Comparison of the Play and the Film: The Crucible - Movie Review Example

The Crucible There are numerous examples of literary texts that are converted for mass consumption by the general public in the form of a feature film. In almost all cases, the text suffers a great deal in interpretation as the limitations of the screen necessarily entail a significant reduction in the amount of material that can be conveyed. In very rare cases, the text does not suffer to a great degree by its transition to film. This is the case with The Crucible as Arthur Miller wrote both play and screenplay for the film and was involved in the production of both. In making the cuts for the film, there was a necessary reduction of thematic elements present in the longer play, but this is compensated for by the stronger emphasis within the film upon the more passionate side of the characters and the richness of detail made available by the stronger audio and visual detail of the medium. Both the play and the film follow similar dialogue, but several lines have been cut out of the film because of time constraints that serves to highlight some of the play’s themes while reducing others as can be seen through an analysis of the first act. One of these main themes is the previous love affair between Abigail (Winona Ryder) and John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis). The film makes Abigail’s desire for John Proctor very clear as it opens with the dance in the woods in which all the girls offer small trinkets or tokens of their affection for a particular man but Abigail actually kills a chicken to make her charm work and then drinks the blood. This, more than the preacher coming upon them in the woods just after the chicken dies, is what sends the younger girls into the panic that gets the village talking. This entire scene is not found in the play at all, but is alluded to as Reverend Parris asks Abigail about what the girls were doing in the woods, what was in the pot and insists that he saw a girl dancing naked around a fire. All of these questions are repeated in the film as well, bringing emphasis to the concept that the girls were doing something in the woods that was well beyond the bounds of their permitted behavior within Salem town itself. The way that John Proctor feels about Abigail is also made clear in the film to a greater extent than is demonstrated in the play. While Proctor and Abigail meet within Betty’s room in the play, they meet outdoors in the film and Abigail is able to fit in a very passionate kiss with Proctor that includes a good deal of groping. However, John throws her off and refuses her, using the same dialogue provided in the play. The visual elements of this scene bring out the physical desire Proctor obviously feels for Abigail as well as his admiration of her independent spirit which is much in keeping with his own. However, he remains strongly devoted to the promises he’s made to his wife and committed to his decision to have nothing more to do with Abigail. Other themes that are included in the first act of the play are not given such weight in the film but play a large role in the motivating factors of the various characters introduced. Putnam’s greed for more land is alluded to as a seeming background discussion in the film, but the play includes an entire disagreement between Proctor and Putnam over some lumber that Proctor is hauling back to his house from some woods that Putnam insists was willed to him by a grandfather. Proctor tells him, “Your grandfather had a habit of willing land that never belonged to him, if I may say it plain” (Act 1), which is promptly verified by Giles Corey who claims this same grandfather nearly willed away some of Corey’s land as well. Goody Putnam’s resentment regarding the loss of her children is nearly reduced to a purely visual thing in the film. Given some of the lines included in the play, Goody Putnam’s violent physical reactions toward Rachel when she mentions her experience of children as a means of attempting to help Reverend Parris cope with Betty’s hysteria, and trying to calm the Putnams as well, foreshadow the accusations she makes toward the end of the act when she begins to name the women who attended the births of those children who died as witches. In the film, this is barely heard over the screeching of the girls in the room, each trying to shout down someone else and divert blame from herself, but the play makes this resentment very clear. Reverend Parris’ resentment toward the town for not providing for him in the way that he feels appropriate, and the town’s subsequent disbelief at the Reverend’s audacity in requesting the deed to his house is expressed in both the film and the play, but is again somewhat downplayed in the film as it seems an argument just walked in on rather than something with strong bearing toward the future activities of the townspeople. The film and the play differ in much greater extremes as the story moves into the second act. The film brings a much greater emphasis on the trials of the villagers, including a dramatic entry into town by the two magistrates and the dramatization of several of the cases that were brought forward. These include the case of Mr. Jackson, a very old man who walks only with the aid of two sticks and is very hard of hearing yet who owns 600 acres next to the property of Putnam. Jackson is accused by Ruth Putnam, Mr. Putnam’s young daughter, of slipping into her window at night and crushing her body under his. To keep the court from questioning him too fully, the girls begin to make accusations that Jackson has a black man whispering into his ear during the trial and Jackson is sentenced to hang along with Goody Osborne, who refuses to confess to witchcraft. The case of Goody Good is also revealed as it demonstrates how a woman confessed was a woman saved from the hangman’s noose. These scenes are never included in the play itself but are merely discussed by Proctor and his wife as they learn what’s happening in town through Mary, one of the girls involved in making the accusations. Another scene found in the film but not in the play is a scene between John Proctor and Abigail in the woods. This again is intended to bring out the sexual nature of the accusations of the girls as Abigail insists that John must still want her sexually, grabbing his hand and pushing it into her crotch as a means of trying to entice him back to her side while he threatens to ruin her if she tries to go after his wife again. Thus, even as the film begins to portray some of the more extenuating circumstances that led to accusations of witchcraft, it also focuses much more strongly on the repressed sexual nature of the social situation and how this exacerbated the situation. The remainder of the film adheres relatively closely to the essential character of the play with obligatory segments removed again in consideration of time constraints. This illustrates how the technical elements of play vs. film serve to help define or strengthen particular elements of the text while de-emphasizing others. Perhaps viewing the play acted out on stage would change the impression, but reading through the text does not provide the same sense of buried passion that is brought out so strongly in the film. It has already been illustrated how Abigail worked out her sexual frustration, but the scene between John Proctor and his wife takes on significantly difference intonations when reading the text as opposed to viewing it on film. Although the words are largely the same, the emotion is not conveyed to the same degree when one reads Elizabeth speaks “upon a heaving sob that always threatens” (Act 4) as compared to actually hearing this heaving sob in her voice as Joan Allen delivers the lines confessing her own guilt, “it were a cold house I kept” and breaks down crying as she clings to her husband. While a great deal of the play is confined to interior spaces by the necessity of the limitations of the theatre, the film is able to take place to a great extent outdoors, allowing the vagaries of nature to contribute to the overall emotion of the story as well. While the impression from the book is a series of relatively similar interior structures, with the change of only a few pieces of furniture perhaps to indicate the change of space, the film is able to move itself from the courthouse to the village streets, to the outdoor well to the Proctor farm on the outskirts of town. Seasons are conveyed through the fresh greenness of the fields and bright skies or through the brisk wind and grey overcast, all contributing to the emotion of the scene which is normally forgotten as one reads through the play. While Arthur Miller’s play presents a timeless tale of personal and social guilt and a need to find someone to blame, the screenplay Miller produced tends to focus more upon the theme of sexual repression and the degree to which the rigid structures of their society contributed to the hysteria that enabled the witch trials to continue. This is done through the additional ability of the film to provide visual context, auditory cues and a more wide open space in which to position events. Reading through the play gives one a chance to understand the text at a much deeper level, making it possible to trace numerous themes throughout the play such as the greed of landowners like Putnam and the political trap Deputy Governor Danforth paints himself into by taking the girls completely at their word. The film brings out the passionate nature of these people to a much greater extent in the emotional appeal of the visuals and audio of human voices and physical expression. While both play and film follow a very similar script, they present different emphasis on the themes of the story. Reading through the play enables one to focus more on the political and social elements of the story while watching the film highlights the degree to which individuals were trapped within the cultural bounds of their world. Works Cited Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. The Crucible. Dir. Nicholas Hytner. Perf. Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Paul Scoffield and Joan Allen. Twentieth-Century Fox, 1996. Read More