Meh. Daniel Day Lewis was overdoing it, and the music was overused.
I can't help feeling as if Sidney Lumet would've done that scene far better:
Now this is how to overact!
A_Tarkovsky
To each his own. I feel Lewis's portrayal of his rough and passionate character, torn apart by guilt, is compelling. And then there's Scofield - who is as remarkably icy and passionless as Proctor is passionate. It's a frightening inability to empathize with anything; a total disregard for the suffering he causes... something that we have seen all too many times in people who hold positions of authority.
And I like the music, too, however true it may be that the idea of emotional string writing has been used a great deal (to very good effect, mind you). The harmony is very beautiful, and it is more unconventional than it may sound in passing - especially the progression of the bass line. The change of colour just prior to the hanging itself is also beautifully conceived. It would serve well as the coda of a symphonic slow movement, and I rarely hear music in film that I feel could be used effectively in a symphonic context - music which says something without the drama of the film to support it. And perhaps most surprising of all is that there is motivic development here... most film scores do not explore this facet of composition at all, preferring instead to simply repeat thematic material without any change of character or working of the material.
Anyways, Lumet may make for a more compelling Proctor than Lewis, but until he plays Proctor, we shall never know.
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