The Crucible (1996 film)

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This article is about the film by Nicholas Hytner. For the film by Raymond Rouleau, see The Crucible (1957 film).
The Crucible
Theatrical release poster
Directed byNicholas Hytner
Screenplay byArthur Miller
Based onThe Crucible
by Arthur Miller
Produced by
  • Robert A. Miller
  • David V. Picker
Starring
CinematographyAndrew Dunn
Edited byTariq Anwar
Music byGeorge Fenton
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • November 27, 1996 (1996-11-27) (United States)
Running time
126 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million
Box office$7.3 million[1]

The Crucible is a 1996 American historical drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Arthur Miller, based on his 1953 play of the same title. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor, Winona Ryder as Abigail Williams, Paul Scofield as Judge Thomas Danforth, Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor, and Bruce Davison as Reverend Samuel Parris. Set in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, the film follows a group of teenage girls who, after getting caught performing a ritual in the woods, band together and falsely accuse several of the townspeople of witchcraft.

Principal photography began in Massachusetts and Nova Scotia on September 11, 1995, and concluded on November 18. The Crucible was theatrically released in the United States on November 27, 1996, and was a commercial failure, grossing only $7.3 million against its $25 million budget. Despite this, it received positive reviews from critics, with Day-Lewis, Ryder, Scofield, and Allen earning widespread acclaim for their performances.

The Crucible was screened at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Bear. At the 54th Golden Globe Awards, Scofield and Allen were nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress respectively, while Allen received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the 69th Academy Awards, and Scofield won Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 50th British Academy Film Awards. Arthur Miller received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot[edit]

In Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, a group of village girls meet in the woods with slave Tituba, attempting to conjure love spells. Abigail Williams kills a chicken and drinks its blood, wishing for John Proctor's wife Elizabeth to die. When Abigail's uncle, Reverend Samuel Parris, discovers them, the girls run away, but his daughter Betty collapses unconscious.

Betty will not awaken, nor will Thomas and Ann Putnam's daughter Ruth, who was also conjuring. Giles Corey, who suspects that the children are just acting out, and John Proctor, with whom Abigail had an affair, visit the Parris household. Believing Betty and Ruth to be demonically possessed, Parris and the Putnams call Reverend John Hale from nearby Beverly to examine Betty. To save herself and the other girls from punishment, Abigail accuses Tituba of witchcraft. After being whipped, Tituba confesses to seeing the devil and is saved from being hanged. Struck by their new power, the girls begin naming numerous other women, including Elizabeth, whom they "saw" with the devil.

John wants to forget about his affair with Abigail and get back with Elizabeth. He decides to stop Abigail's accusations, telling his servant, Mary Warren, who is one of the "afflicted" girls, to testify at the trial that the witchcraft was faked. In court, Francis Nurse gives a list of people vouching for the accused; the judges order that all on the list be arrested and brought in for questioning. Giles insists that when Ruth accused Rebecca Nurse, Mr. Putnam was heard to tell Ruth that she had won him a "fine gift of land". Giles refuses to identify who heard this remark, and the judges order his arrest. Mary Warren insists she only thought she saw spirits but the other girls later cow her into recanting. Elizabeth says she is pregnant and will be spared from death until the baby is born, but John insists that the girls be charged with false witness.

The girls are called in and asked if they were lying about the witchcraft, but they start screaming that Mary Warren is bewitching them. To demonstrate Abigail's complicity, John confesses to having sex with her, claiming that she accused Elizabeth in order to get rid of her so that she could marry him. Abigail denies the affair, so Elizabeth is called in to verify it. Unaware that John confessed and wanting to save his reputation, she lies. As Reverend Hale tries to persuade the court of John's honesty, the girls turn the court further against the Proctors by screaming that Mary Warren is attacking them as a "yellow bird". John repeats his accusation that the girls are merely pretending, but they run outside from the "bird" into a nearby lake. To save herself from being hanged, Mary Warren accuses John of witchcraft. When asked if he will return to God, John despairingly yells "I say God is dead!" and is arrested as a witch.

On the day before John is to be hanged, Reverend Hale confronts Abigail at the now-abandoned homes of the victims whom she testified against. Because Hale was the lone official in the court to doubt her claims, Abigail attempts to convince the court that Hale's wife is also a witch; however, this backfires as the judges doubt her, as they consider a minister's wife to be pure. Eventually, the girls become outcasts and Abigail steals Parris' money to flee to Barbados, but not before asking John to go with her, telling him she never wished any of this on him. He refuses, stating "It's not on a ship we'll meet again, but in Hell".

Parris fears that John's hanging will cause riots directed at him, so he allows Elizabeth to meet with John to convince him to "confess" and save his life. John agrees and writes the confession. The judges insist that he sign the confession and publicly display it to prove his guilt and to convince others to confess, but John, determined to keep his name pure for his sons, angrily shouts "Leave me my name!", and tears it up.

On the gallows, John, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey's recitation of the Lord's Prayer is cut short when they are hanged. A closing title card states that the Salem Witch Trials were brought to an end after nineteen people were executed after they refused to save themselves by giving false confessions.

Cast[edit]

Background[edit]

In 1952, Miller's friend Elia Kazan appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC); fearful of being blacklisted from Hollywood, Kazan named eight members of the Group Theatre, including Clifford Odets, Paula Strasberg, Lillian Hellman, and John Garfield, who in recent years had been fellow members of the Communist Party. After speaking with Kazan about his testimony, Miller traveled to Salem, Massachusetts to research the witch trials of 1692. The Crucible, in which Miller likened the situation with the House Un-American Activities Committee to the witch hunt in Salem in 1692, opened at the Beck Theatre on Broadway on January 22, 1953.

