History vs.cinema …

… We Other Puritans | Online Only | n 1. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I don’t expect film critics to have studied Calvin or Edwards, though I do expect them to be familiar with Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath, whose respect for the viewer’s intelligence makes The Witch look like a Jerry Bruckheimer production. Dreyer’s tale of witchcraft, persecution, and erotic power is ambiguous and uncertain—interested in its very camerawork in questions—where Eggers’s film has it all figured out.