Witness Analysis

Title: Witness
Director: Peter Weir
Date: 1985
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Certificate: 15

Brief Synopsis:
A young Amish boy Samuel (Lukas Haas) is witness to a murder. Policeman John Book (Harrison Ford) goes into hiding in Amish country to protect him until the trial.



This is a trailer from the film 'Witness'

Witness begins with an Amish boy who is witness to a violent murder in a Grand Central Station in Philadelphia which is a location that has been used in many Thriller films such as 'Strangers on a Train' (1951, directed by Alfred Hitchcock) and is typical of the Thriller genre. It is used to emphasize the


This is an exteme high angle shot of Samuel from the statue's point of view. It gives an eerie feel in that someone/something is watching him. This is ironic it foreshadows the events of the film because later on Sam is witness to a murder. It is almost as if it is a CCTV shot and that he is being viewed as he accidently witnesses the murder.

This is a close up of Sam in the toilet cubicle witnessing the murder. There is a bright white light behind which suggests innocence and angelicness, giving the boy religious ideology. The cubicle gives a sense of claustrophobia (which is a common factor for Thriller films) and a feeling that there is no escape for the boy. The fact that he is so young and from an amish community where everyone is polite to eachother makes Sam vulnerable which reinforces his innocense. He probably hasn't ever seen this violence before and doesn't fully understand what is happening. This makes the audience empathise with him, making him a likeable character.  

There are many extreme close ups of Samuel's eye, which is used to demonstrate how shocked and terrified he is. By using just his eye puts the audience in the character's position iof the sheer horror of witnessing something life changing. It puts an emphasis on how disturbing it is for Sam and how it would be or anyone else in his position.  

This is a clip of the murder scene from 'Witness'

In this clip a black man is the murderer which stereotypically represents black men as criminals. This is called a zeitgeist, displaying the 'mood of moment' in America at the time as there was a lot of racism and discrimination against black people.