Introduction
The Crucible is a historical motion picture released in 1996 and adapted from a play by Arthur Miller. The plot of the film is based on real events and these are the Salem Witch Trials which took place in 1692. Salem is a religious Puritan village located in modern day Massachusetts. The infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials occurred in 1692 after several girls fell victim to hallucinations and seizures. During this period, religion extremity in the lives of the local people caused them to attribute surprising activities to the cohorts of the devil, for example witches. This movie screenplay is filled with a lot of historical inaccuracies and discrepancies plague almost the entire film. However, the film is overall fairly accurate in its depiction of the emotions and the fate of the characters. The film’s basic history is portrayed correctly.
The story began when some young girls were caught in the woods dancing around fire by a town preacher. To avoid getting into trouble, the girls started to accuse the town residents of being witches. They claimed that it was indeed these people who forced them to participate in the dances in the woods. This caused massive hysteria in the town and out vengeance and spite, the town resident’s started questioning their own neighbors (Ferres 24). The rest of the movie explores all these aspects.
Discrepancies reveal themselves from the film’s beginning. The supposed “wild dance’ never took place in reality. The Witch Trials origin actually began when Abigail and the girls arranged themselves in a circle and started telling fortune and witchcraft tales (Ferres 35). In the film, the mother of one of the characters, Betty was stated as dead while in reality, she was not dead. This missing mother figure could be stated as one of the reasons why the Betty character became drawn to the spiteful and malicious ways of Abigail, the film’s main antagonist. Another major alteration to actual historical events is the age of Abigail. In the film, Abigail was seventeen years old while in reality, she was only eleven years old. This alteration could have been made to explain her ability to seduce and influence other people including her fellow dancers. The affair between Abigail and John Proctor cannot also be historically proven since. Proctor was actually 60 years old and not middle aged as depicted in the film. His affair with an eleven year old girl is highly unlikely.
In the movie, both the positive and the negative actions of the characters do not just impact on their self lives, but rather impact on the lives of the entire town. The main character John Proctor was to the most part depicted in positive light. He was the ultimate tragic hero in the movie (Millar 34). In a effort to prove to prove that the claims of the dancers were lies; he sacrificed his own life so that he could protect his family and his fellow townspeople. Proctor’s only undoing was the affair he had with Abigail. He realized that the only way to make peace with his conscious is through death. This is one of the accurate elements of the film since the fate of John is real.
Seeing that the film was produced and released in 1996, this timing definitely had an effect or influence on the movie. There was a very conspicuous cultural and generation change from 1692 to 1996. The producers of the movie therefore had to make alterations or changes to the film so as to resonate with the modern audience which consisted of more socially, culturally and politically advanced individuals. This could explain some of the historical changes made in the film, for example the ones mentioned above. The purpose of the changes or alterations was to indeed make the film more politically correct and have an overall better box office appeal.
The myth of witches’ existence was constantly promoted in the film. Although the modern audience was significantly advanced and may not necessarily believe that such individual’s existed, the promotion of such a myth did not hurt the film in any way. In any case, it only helped to increase the dramatic element of the film (Bloom 67). The overall message conveyed in the film is the effect that religion extremity can have on the society. Religion is to the most part supposed to act as amoral guide to individuals but if it is practiced to extremity, it will do more bad than good. This is in fact one of the accurate elements of the film.
There are several things that I learnt from the film about that particular era. The main one is that religion influenced the lives of people in almost every manner. The lives of people in this era were full of hardships and tribulations and religion definitely had a big role to play in this. One had to constantly defend his moral standing and activities in accordance with the stipulations of religion. It is also revealed that the people led simple lifestyles, for example most of them were farmers. Overall the movie definitely did a good job of portraying the basic historical lesson (Ferres 48).
In spite of the film’s inaccuracies and flaws, the essence of the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials was brilliantly captured and conveyed in the film and the various themes including religion mania, fear, hatred, jealousy, spite, attention-seeking, strength conviction, and determination are brought to life vividly in the film by the extremely superb cast. The historical discrepancies in the film were added to enhance the dramatic feature of the film, but the film still managed to tell the essential story.
Works cited
Bloom, Harold. Arthur Miller's the Crucible. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. Internet resource.
Ferres, John H. Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Crucible: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 2000. Print.
Millar, Jeff. "The Crucible; Provocative Work Translates Well to the Screen." Houston Chronicle 20 Dec. 1996.
