritual with a slave from Barbados named Tituba (Charlayne Woodard). The scene is graphic, a girl is dancing naked and Abigail smashes a poor chicken's head and drinks his blood to cast a spell against the woman married to the man of her dreams, John Proctor. All this scene plays under the shocked eyes of Bruce Davison who plays Abigail's uncle, a reverend contested by his own parrishers and who doesn't need a scandal to tarnish what's left of his credibility.
Roger Ebert considered the scene a misstep as it validated the suspicion of witchcraft. I both agree and disagree, I agree because the frenzy is a little overdone and counter-productive, we shouldn't doubt the girls sanity because this is what emphasizes their malice. And Abigail mustn't be considered a witch but rather the term that rhymes with. But then again, this is cinema and you know what they say about "show and don't tell".
More problematic is the way it portrays Salem's people as hysterical bigots willing to believe that anything against their interests is the work of the devil or that any confession obtained by the power of the whip is a honest one. Maybe it works for dramatic purposes or it's historically accurate but I wish there was more subtlety in the characterizations. Even Ryder sometimes just overacts with her eyes. Maybe an antagonist who just didn't anticipate the consequences of her actions and lost control could have weighted the tragedy with a sad irony.
Basically there were three kinds of people: those who didn't believe it, those who did and those who pretended to do. John Proctor belonged to the first category, thus making a potential target of himself, even more when he rejected Abigail's advances. Later, he has a conversation with his wife Elizabeth (Nancy Allen). She doesn't like the sound of her husband meeting the very girl he had an affair with when she was her servant. Allen perfectly conveys the icy passive-aggressiveness of the wife who doesn't judge her husband because only God or his conscience would, which is another way getaway to avoid forgiveness. In other words, she's a tough one.
And Proctor's passionate reaction betrays a certain vulnerability, trapped in a honorable marriage, he might have needed one little sparkle from hell to cure the marital frostbites. It's all in the dynamics between Proctor and his wife that lies the film's heart, a man who's not religious but determined to raise his voice and there's a woman so virtuous she doesn't need to signal it. Yet neither positions protected them and in a pivotal and well-executed scene, it's precisely Elizabeth's virtue that seals her husband's fate.
More than a film with a message, "The Crucible" is a fine time capsule of an era seldom portrayed in movies and a character-study of bravery and cowardice. There are good people like Giles Corey (Peter Vaughan) his wife Martha (Mary Paul Gleason) and Rebecca Nurse (Elizabeth Lawrence), some are cowards for the sake of prudence like the other Judge played by George Gaynes and you have the opportunists like Putnam (Jeffrey Jones) who uses the witch-hunt to gain more land and there's Rob Campbell as the young Reverend Hale who comes off as a cocky individual but ends up sympathizing with Proctor's cause and turning into the voice of reason..
Lewis is excellent and the heartbreaking climactic "it's my name" breakdown is a credit to his talent but it's Allen's most restrained performance that will earn her an Oscar nomination. The film would also be nominated for Best Screenplay. Despite a few overdone moments (too much noise and weird camera angles at times), I liked the film... and the Simpsons parody even better.