Witness Themes

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Witness is a box office hit film directed by Peter Weir which explores the themes of conflicting cultures on a social, cultural and personal level in a film noir style crime thriller. Peter Weir presents a number of themes that are based around the contrasting aspects between two conflicting cultures; the Amish and the “English,” contradicting between the mainstream American society and the Amish community in regional Pennsylvania. American society is seen as a violent and arrogant group of people, whereas the Amish are seen to be a peaceful and religious group of people. This raises many moral issues with the unlikely relationship between John Book and Rachel to develop which later creates the personal conflicts because of Book’s
The police office is messy, chaotic and cluttered emphasising that it’s a threatening world, juxtaposing to the peaceful community of the Amish. In this scene, Weir cleverly catches the viewer off guard by having Samuel innocently wondering around, noticing things about his environment that are strange or off putting such as the criminal who deliberately tries to scare him by rattling his handcuffs against the chair. The world of the police station is depicted again through Samuel’s eyes and so the camera is held at his height which distorts and disorients the viewer’s
This is shown through camera techniques and costumes. In the opening scene, a long shot shows a group of Amish people walking together. The group, dressed in similar black costumes, supports the idea of a unified community. The music is uplifting and optimistic. Additionally, the shot of the men raising the barn, gives an impression of teamwork in the Amish community. This contrasts with the high level angle shot of people walking around independently in the train station, emphasising the individualism of the modern world. The low angle shot is to emphasise the success of the barn raising. The miss-en-scene of the barn raising was shone through bright natural sunshine, to elaborate the joy and high spirit of the community. Gender roles are present in the Amish. The male does all the hard work by building the barn and the female does all the housekeeping jobs by making food and sewing. Daniel acknowledges that Rachel is interested in Book but doesn’t consider this as a threat as Book seen is as an outsider. At the end Book is felt isolated of how the Amish is singing German and his disconnection to the language, also reinforcing the clash of