Miller and Kazan were close friends throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s (the latter had directed the original production of Miller's Death of a Salesman), but after Kazan's testimony to the HUAC, the pair's friendship ended, and they did not speak to each other for the next ten years. The HUAC took an interest in Miller himself not long after The Crucible opened, denying him a passport to attend the play's London opening in 1954. Later Miller was further checked out: when testimony came out that he misled the HUAC, he was sentenced to a $500 fine and a 30-day stay in jail. It was overturned on appeal. Kazan defended his own actions through his film On the Waterfront, in which a dockworker heroically testifies against a corrupt union boss.

Though the play was widely considered only somewhat successful at the time of its first production, today The Crucible is Miller's most frequently produced work throughout the world. It was adapted as an opera by Robert Ward, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1962.

Historical accuracy[edit]

The movie kept many of the play's documented inaccuracies. Various characters' ages were changed including making Abigail Williams older and John Proctor younger when in reality they were approximately 12 and 60 respectively. Like the play, the movie fabricates a relationship between the two. Characters and events were also conflated, such as featuring Thomas Danforth presiding over the trials when he was not documented to do so in reality, or combining the trials and sentences of John Proctor, Martha Corey, and Rebecca Nurse.[2]

Reception[edit]

The movie was not a box office success,[3] making only $7,343,114 in the United States.[4]

Critical reception[edit]

The film has an overall score of 70% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 63 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The critics consensus states, "This staid adaptation of The Crucible dutifully renders Arthur Miller's landmark play on the screen with handsome production design and sturdy performances, if not with the political anger and thematic depth that earned the drama its reputation."[5] Victor Navasky of The New York Times wrote that the film was "thought impossible to make during the McCarthy years" due to its allegorical connections to McCarthyism, yet was "probably destined for Hollywood all along".[6]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a grade of "A", calling the adaptation "joltingly powerful" and noting the "spectacularly" acted performances of Day-Lewis, Scofield, and Allen.[7] Roger Ebert gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, writing that the "story has all the right moves and all the correct attitudes, but there is something lacking at its core; I think it needs less frenzy and more human nature".[8] Philip Thomas of Empire gave the film 5 out of 5 stars, calling it an "almost perfect screen adaptation".[9]

Awards and nominations[edit]

Award Category Nominee(s) Results Ref.
Academy Awards Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen Nominated [10]
Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published Arthur Miller Nominated
Art Directors Guild Awards Excellence in Production Design – Feature Film Lilly Kilvert and John Warnkle Nominated [11]
Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Nicholas Hytner Nominated [12]
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen Nominated [13]
British Academy Film Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role Paul Scofield Won [14]
Best Adapted Screenplay Arthur Miller Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen Nominated [15]
Critics' Choice Awards Best Picture Nominated [16]
Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen Won
Empire Awards Best Actress Won
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards Best Supporting Actress Runner-up [17]
Golden Globe Awards Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Paul Scofield Nominated [18]
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Joan Allen Nominated
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis Runner-up [19]
Online Film & Television Association Awards Best Drama Actress Winona Ryder Nominated [20]
Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Arthur Miller Nominated
Best Cinematography Andrew Dunn Nominated
Political Film Society Awards Human Rights Nominated
Satellite Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Drama Paul Scofield Nominated [21]
Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Drama Joan Allen Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Arthur Miller Nominated
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards Best Picture 4th Place [22]
Best Supporting Actor Paul Scofield Runner-up
Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen Won[a]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Tied with Piper Laurie for The Grass Harp.

References[edit]

  1. ^ The Crucible at Box Office Mojo
  2. ^ Ray, Benjamin. "Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive". Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. Scholars' Lab of the University of Virginia Library.
  3. ^ "The First of '101' Paydays Is a Big One". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-06-03.
  4. ^ "The Crucible (1996)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
  5. ^ The Crucible at Rotten Tomatoes
  6. ^ Victor Saul Navasky (8 September 1996). "The Demons of Salem, With Us Still". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  7. ^ Owen Gleiberman (29 November 1996). "Movie Review: 'The Crucible'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  8. ^ Roger Ebert (20 December 1996). "The Crucible Movie Review & Film Summary (1996)". Rogerebert.com. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  9. ^ Philip Thomas (1 January 2000). "The Crucible Review". Empire. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  10. ^ "The 69th Academy Awards (1997) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  11. ^ "1997 Winners & Nominees". Art Directors Guild. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
  12. ^ "Berlinale: 1997 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Archived from the original on November 11, 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2012.
  13. ^ "BSFC Winners: 1990s". Boston Society of Film Critics. July 27, 2018. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  14. ^ "BAFTA Awards: Film in 1997". British Academy Film Awards. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  15. ^ "1988-2013 Award Winner Archives". Chicago Film Critics Association. January 1, 2013. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  16. ^ "The BFCA Critics' Choice Awards :: 1996". Broadcast Film Critics Association. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008.
  17. ^ "1996 FFCC AWARD WINNERS". Florida Film Critics Circle. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  18. ^ "The Crucible". Golden Globe Awards. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  19. ^ "Awards – New York Film Critics Circle". New York Film Critics Circle. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  20. ^ "1st Annual Film Awards (1996)". Online Film & Television Association. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  21. ^ "International Press Academy website – 1997 1st Annual SATELLITE Awards". Archived from the original on February 1, 2008.
  22. ^ "1996 SEFA Awards". Southeastern Film Critics Association. Retrieved October 5, 2023.
  23. ^ "AFI's 10 Top 10 Nominees" (PDF). Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2016-08-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)

External links[edit]

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