Witness: 40th Anniversary
The thriller genre often holds the presumption to which there needs to be a high-speed downhill roller coaster ride of action and suspense in order for audiences to be attracted to what is unfolding on screen. However, when there is a blend of thriller and a love story, Witness executes this combination effortlessly.
Making it 40 years on February 8th since the film’s release, Witness has been regarded as one of Harrison Ford’s best performances and a staple in the vast world of American filmmaking.
Opening in the Amish country in rural Pennsylvania at her dead husband's funeral, Rachel (Kelly McGillis) and her 8-year-old son Samuel (Lukas Haas) embark on a journey together by train. When they make a stop at a Philadelphia train station, Samuel ventures off in awe of the rush of everyday American people traveling. Samuel continues to wander into the train station bathroom where he becomes a witness to the murder of a man.
Assigned to the case is Detective John Book (Harrison Ford), who carries himself in a compassionate but firm manner, especially when dealing with his star witness. Book guides Samuel through police lineups to identify the suspect, but there is no luck. It is then revealed there is police corruption behind the murder, and now Book’s partners are his enemies, wanting him and Samuel dead.
Once the corrupt cops know of John Book’s suspicions, they attempt to kill him. Book gets wounded in the gunfight and realizes he, Samuel, and his mother are in danger. Escaping back to the Amish Country, Rachel and her family vow to nurse Book back to health until he is healthy enough to leave.
At this point of the film, is when the energy shifts from thriller to a love story. Director Peter Weir manages to show two different films in one. His immersive imagery of the Amish country makes the viewer feel apart of the community and appreciate their minimalistic lives and values to where any new character introduced truly feels like an outsider.
There is a not minute wasted on screen while in the Amish country and we see Book adapt from the urban lifestyle and enter a new world, willing to be an active member of the community, ignoring responsibilities of his other life, and keeping his new home afloat.
Witness does not rush through the story at all to satisfy some audience's needs to get to the big shoot-out at the end. We spend moments watching a romance unfold between Book and Rachel which doesn’t instantly show them falling into bed together but rather, in love. McGillis’s character has not been yearning for a man of Book’s macho stature to stumble into her life, she was content. And even when Rachel might feel herself falling for Book, there is no immediate release of boundaries, it is earned and treated as more than simply lust. When the moment finally arrives for the two to share a kiss, audiences feel the powerful love between Book and Rachel.
The film does not lose itself in the separate life from the core-crime story. The payoff is delivered in the end when Book meticulously defeats the enemies without an overpowering array of explosions and gunfire, different from Ford’s contemporaries of the 1980s.
Revisiting Witness might remind audiences to be patient and allow a story to wash over the mind’s eye and appreciate the lives of others unfamiliar to most.
