Study guide for viewing the movie “Witness.”
Before seeing the movie, review Etzioni’s “The New Community” (and keep in mind the different descriptions and opinions of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft), Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” and Birkett’s “Island of Lost Girls” (about Pitcairn Island). Make notes for yourself on the important words and concepts relating to different types of communities (gemeinschaft, gesellschaft, “new community,” etc.) and different people’s views of them.
Names of some important characters in the film:
Rachel Lapp (widow of Jacob, played by Kelly McGillis)
Samuel Lapp (her little boy)
Eli Lapp (Rachel’s father-in-law)
John Book (good cop, played by Harrison Ford)
Sgt. Carter (good cop, Book’s partner)
McFee (bad cop, played by Danny Glover)
Fergie (bad cop)
Paul Schaeffer (bad cop, police chief)
What communities exist? The Amish; the police; the non-Amish in the nearby town (Strasburg, Lancaster County); any others?
What is the “web of social bonds” that creates each community? What customs, habits, rituals does the community practice? What values do members of the community talk about and act on? What are the consequences of breaking the rules – for the rule-breaker and for the community? How do members of the community express their difference from outsiders?
What are the biggest threats to each community, from outside the community as well as from inside it? How does the community protect itself against those threats?
The Amish are often stereotyped as a “closed” community. Does this movie portray them as such? Are any other communities portrayed as “closed”? Which community in the movie is most like Dea Birkett’s description of Pitcairn Island?
Scenes to pay particular attention to:
After the boy, Samuel, looks at suspects in a lineup, John, the detective, takes him and his mother, Rachel, to a cafeteria for lunch. Rachel tells John several things that his sister has said about him. This conversation shows some of the differences between the Amish community’s expectations and John’s own attitudes and actions.
When the Amish healer says John needs a doctor, Rachel and Eli object, for reasons having to do with disruption of one community by another community’s standards.
The corrupt police chief, Paul, talks on the telephone with the local sheriff in Lancaster County (in the Amish country). The sheriff explains to him the difficulties of using “20th century law enforcement” techniques among the Amish, who “don’t live in the 20th century.” Paul says he has gotten “an education” from the sheriff’s explanation. What does he (and what do we) learn about the two communities?
After Samuel finds John’s gun, his grandfather, Eli, talks with him about killing. The child debates with him about the morality of killing “bad people.” Note the phrases “our ways,” “we believe,” “be ye separate,” “unclean thing.” What community standards or “tribal wisdom” is the old man passing along to the boy? What objections does the boy raise – and where did he get the ideas for those objections? Are those ideas disruptive to the community?
When he’s well enough to work, John helps Eli milk the cows before sunrise. At breakfast, he makes a joke based on a TV commercial whose tag line is “Honey, that’s great coffee.” What reaction does he expect; what reaction do Rachel and her family give him, and why?
Two significant conversations, within two different communities, take place after the scene in which Rachel and John dance in the barn to the music on his car radio. One is Eli’s argument with his daughter-in-law Rachel (note especially the pronouns they use in the exchange “I’ll be the judge of [whether I’m acting like a child]” versus “They [the community “elders”] will be the judge of that”). The other, immediately following, is Chief Paul Schaeffer’s interrogation of John’s partner, Sgt. Carter, in which Paul compares the police force to the Amish. Note Carter’s clash of loyalties here – sort of like those in the story of another police officer, George Orwell?
The barn-raising scene portrays many of the Amish community’s rituals, expectations, gender roles, etc.
The night after the barn raising, John glimpses Rachel naked while she’s bathing. The next morning he tells her, “If we’d made love last night, I’d have to stay, or you’d have to leave.” Why?
When John calls Paul, the corrupt chief, at home, he tells him he’s “lost the meaning” – a phrase he got from Paul himself in the past. What is he referring to, in terms of community bonds?
In the scene in town, when local bullies are harrassing the Amish, one of them says “They won’t fight. They won’t fight for their country, either.” What threat to what community creates the hostility? Also in this scene, notice the significant pronouns again: Eli says “fighting is not our way.” John replies, “it’s my way.”
How are the bad guys finally defeated? Why does Paul give up at the end?
The last line in the movie is Eli’s farewell to John, the same thing he said to Rachel when she got on the train at the beginning: “You be careful out there among them English.” This implies that John is now a member of the Amish community, and no longer one of “them English.” In what ways is he or isn’t he?