Tremendous acting done by actors and a very good cast assembling as well.

I just recently watched the Crucible by Author Miller, and it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be! It turned out to be a really good movie and 100% better then I expected. It was very dramatic, and kept you wanting to keep watching it to find out what happens next. Every time, I tried to look away during the movie, I just couldn't because I was so interested and excited in seeing what happened it was hard to look away. When we first started watching it in class, no one was interested, but by the end of class, everyone was mad that we had to leave, and couldn't finish the movie, considering we were so interested, and it was at the part, when Abigail met John Proctor outside of the church. Anyways, the movie was funny, sad, and very good!

The Salem witch trials of 1692 have always gripped the American imagination, possibly precisely because they are something so un-American. America prides itself on being the "New World", modern, democratic and rational, yet the witch trials, and the superstitious, intolerant and authoritarian attitudes which produced them, seem very much of the Old World. Indeed, in some respects Americans of this period were more old-fashioned than the Mother Country. The last English witch trials had taken place ten years earlier, and by the 1690s belief in witchcraft was in decline. Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" takes the witch-trials for its subject, but was also written as a critique of McCarthyism. Miller succeeded in his intention to such an extent that it is today difficult for any historian to write about the proceedings of the House Un- American Activities Committee without using the phrase "witch hunt", but whether this has done the play's long-term reputation any good is another matter. McCarthyism may have been a burning issue in the fifties, but today, at least to anyone under the age of eighty, the HUAC seems nearly as remote in time as the witch trials themselves. Moreover, the parallels that Miller draws between Salem and McCarthyism are not, in my opinion, persuasive. And yet I nevertheless regard this as one of the greatest tragedies written in English in the twentieth century. It has taken on a life of its own, independent of the political concerns that prompted it, and become a timeless work which still speaks to us today, not as a satire on a long-dead politician, but as a play about injustice and the struggle against it. Miller's hero, John Proctor, is a classic flawed tragic hero, a man who becomes involved in tragedy because of his human frailties. Proctor, a prosperous farmer, has been unfaithful to his wife Elizabeth with their maidservant, Abigail Williams, but has repented of his adulterous affair and, at his wife's request, dismissed Abigail from his service. These events come back to haunt him. Abigail is the leading figure in a group of girls and young women who begin to accuse their neighbours of witchcraft and who, in the prevailing climate of superstitious Puritanism, are readily believed by the authorities. Abigail, still obsessively in love with Proctor and consumed with hatred for his wife, accuses Elizabeth Proctor, who is arrested. Proctor's attempt to prove his wife's innocence backfires, and he is himself accused and sentenced to death. Told that his life will be spared if he confesses, he faces the dilemma of either saving his life by falsely confessing to a crime, or continuing to maintain his innocence, which means that he will be hanged. A French film, "Les Sorcieres de Salem", was based upon Miller's play in the fifties, but he had to wait another four decades before Hollywood plucked up the courage to follow suit. Miller himself wrote the screenplay, and Proctor is played by his son-in-law Daniel Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis is one of the most reliable screen actors in the world today; I have never seen him give a bad performance, and seldom one which is less than compelling. He is also a versatile actor who has created a gallery of memorable characters all quite different from one another, unlike some actors who play essentially the same character in every film they make. Although he is British and Irish by descent, many of his best-known characters, from Hawkeye in "The Last of the Mohicans" to President Lincoln, have been American, and Proctor is another. Day-Lewis makes him both proud and sensuous, but a man of integrity who will fight to retain that integrity, even at the cost of his life, in a world gone mad.The modern play closest in theme to "The Crucible" is, in my view, Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons", also inspired by real historical events and with a hero who would rather forfeit his life than tell a lie. It is therefore appropriate that Paul Scofield, who famously played Thomas More in the stage and screen versions of "A Man for All Seasons", should also star in "The Crucible". Here he also plays a lawyer named Thomas, but a villain rather than the hero. Judge Thomas Danforth, Proctor's nemesis and the man tasked with investigating the allegations of witchcraft, is a cold, precise, bloodless figure, the sort of lawyer who is less concerned to see justice done than to see that if injustice is done it is done according to the strict letter of the law. A third fine performance comes from Winona Ryder as the spiteful, hysterical and vindictive Abigail, reminding us of just what a fine young actress she could be at her best, even if in recent years her emotionally troubled private life has received more attention than her acting. There are also good contributions from Elizabeth Lawrence as Rebecca Nurse, an old woman who maintains her dignity despite the absurd charges that are brought against her, and Rob Campbell as John Hale, a clergyman who initially supports the witch-hunt but who has enough integrity to change his mind to when he realises that the campaign has got out of hand and become an opportunity to settle old scores. The film was directed by Nicholas Hytner, also responsible for another successful historical drama of the mid-nineties, "The Madness of King George". "The Crucible" is not, however, made in the lavish "heritage cinema" style. In keeping with the Puritan aesthetic of the early Salem settlers and with the dark events which constitute its subject-matter, the look of the film is restrained and sombre. Hytner has produced a fitting adaptation of this great play. 8/10

In the reading the reviews and comments here, I find it unfortunate that some of our reviewers seem to think that brilliant has to be exciting. It doesn't, and this movie is a key example of that. The writing is top notch, and the story and dialog show how hysteria and revenge may have been major factors in the incidents leading up to the Salem Witch Trails.The primary roles are extremely well acted. Daniel Day-Lewis is superb as the resident who ultimately gives up his life rather than be cowed by the judges. Winona Ryder...well...difficult to like her character, and I felt that sometimes she was overacting...but overall effective. Paul Scofield excellent as the head judge. Joan Allen good as Day-Lewis' wife, but she's been better in other films. Bruce Davison genuinely unlikable as the local reverend who acts simply to save his position. Rob Campbell, an actor with whom I am not familiar, was quite good as another reverend.There's no question that some will not like this film. It moves slowly, but surely through the plot. The cinematography is well done in the spartan settings. I would class this as a niche film -- the niche here being viewers that like a more realistic view of history through film. I enjoyed the film, but to be honest, I doubt that I will watch it a second time.