Witness (1985)
Country: US
Technical: col 112m
Director: Peter Weir
Cast: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Danny Glover
Synopsis:
A young Amish boy witnesses a murder by a bent cop while with his mother in Philadelphia, and returns to his community accompanied by the investigating officer, who has a gunshot wound from the same source.
Review:
Archetypal closed community portrait, in which the hero at first scoffs at, then embraces, its values - and the woman whose hospitality he enjoys. The violent bookends are routine High Noon stuff, and for a slow mood piece it is all somewhat underwritten by comparison, much being reduced to pregnant glances. However, it struck a chord at the time for being noticeably gentler than the standard Hollywood fare, and more concerned with ethics than vengeance. (It succumbs once to Reaganite 'smile when you call me that' dynamics - when Book decks the redneck - but this is arguably to precipitate the final showdown.) Maurice Jarre provides a folky, now rather dated Vangelis-inflected soundtrack, spotlighting the ethnically exotic character of a milieu few of us had heard of. Meanwhile Weir's camera goes for naturalism and shallow focus. For a decade starved of subtlety here at least was a movie that treated its characters with respect and left us all a little richer.
Country: US
Technical: col 112m
Director: Peter Weir
Cast: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Danny Glover
Synopsis:
A young Amish boy witnesses a murder by a bent cop while with his mother in Philadelphia, and returns to his community accompanied by the investigating officer, who has a gunshot wound from the same source.
Review:
Archetypal closed community portrait, in which the hero at first scoffs at, then embraces, its values - and the woman whose hospitality he enjoys. The violent bookends are routine High Noon stuff, and for a slow mood piece it is all somewhat underwritten by comparison, much being reduced to pregnant glances. However, it struck a chord at the time for being noticeably gentler than the standard Hollywood fare, and more concerned with ethics than vengeance. (It succumbs once to Reaganite 'smile when you call me that' dynamics - when Book decks the redneck - but this is arguably to precipitate the final showdown.) Maurice Jarre provides a folky, now rather dated Vangelis-inflected soundtrack, spotlighting the ethnically exotic character of a milieu few of us had heard of. Meanwhile Weir's camera goes for naturalism and shallow focus. For a decade starved of subtlety here at least was a movie that treated its characters with respect and left us all a little richer.
Country: US
Technical: col 112m
Director: Peter Weir
Cast: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Danny Glover
Synopsis:
A young Amish boy witnesses a murder by a bent cop while with his mother in Philadelphia, and returns to his community accompanied by the investigating officer, who has a gunshot wound from the same source.
Review:
Archetypal closed community portrait, in which the hero at first scoffs at, then embraces, its values - and the woman whose hospitality he enjoys. The violent bookends are routine High Noon stuff, and for a slow mood piece it is all somewhat underwritten by comparison, much being reduced to pregnant glances. However, it struck a chord at the time for being noticeably gentler than the standard Hollywood fare, and more concerned with ethics than vengeance. (It succumbs once to Reaganite 'smile when you call me that' dynamics - when Book decks the redneck - but this is arguably to precipitate the final showdown.) Maurice Jarre provides a folky, now rather dated Vangelis-inflected soundtrack, spotlighting the ethnically exotic character of a milieu few of us had heard of. Meanwhile Weir's camera goes for naturalism and shallow focus. For a decade starved of subtlety here at least was a movie that treated its characters with respect and left us all a little richer.