PRESS REVIEWS ARCHIVE

November 27, 1996

The Bewitching Power of Lies
By JANET MASLIN

We've grown so accustomed to seeing classic works transposed to jazzier settings that it's startling to see what Nicholas Hytner has done to ''The Crucible'': played it straight. Yet it is precisely by leaving Arthur Miller's 1953 play so emphatically in the Salem, Mass., of 1692 that Mr. Hytner's vibrant screen version succeeds so well in transcending time and place.

Handsome and impassioned, vigorously staged by the director of ''The Madness of King George,'' this ''Crucible'' is a reminder of the play's wide reach, which goes well beyond witch trials in any century. As adapted gamely by the playwright into a screenplay that takes advantage of scenic backgrounds and photogenic stars, ''The Crucible'' now speaks to subtler forms of dishonesty and opportunism than it did before.

This agile film is so simply, abstractly rooted in Salem's soil that it becomes free to suggest anything from the impact of religious fundamentalism on politics to the hysterical excess of tabloid television. Along the way, this ''Crucible'' heats up its dramatic tale of marital betrayal and redemption without losing track of its central concern, the murderous power of lies. It's a long way from the McCarthy era -- or from English class in junior high school, where the allegorical bluntness of the play remains evergreen -- to the relative delicacy of this.

With Daniel Day-Lewis on hand to prove that Puritan dreamboat is no oxymoron, this beautifully acted drama unfolds in a coastal setting (pristine Hog Island, Mass.) that is meant to suggest the edge of the world. ''Anybody seeing 'The Crucible' now would never dream that it had been a play,'' Mr. Miller has written about this wide-open adaptation, and he's almost right.

Scenes are set on the seacoast and in fields (where Mr. Day-Lewis is first seen scything manfully, wearing burlap pants), as well as in the courtroom where justice is on trial. Without false frenzy, Mr. Hytner is able to move the film through these locations with the dangerous momentum of a runaway train.

The film's opening sequence shakes Salem's primness to its roots, depicting the ritual that was only spoken about in Mr. Miller's original version. And Mr. Hytner presents it as pure teen-age giddiness, since the only witchcraft here is that of lovestruck young girls. Gathering furtively in the woods, they join together in a fit of boy-crazy hysteria, with Abigail Williams as their ringleader. Abigail, played wickedly well by Winona Ryder, who is vastly more interesting in headstrong roles than in bland ones, has a scheming, selfish intensity that also rings true in any time.

The object of her affections, and soon the target of her wrath, is John Proctor, played by Mr. Day-Lewis with a charismatic blend of guilt and fury. Proctor's affair with the eager Abigail is now over, but she still wants him and wishes the worst for Elizabeth (Joan Allen), Proctor's stern and upright wife.

''The Crucible,'' which opens today at Sony Theaters Lincoln Square, is about what happens when Abigail discovers that she can tell invidious tales and be believed, even feared and exploited. The girls, led by a slave from Barbados named Tituba (Charlayne Woodard), are accused of consorting with the Devil and promised forgiveness if they will implicate friends and neighbors.

And this nightmare begins escalating, with judges arriving in Salem to assess the righteousness of all concerned. Mr. Hytner, most of whose experience is with Britain's Royal National Theater, is particularly adept at balancing the film's look of museum realism with its frankly theatrical ways of heightening its drama. (A ray of sun bursts into the courtroom as the film's most decent character makes a noble sacrifice.)

The actors speak quaintly (''Are the accusers always holy now, were they born this morning as pure as God's fingers?'') without ever making their meaning less than resoundingly clear. Especially impressive here is Ms. Allen, whose look of luminous simplicity suits the film's visual style and whose immensely dignified performance captures the essence of Mr. Miller's concerns.

''The Crucible'' also features a rare and welcome screen appearance by Paul Scofield, who shrewdly plays the distinguished jurist named Danforth as the model of moral rectitude gone wrong. He, too, is a figure who would be at home in any age.

Also here are Bruce Davison as a clergyman susceptible to political pressures, Rob Campbell as a slick, ambitious young inquisitor, Jeffrey Jones as a landowner who sees profit in his neighbors' misfortune and Karron Graves as the young girl with the backbone to defy Abigail as she discovers what secular witchcraft really means.

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� Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company