Witness Analysis

Witness (1985) is a film directed by Peter Weir it demonstrates and explores the violence and how it is approached and viewed within two cultures, it is shown through various camera angles and shots, music and the narrative structure of the film. The scenes that demonstrate this are the murder scene, tourist scene and the symbolisation of the gun in the movie. Violence is highlighted in the murder scene because it shows the modern society evidently uses much violence to achieve things whenever necessary.
Within the murder scene at Pennsylvania train station, Samuel, a young, innocent and naive Amish boy views a horrific murder. The close up shot of Samuel’s terrified eyes is strongly juxtaposed with the graphically shown slitting of the victims throat along with violent sounds of the thuds and grunts. The camera shots were moving back and forth from Samuel’s face and the horrific event happening in front of him, the shots kept increasing in speed demonstrating Samuel’s beating heart. This is an unnatural scene to Samuel, one he would never have to experience within his Amish world. This emphasises the culture different views on violence in such a violent way because now Samuel who has never experienced violence in his life and has been taught to not practice violence, has now been corrupted by what he has seen. In the Amish society everyone is considered to be one and equal and so the taking of another person’s life is frowned upon and rejected but from this scene we see that in the modern world it is different. This scene reinforces that violence has no place within the Amish culture, whereas the Western world resort to it whenever necessary.
Violence between the two worlds is further explored through violence in the tourist scene. Tourists are shown to be physically assaulting and degrading of the Amish. This is done through their verbal abuse and by smudging ice cream over Daniel’s face. The camera close up of Daniel’s face shows that what has been done