Peter Weir’s film “Witness” Essay

Peter Weirs film, Witness reveals that besides our contemporary area, there are new(prenominal) worlds with their own values that are unique. These worlds conflict with the Western world through 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, one of a crime and the other of romance. Within the origin ten minutes of the film these two worlds it captures the differences of these two worlds through the use of cinematic techniques. The Amish world is introduced at the very start of the film where the opening opthalmic fades in, to reveal a long shot showing the landscape. There is no use of artificial lighting but merely the natural sunlight of an earliest 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 wide burthen shot that pans across the screen in a panoramic view of gently swaying wheat fields from which emerges a small band of desolate fit out people walk silently following one 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 Wheatfields clearly portraying their different world. Pennsylvania 1984 is surprising to the viewer, because they might expect a much early date. The idea of two worlds is also symbolized by the division of the scene into top half of the sky and the bottom 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 usually most movement is from left to right, thus reinforcing their unusual world. Weirs purpose in presenting such an orderly scene ironically is to exemplify the dystopia of the fast urban li fe of crime and corruption. The culture clash between the Amish and the neo 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 delightful country landscape and the horse-driven carriage as it is juxtaposed with the truck. The truck a symbolic representation of the modern world and a vehicle that is known to literally thunder its way like a bully 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 imprisoned as opposed to the free world of faster vehicles. Weir illustrates this sudden imposition of the American way when at the station whi le awaiting their train. An undershot of the train is gigantic and intimidating which dwarfs the Amish world. He is mesmerized by it all, tours the train station. Accustomed 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 set off 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