THE CRUCIBLE
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1997 Michael Redman
***1/2 (out of ****)
Arthur Miller's fifties stage play turned nineties film may have a few problems, but appearance, intensity and mood aren't among them. Foremost in the intensity arena is star Daniel Day-Lewis.
Brooding Day-Lewis is developing a reputation for his extreme method of getting into character. For this movie, he lived on isolated Hog Island for two months getting to "know the land" and helping build by hand the cabin his character lives in. By the time filming began, he had acquired a deep farmer's tan, heavily callused hands and an immense 17th century knife that he used to pass the time during breaks. Apparently he didn't just get into character, he __became__ character.
After the movie was completed, he married Miller's daughter.
The play was written in 1952 at the height of the anti-communist McCarthy hearings where entertainment figures, among others, were pressured into "naming names". Once the names were public, the blacklist began and public clamor took over. Miller testified but refused to turn in his supposed comrades and as a result was held in contempt, refused a passport for five years and almost jailed.
The play, about the Salem witch trials but a thinly veiled allegory about the McCarthy turmoil, took 45 years to hit the big screen.
In 1692, the Puritans of Salem were gripped in mob hysteria and accused many of their fellow townspeople of witchcraft resulting in the public hanging of 19. The film is not very accurate in terms of historic facts, but certainly captures the feel of those irrational times.
Day-Lewis is John Proctor an upstanding member of the community whose life is tragically destroyed as the result of an indiscretion with young Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder).
As the film opens, we see a group of teenage girls and Tituba, a slave from Barbados, in the forest gathered around a caldron casting love spells for the objects of the girls' affections. The relatively innocent scene gathers some steam when Williams kills a chicken and drinks it's blood and another girl dances nude in the woods -- something you might not expect in Puritan society.
Their ritual is disturbed when the town minister happens upon them. Everyone scatters except two young girls who fall into "comas". Certain that the devil has slipped into Salem, a town meeting is called. The girls reluctantly admit their activities but point to others in league with Satan in order to get off the hook.
At first they accuse the most likely: the black slave, midwives and village eccentrics. But then, infused with power, the girls point to upstanding citizens and the community elders believe them. Williams sees this as an opportunity to get rid of her rival, Proctor's wife (Joan Allen) and eventually implicates Proctor himself.
The sexual heat between Day-Lewis and Ryder isn't as apparent on the screen as it should be in order for this obsession to work. (Historically, Proctor was in his sixties and Williams, her mid-teens.) Aside from this, the film is a wonderfully crafted warning.
[This appeared in the 1/9/97 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at mredman@bvoice.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews