Crucible the Film Version of Arthur Miller\'s

¶ … Crucible

The film version of Arthur Miller's hit Broadway play of 1953 "The Crucible" was released in 1996. Miller

himself wrote the screen play of the film which starred Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder in lead roles and was directed by Nicholas Hytner.

The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in American history surrounding the Salem witch trials in the year 1692. The film, as well as the play on which it is based, is however in no way an accurate description of history and takes considerable liberties with the actual events that took place during the trial. The film is set in the Puritan era in a small town (Salem) in colonial Massachusetts when twenty innocent men and women were accused of witchcraft and put to death and hundreds more suffered.

When Miller wrote his play, which has been reproduced on film with just a few changes, he had meant it to be an allegorical tale about McCarthyism and the witch-hunt of Communists (both imaginary and real) in the United States in the 1950s. Hence, while Miller was showing the characters of the Salem trials in his play, he was alluding to the paranoia prevailing in the U.S. At the time against the Communist ideology. With this allegorical aspect removed from the film released in 1996, one would have expected it to revert more closely to the historical events of the Salem witch trials. Unfortunately, the film diverges from the original events even further; thus loosing its sense of direction and meandering without purpose.

As noted by the renowned film critic, Robert Ebert in his review of the film, The Crucible strikes "the wrong note" from its very first scene. (Ebert, 1996) It shows a scene that could never possibly have occurred in the Puritanical society of 17th century Massachusetts and never did. The naked dancing in the forest by a group of adolescent girls is not only impossible to believe, it also takes the movie further away from a faithful rendition of the actual events.

The other glaring difference between the historical events at the Salem village in 1692 and the film is its theme of sexual relationship between Abigail Williams, the niece of Reverend Parris, and John Proctor a Salem farmer. At the center of the movie's story is Abigail's accusation of witchcraft against John Proctor, who having committed adultery with his one-time servant in a moment of weakness, repents his mistake and rejects her. Such a liaison almost certainly did not occur as Proctor was over 60 years old and Abigail was only 11 at the time of the trial. Proctor's involvement in the witch trials and his eventual hanging occurred because of his indiscretion in openly denouncing the trials and the girls' accusations as a scam, rather than any sexual indiscretion.

Furthermore, Reverend Parris' slave-woman, Tituba, who was accused of having tutored the girls in the art of witchcraft, has been inaccurately depicted in the movie as a black African woman rather than the South American Indian that she actually was.

Despite such obvious divergence from the historical facts, The Crucible does manage to focus attention on one of the most shameful episodes in America's early history. It reminds us how easily religious righteousness, superstition, guilt and run-away self-interest can combine to blind apparently "good men" into committing unbelievably cruel acts. It also shows us how mass hysteria in a closed community feeds upon and snowballs into a dangerous atmosphere of persecution, leading to tragic consequences.