The Crucible

Arthur Miller adapted his own 1953 play for the screen, forty-three years later. There is an odd family connection in the cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays John Proctor, married Miller's daughter Rebecca Miller. The playwright watched the film as a father-in-law. It was shot on location on Hog Island, Massachusetts, standing in for the Salem of the period. The subject is the 1692 Salem witch trials. A group of girls caught dancing in the woods accuse townspeople of consorting with the devil to escape punishment, and once the chain of accusation starts nobody can stop it. Miller wrote the play in 1953 as a direct answer to the McCarthy-era hearings. Nicholas Hytner directed. Winona Ryder plays Abigail, Paul Scofield Judge Danforth and Joan Allen Elizabeth Proctor. Who it is for: viewers who like theatrical drama driven by language, about collective hysteria. Who it is not for: anyone wanting subtlety. The performances sometimes stay at stage scale, and the final section slides openly into sermon.