Bearing Witness

 A culture clash is always a great subject for a movie. Many screen adaptations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet raise the barriers separating the two lovers by showing that they come from very different ethnicities: see, of course, the (Anglo) Jets and the (Puerto Rican) Sharks of West Side Story. And the suspense element in international thrillers like The Third Man or The Da Vinci Code is heightened when the participants in the drama do not share a common background. Many police dramas set the values of the law-enforcement community against those of the general public. But 1985’s Witness is perhaps unique in bringing together a Philadelphia homicide detective and devout members of Pennsylvania’s rural Amish population, which shuns technology while cleaving to religious and social values that are centuries old.

 The story of Witness is a complex one. An eight-year-old Amish boy, on a rare trip out of town with his recently widowed mother, goes into a train-station men’s room and is horrified to see a brutal murder. He’s the “witness” of the story’s title, and soon Philadelphia police detective John Book (Harrison Ford) is on the case, which becomes far more complicated once it’s known that the victim is an undercover cop, and that corrupt members of his own department are responsible for the death. Through a thorny set of circumstances, Book seeks refuge with the boy's pretty mother, Rachel (Kelly McGillis), and her family. To save himself from detection, he must learn to blend in with the rural, peaceable Amish way of life. This means suppressing his own basic urge to fight back against adversaries, and also fending off the growing attraction he feels toward Rachel. (In perhaps the film’s most quietly complex role, Rachel is attracted to him as well.)

 When spotting this film on a shelf in my local library, I was looking for Places in the Heart, I wanted to re-watch that 1984 drama in tribute to Danny Glover, who had named this as his favorite performance. To my surprise, Glover is also a featured player in Witness, released just one year later, and a comparison of the two roles verifies the breadth of his talent. As Moze Hadner, he’s a down-home drifter, not entirely honest, by no means educated, but filled with a generosity of spirit that ultimately makes him lovable. One year later, as police lieutenant James McFee, he’s a decorated cop who has chosen to put his talents to nefarious ends.

 I’m no expert on the so-called “plain” lifestyle of the Amish, but cast and crew seem to have worked hard to set these characters apart from our “English” world. In the course of the film we get a good look at Amish ways, particularly in a spectacular barn-raising scene, and come to respect their values. There’s also one particularly grotesque moment when we see how stoically the Amish separate themselves from local hooligans who delight in tormenting them. In the leading role, Ford achieves an effective balance between his familiar machismo and respect for a culture totally alien to his own way of life. There are strong supporting performances by young Lukas Haas, ballet star Alexander Godunov (as a would-be suitor for Rachel), and others, all under the effective direction of Australian Peter Weir, making his first American feature. I was especially taken by the cinematography by John Seale, which owes much to the tender light so evident in the 17^th century Dutch paintings of Johannes Vermeer. This was one of the film’s eight Oscar nominations: it won statuettes for its screenplay and editing, and a lot of love from audiences.

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