Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5492 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-04-19
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 118 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Salem witch hunts are given a new and nasty perspective when a vengeful teenage girl uses superstition and repression to her advantage, creating a killing machine that becomes a force unto itself. Pulsating with seductive energy, this provocative drama is as visually arresting as it is intellectually engrossing. Arthur Miller based his classic 1953 play on the actual Salem witch trials of 1692, creating what has since become a durable fixture of school drama courses. It may look like a historical drama but Miller also meant the work as a parable for the misery created by the McCarthy anti-Communist hearings of the 1950s. This searing version of his drama delves into matters of conscience with concise accuracy and emotional honesty. Three passionate cheers for Miller, director Nicholas Hytner and costars Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. --Rochelle O'Gorman

Synopsis
The film adaptation of Arthur Miller's classic, fact-based play, which was a veiled metaphor for the "Red Scare" McCarthy Hearings of the 1950s. Set in 1690s Salem, Massachusetts, the story concerns Abigail (Ryder), a teenager who once had an affair with married farmer John Proctor (Day-Lewis). Their relationship comes to an end, however, when his wife Elizabeth (Joan Allen) learns about it. One night, in the woods, Abigail and a group of girls undress and engage in a ritualistic ceremony, during which Abigail puts a deadly curse on Elizabeth. But when this revelry is brought to light, the shocked villagers come to believe that Satan is in their town. A witch hunt begins, with arrests, trials and burnings at the stake in store for many of the accused girls. Furthermore, the affair between John and Abigail does not escape scrutiny. Featuring a powerful performance from Paul Scofield as the Judge.

Customer Reviews

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT...
This film, based upon the Arthur Miller play of the same name, is excellent. Miller himself wrote the screenplay for it, so it is no wonder that the story told by the film is relatively faithful to the play. Coupled with the capable direction of Nicholas Hynter, as well as a stellar cast, the play successfully makes the transition from stage to celluloid.

The movie recounts a fictionalized version of the famous Salem, Massachusetts witch trials of 1692, which saw quite a number of of the town's citizens executed for witchcraft. Winona Ryder is excellent as Abigail Williams, the poor relation of the town's craven minister, well played by Bruce Davison.

Dancing with other young women around a camp fire in the woods one evening, Abigail is surprised by the intrusion of the minister into their festivities. He is just as surprised as they are. The young women are in terror of having been caught doing something forbidden to them, and the games begin.

"The devil made me do it!" becomes the rallying cry of the day, as the young women begin pointing the finger at those townsfolk who in some measure have come under their unfavorable scrutiny. Beginning with Tituba, the slave, who is the first to fall, the circle of those accused widens under the careful leadership of Abigail.

She ultimately sets her sights on Elizabeth Proctor, the prim wife of John Proctor, played with icy calm by Joan Allen. Elizabeth is the woman for whom Abigail had previously worked and from whose employ she had been dismissed, as Mrs. Proctor had rightly suspected her of having an affair with her husband, John.

Abigail still lusts mightily for John, who has spurned her subsequent overtures and advances. She, who has been nothing, has suddenly been empowered in such a way that what she desires may be only an accusation away from being hers, or so Abigail thinks.

John Proctor, wonderfully portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis, is a taciturn everyman, who does not traffic too much with the townfolk. As witch mania grips the town, however, he becomes more vocal. When his wife is taken into custody on a charge of witchcraft, he can no longer keep silent. He comes to her defense in full fury at the injustice done to his wife and the other poor souls unjustly accused of witchcraft and trafficking with the devil, only to ultimately be done in by love and his own integrity.

It is almost hard to believe that such an event as the Salem witch trials ever really took place, but truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. This film bring that notorious chapter in American history to life. It is well worth watching.

A film of two halves, but ultimately moving and powerful
The Crucible is considerably simplified from the play. Despite Arthur Miller handling the adaptation himself, so much of the historical detail and motivation for the witchhunts is dropped to get the narrative moving faster that at the end of the day the whole thing seems to have been reduced to a simple case of a woman spurned and a bad case of mass hysteria. Some awkward performances in the first half don't help either - Bruce Davison is shrilly ineffective, Daniel Day Lewis still seems to be doing Hawkeye, Joan Allen does her serious face again and the jury's still out on whether Winona Ryder is giving a convincing performance as an unconvincing liar or and unconvincing performance as a convincing liar. Yet the strength of the material shines through and suddenly, by the halfway point, you suddenly realise that you are completely gripped by it and that most of the performances have improved immeasurably once Paul Scofield has arrived to up the ante. Indeed, by the end the piece is genuinely tragic and moving (that said, I still maintain that the real hero of the piece is not John Proctor but Pastor Hale - the only character to realise his terrible error and to have the courage to publicly try to remedy it, however hopelessly). Excellent supporting performances from Karron Graves and, surprisingly, George Gaynes, although the houses seem a little too large for Puritan stock. Definitely a film of two halves, but worth seeing for the sheer power of the latter half.

No extras of any kind on the UK disc (unlike the US disc, which features commentary by the director and Miller as well as a brief interview with Miller), but it does at least boast a decent 1.85:1 widescreen transfer.

"Your justice would freeze beer."
Although the playwright Arthur Miller was also the screenwriter for this production starring Winona Ryder and Daniel Day-Lewis, the film bears little resemblance to the play in tone and impact. Director Nicholas Hytner has abandoned the intimate, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of the dark, interior scenes in the play, in favor of an expansive setting, with many scenes set outside, including panoramic shots of Salem in 1692, full of costumed "citizens." The expanded setting makes the psychology and motivation of the witchcraft hysteria more difficult to determine, since the intensity of the settlers' repressed, interior lives is not obvious. In addition, the explanatory notes which Miller incorporates into the play about the various land disputes, religious controversies, and personal animosities, which led to specific individuals being accused and arrested for witchcraft, are seen only peripherally.

As a result, we see Winona Ryder, as Abigail Williams, and her coterie of bewitched girls, screaming hysterically and accusing innocent women of witchcraft without the necessary background which would make these accusations plausible. Her previous relationship with John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis), in the absence of other motivations, seems to be the primary reason for her behavior, but this thwarted love does not explain the extent of her rage or the involvement of the other girls. Day-Lewis is reduced to the role of victim, and one of the hallmarks of his acting, his subtlety, is absent here. Some details of the scenery also ring false. Houses in this period were very small because of the difficulty of heating, though John Proctor's house here is as large as that of a governor, and other buildings, including the church/meeting house are huge, contrary to the religious avoidance of display during the period.

This is a Hollywood version of the witchcraft trials, capitalizing on the sensational without conveying the tumultuous background--the Indian wars which were just ending, the growing independence of individuals, the increasing resentment of the all-powerful church with its hard-line restrictions, the limitations placed on women, and most importantly, the lack of any role whatsoever for young women, who were not old enough to assume a woman's role but were old enough to have reached sexual maturity without any outlet for their feelings, a lethal mix of boredom and repression. The film is beautiful, and the acting, though one-dimensional, is as effective as it can be in the absence of fully-developed motivation for the girls' hysteria. The "witches" are reduced to cartoons here, and Miller's parallels between these trials and the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s, which put the play's trials into a modern context, are missing. Mary Whipple