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Arthur Miller rides 'The Crucible' again
December 26, 1996
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Web posted at: 5:00 a.m. ESTFrom Correspondent Cynthia Tornquist
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Arthur Miller's politically charged 1953 play "The Crucible" is coming to the big screen this holiday season with Hollywood heavyweights like Winona Ryder on the bill, but it is the legendary playwright who saw that the project stayed true to his original message.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Ryder and Joan Allen star in the story of a young girl who terrorizes her town by accusing fellow townsfolk of practicing witchcraft. Miller, who also wrote the movie's screenplay, based the story on events in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692.
Miller originally wrote "The Crucible" as a response to the anti-Communist hysteria stirred up in the 1950s by Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The playwright says his work is still relevant today.
"It's about panic, paranoia, about people believing in things that don't exist and going a little crazy because of that," said Miller. "And I'm afraid it doesn't go away."
But leading lady Ryder took a different message away from the play when she read it as a teen-age girl.
"I read that play when I was about 13 or 14 because he was a big hero of my father's," she said. "It's one of the few plays [in which] a young girl is one of the lead characters. So I really thought it was an incredible, unforgettable experience."
Miller's involvement in the current silver-screen incarnation of the play meant more than merely adapting his work for the celluloid treatment.
Miller's other job was making the cast feel at ease working with both a legend and legendary material.
Day-Lewis, who portrays John Proctor, said he was not convinced he could play the morally torn character until he got a letter from the playwright.
"Arthur wrote to me at one point. I know, beyond any doubt, that played a large part in making things [right]," he said. "What did he say? It was essentially a letter of encouragement."
Director Nicholas Hytner admits he found working with Miller daunting at first, until the playwright's commitment showed him that the material was incorruptible.
"It was like going to Shakespeare and saying 'This play "King Lear," we could goose it up a bit,'" said Hytner. "But it was in the end unbelievably easy [working with Miller] because there was never any question that anyone wanted to compromise on the ideas."
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