How successful is the film in presenting Millers Play “The Crucible”?
How successful is the film in presenting Millers Play “The Crucible”
Personally I believe that the film is an excellent rendition of the play. It has been modified and lengthened to become successful in the cinema style with added scenes and cinematic techniques. The actors are very good at portraying the characters the way I believed them to be in the play and the setting is definite with the authentic buildings and costume. The film relies much more on telling the audience what is going on visually than with speech as in the play because of the cinemas ability to do this. Scenes have been edited to increase understanding of what is going on. All this together makes “The Crucible” a very good film on a very good play.
The characters in the film are very well portrayed but I feel that the following were by far the best. Proctor seems a very powerful yet friendly, gentle man in the play which is how I believe is how he should be and his relationship his wife though is different than how I believed it to be. Proctor, although showing his want to please his wife, doesn’t seem to show the right emotion for it. It seems as though they have just had an argument and he is trying to make up. In the play I was under the impression that he was much more awkward around his wife. Until, of course, later in the play. Hale, although looking much more mysterious in the play, is another excellent portrayal of the play’s character as his conviction in the knowledge and justness of the court is brought perfectly then when he starts to speak out against the court with proctor it is showing us just how unjust and mad the court was. We get a clear idea of his emotions and anger for the court to act the way it was. Abigail’s role was also well portrayed. Her passion for John Proctor, her want for power and her evilness brought out excellently by her eyes. She still thinks Proctor has a thing for her and acts accordingly whenever they are together even when he tells her she is acting delusional. She gropes his crotch and hitches her skirt and even kisses him but he no longer loved her. When in the stands she acts very powerfully and the girls, by doing whatever she does, emphasize this fact. Whenever there is the possibility of her being accused of something she jumps in first and accuses some one else. The look on Abigail’s face before this happens is exactly what you’d expect. Her actions to the hangings were horrible, laughing at it
