7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A young Amish boy, visiting Philadelphia with his widowed mother, witnesses a murder. When the detective on the case discovers a police cover up, he realizes his, the boy's and the mother's lives are in jeopardy. He hides out in Amish country, living amongst the community and having to abide by their peaceful customs. Things get more complicated when he falls in love with the young widow. But, soon the idyllic life is shattered when the villains discover his whereabouts.
Starring: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Jan RubesThriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
4K Ultra HD
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 0.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 5.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
It may not exactly rise to the level of "where were you on November 22, 1963?" or "where were you on September 11, 2001?", but "where were you circa 2:20 p.m. EST on October 4, 2023?" might be met with not just a shock of recognition but also with a bit of a sigh by some Amish folk in particular, since according to several (maybe just slightly comical) news reports, at least a few Amish men have evidently been formally "shunned" by their communities when their possession of cellphones was discovered when the National Emergency Alert Test was conducted by FEMA a couple of weeks ago (as this review is being written), and their phones buzzed or chirped or somehow otherwise revealed their existence. Kind of interestingly in that regard, cellphones weren't really a "thing" yet when Witness was made in 1985, and so undercover cop Detective Sergeant John Book (Harrison Ford), who has been holed up in an Amish community, actually has to journey to find a real vestige of a bygone age, a pay phone (!), in order to contact his precinct, which actually turns out to be a bad idea in any case. Witness is an extremely well remembered film for any number of reasons, but its rather fascinating portrait of a "fish out of water", in this case an urban policeman having to get by in an Amish community, gives this story a distinctive focus and some absolutely wonderful moments of interplay between stars Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis and Lukas Hass as Amish mother and son Rachel and Samuel Lapp, who find themselves unwillingly bound up in the investigation of the brutal killing of another undercover cop. Witness has frequently been called a "neo-noir", and if there are certainly hints of that genre suffusing the piece, I'd argue that while there are substantial differences, it's really more of a Hitchcockian enterprise in that it focuses on a quasi-romantic relationship which is unfolding in the context of some very perilous situations, kind of like North by Northwest.
Note: Screenshots are sourced from Arrow's standalone 1080
release. This package does not include a 1080 disc.
Witness is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Arrow Video with an HVEC / H.265 encoded 2160p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow offers the same
insert booklet
for both its standalone 1080 and 4K UHD releases, which offers the following information on the transfer:
Witness is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio. The film is presented in UHD in 4K (2160p) in HDR10 and Dolby Vision, while the film is presetned on Blu-ray in high definition (1080p). All feature masters were supplied by Paramount.I'm frankly a little conflicted about my reaction to this 4K UHD presentation, as it has both improvements and what I'd call passing deficits when compared to Arrow's 1080 release. The grain field is both generally better looking (if you get both versions, just compare the "chunky yellowness" of the Paramount masthead in the 1080 version to this version for just one example), as well as more observable at times, as in a couple of scenes featuring the three bad cops where I felt the 1080 version looked just slightly filtered, even if that appearance resulted from the resolution of that transfer, not any actual digital scrubbing (again, if you get both versions, watch the scene where the cops open the trunk of the car, and the 4K UHD version has a more clearly visible grain field "crawling" up the garage in back of the cops). There are also some definite upticks in fine detail in things like fabrics on costumes or even some of the greenery in the Amish farmlands. Speaking of greenery, though, one of the curious changes in this version is the palette (the disc offers HDR and/or Dolby Vision, per the above verbiage from the insert booklet), which definitely looks a bit cooler and I'd argue less consistently saturated than the 1080 version. There are still some incredibly lush looking moments, especially once the gauntlet of opticals in the film's opening seven minutes or so passes, but there are still some noticeable ebbs and flows to saturation that are not necessarily dependent upon lighting sources.
Witness features three audio options (aside from the commentary track), DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, and two LPCM 2.0 choices, one labeled as a Home Video Mix and the other as the Theatrical Dolby Stereo version, which may be somewhat funny now that it's being offered in LPCM. I frankly didn't notice much if any difference between the two stereo options, but the 5.1 track definitely opens up both the rather nice use of ambient environmental sounds in the Amish countryside material in particular, as well as Maurice Jarre's score. That said, this isn't the "showiest" surround track ever produced, and a lot of the material tends to be anchored toward the front end of the soundstage. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
It had been years since I had last seen Witness, and I have no problem confessing that I had a rather large lump in my throat as the film came to a close this time. This is an immensely involving story that has so much unstated human emotion running through it that the actual thriller elements may almost seem like hangers on at times. Arrow provides a release with generally solid technical merits and some really outstanding supplements. Highly recommended.
1985
1985
Limited Edition
1985
Standard Edition
1985
Standard Edition
1985
1936
1990
Warner Archive Collection
1932
1994
1954
Warner Archive Collection
1950
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1992
Warner Archive Collection
1947
1955
1974
Limited Edition
1980
1981
Limited Edition
2002
4K Restoration
1973
Includes They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! and The Organization on standard BD
1967
1989
1964
1965
Limited Edition to 3000
1987