Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapated Screenplay 1996

The Contenders:

The Crucible
The English Patient
Hamlet
Sling Blade (winner)
Trainspotting

Bad Religion

Film: The Crucible
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

Say the name Arthur Miller and most people will jump to Death of a Salesman. I’ve seen a bunch of different versions of that play, and while it’s a good play, I’m more or less over it. The Crucible is one that I’d heard of and knew a little about, but it’s not one I had seen until today. The Crucible, like any good play, is about a lot more than it claims to be about. On the surface, this is a story about the Salem witch trials and the hysteria that surrounded the area during that time. In reality, it’s about HUAC and the Hollywood blacklist, so it works both as a story and as allegory.

So, obviously, we’re in Salem, Massachusetts several hundred years ago, and everyone’s a Puritan. That presents a problem in the opening scene, since a large number of young girls have run off to the forest to participate in some sort of magic ritual headed by a slave named Tituba (Charlayne Woodard). Most of the girls ask for spells to make young men of the town fall in love with them, but Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder) kills a chicken, drinks its blood, and asks for the death of Elizabeth Proctor (Joan Allen). The girls are discovered by the town minister, Samuel Parris (Bruce Davidson), and two girls including his daughter become comatose.