The Crucible by Director Nicholas Hytner

1190 Words3 Pages

When Arthur Miller published “The Crucible” in 1953, the play’s audience was a nation of Americans seized in the grip of McCarthyism. The Communist “witch hunt” has long since ended, but the public’s fascination with this shameful piece of American history has not. The original play unfolded over the course of 4 acts that mainly consisted of dialogue. As a result, the creators of the 1996 movie adaptation had an ample degree of creative latitude to update the narrative for a modern audience. Director Nicholas Hytner utilized a host of cinematic techniques that enabled the moving images to tug the heartstrings of the audience just as effectively as the book had done before. Given the temporal limitations of a film, several scenes were rewritten in order to facilitate an easier delineation of the plot line. The director also used different camera techniques to control the pace of the movie, making it easier to tell which parts were important. Overall, Hytner’s scene modifications and unique camera shots resulted in an emotionally compelling film. The director rearranged the tense discussions that occurred immediately before Reverend Hale’s arrival into different scenes in order to make the conflicts in the movie easier to understand. Otherwise, the audience might become confused about the identities of the characters and the complex web of disagreements among them. The play condensed a heated discussion between the men in the book into a series of arguments right before the Reverend arrived. In the book, Parris, Putnam, Proctor, and Giles were standing in a room discussing general the general discontent in Salem. As Giles put it, “Wherefore is everybody suing everybody? I have been six time in court this year” (p. 37).... ... middle of paper ... ...wly dropping from the gallows, as the townspeople raised their arms in celebration. Audible drumbeats were played as the bodies went limp, emphasizing the finality of death. Whenever a written work is adapted into a movie, artistic changes have to be made to create an effective film. The play The Crucible relied heavily on complex dialogue passages and took place in a very small group of settings. Due to time constraints, the movie could not include all of the book’s dialogue and still be entertaining. Thus, the director culled out the most important passages, often separating complex 1 setting scenes in order make the movie easier to understand. The director also used a wide assortment of camera techniques to highlight what portions the director wanted viewers to feel emotional about. Overall, I felt that The Crucible movie adaptation was done well.

Open Document