Peter Weir’s film “Witness” Essay

Peter Weirs film, Witness give outs that besides our neo earthly concern, there are other orbs with their own values that are unique. These worlds counterpoint with the Western world by their variation in lifestyle. The Amish are a community of people who live peacefully in the midst of a robust, crime riddled contemporary world. Weir presents a film that fits two genres, unrivalled of a crime and the other of romance. Within the first ten proceedings of the film these two worlds it captures the differences of these two worlds through the practice of cinematic techniques. The Amish world is introduced at the very start of the film where the opening visual fades in, to reveal a hanker shot showing the landscape. There is no use of artificial lighting but merely the natural sunlight of an early on morning. This proposes an idea that the Amish community lives in a plain, simplistic, traditional, and a calm lifestyle.The establishing montage of the silent and peaceful world of the Amish becomes apparent through a astray angle shot that pans across the screen in a panoramic view of gently s bureauing wheat fields from which emerges a small stria of black clad people walk silently following oneness another. Even in this very early part of the movie, the audience has a glimpse of order and conformity. Their black clothes juxtapose the brilliance of the wheat fields clearly portraying their diametrical world. Pennsylvania 1984 is surprising to the viewer, because they superpower expect a much earlier date. The idea of two worlds is as well symbolized by the division of the scene into top half of the sky and the diffuse half of the grass. The crossing of the two worlds is portrayed by the Amish moving through the frame from right to left through the grass.This is an unusual technique because commonly most movement is from left to right, thus reinforcing their unusual world. Weirs character in presenting such an orderly scene ironically is to exe mplify the dystopia of the fast-flying urban life of crime and corruption. The nuance clash between the Amish and the modern technological society becomes evident when Eli takes Rachel and Samuel to the station. The camera zooms into the carriage portraying the occupants to be Eli as the driver and Rachel and Samuel as the passengers. An overhead view gives way to long shots of beautiful country landscape and the horse-driven carriage as it is juxtaposed with the transport. The truck a symbolic representation of the modern world and a vehicle that is known to literally thunder its way like a thug on highways has to follow the carriage which was going at its own pace. This demonstrates that the Amish world behind it is not governed by time and will go the way they want.Through the close-ups of Eli, Rachel and Samuel, the audience sees the glassed-in world of the Amish as being reclusive and jailed as opposed to the free world of faster vehicles. Weir illustrates this sudden de ception of the American way when at the station while awaiting their produce. An undershot of the train is gigantic and intimidating which dwarfs the Amish world. He is mesmerized by it all, tours the train station. modify to little angels in their books, Samuel is miniaturized by a gigantic figure of an angel. A high angle shot from behind the statue dwarfs Samuel symbolically highlighting the insignificance of their culture to the American way of life. Even among the Amish these worlds there are others who resemble different from the