The Crucible's plot revolves around a group of young girls in seventeenth-century Puritan Salem. The conflict in the story arises when this gaggle of girls, after being caught dancing in the woods, fecklessly accused countless innocent people in the village of Salem of being witches. To make The Crucible into a motion picture, director Nicholas Hytner had to rework the play as well as Miller's dramaturgical agenda. The Crucible the play and The Crucible the movie share many of the same themes and the 1996 film version stays true to much of the original dialogue. However, which the dialogue is often derived directly from the original text, it is shifted around so that almost no scene is exactly as it would appear in a staged version, yet the story remains essentially the same. Hytner also changed many several aspects in his movie in addition to adding "the cinematic touch."
             In the original play version, the opening scene is set in Betty's bedroom where the young girl lies comatose in her bed, ready to receive reprimand from Reverend Parris. In the film, the opening scene takes place in the woods, where all the girls where dancing like "heathens" around a pagan ceremonial fire. The opening scene was changed from Miller's original, presumably, to show the audience why Betty was acting as she was. Not wanting to be whipped by her father for the blasphemous behavior which he had witnessed the night before in the woods, Betty partakes in the lie conjured up by the girls. They reason for their lying, to a movie-going audience, could be confusing, as the explanation in the play is based purely on dialogue. Film, being a heavily visual medium, tends to show the actual event in question rather than merely make reference to it, as is the case with The Crucible. By maintaining a sense of chronology, it is easier to understand the ulterior agenda behind the girls' deceitful actions as well as make the connection as to what the people of Sal...