Toilet Murder Scene in Witness

Witness is a 1985 American thriller film starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis and directed by Peter Weir.

The scene starts with a slightly low angle medium close-up shot of the little Amish boy walking up to the religious statue in the railway station in amazement. The camera angles notifies the boy’s importance to the plot. He is wearing an Amish hat, which surrounds his head like an angel’s halo.

The boy is curious, especially admiring the statue, and this connotes that there is something of an artist about him.

Cut to shot panning up the statue from a low angle. This shows the importance of the classic Greek statue, which depicts a religious image of an angel helping a fallen man. This is possibly foreshadowing the turnout of the plot, assuming that the boy would take the role of the angel because of his halo hat. 

Cut to the little boy looking up to and admiring the statue. The religious statue is something very new to the Amish boy, who hasn’t been exposed to this completely different culture before in his life.

Cut to a very high angle, over the statue’s shoulder shot of the little boy. The high angle shot shows the boy’s insignificance in this massive railway station (‘’we are all just little grains of sand’’) 

The rule of thirds is used in this shot with the statue taking up one third of the left and the little boy in the massive railway station taking up two thirds on the right - the eye apparently goes to the right when watching a scene.

Cut to establishing long shot, very slightly low angle, of the Amish mother and the little boy sitting on a bench alone in the station

The child walks towards and into the vanishing point alone, without his mother. She lets him go alone because she doesn't realised the danger because there is no such danger in the Amish culture.

The boy walks into the toilets. Cut to low angle close up of a man, which suggests his significance.

Cut to establishing shot of the man in the railway station toilets washing his hands while the boy walks in and goes into a cubicle to pee. He does not lock the door so it is still a crack open.

The lighting in this scene is ambient lighting. The colour saturation around brown and beige. One important thriller convention is that the setting is a claustrophobic, unglamorous place. The sound is all diegetic and there is no added non-diegetic music, which makes the scene more realistic. The realism of the scene adds suspense.

2 other men come out of the toilet cubicles. One is dark-skinned and the other one is faced backwards to the camera, so the audience can not recognise his face and identity, which makes him an enigma.

The two men pull a bag over the first man, who was washing his hands when the boy came in.

They pull out a knife and murder him.

Non-diegetic sound of energetic classical music is added to the scene.

Cut to close up shot of boy’s face with his big brown innocent eyes wide open peeking through the crack in the cubicle door. Non-diegetic sound of the murder (stabbing and growling).

Cut to point of view shot of the murder from the boy's eyes from behind the crack of opened door.

The following shots are almost only close up head and shoulder shots of the characters. This adds emphasis to each character's emotion represented through their expressions.

The dark-skinned man hears a breath coming from the boy in the cubicle. He gets out his gun and starts violently opening all cubicle doors one after the other. They boy is in the cubicle at the very end.

Cut to close up shot of the boy’s hands trying to lock the cubicle door.

Cut to close up of dark-skinned man’s feet standing in front of the last cubicle door with the little boy behind them sliding through the crack under cubicle wall to the 2^nd to last cubicle, which the man has already checked, to escape.

Cut to shot of the man violently opening last cubicle door, which was locked by the boy.

Cut to close up shot panning up boy from his feet to head. His feet are standing on toilet lid in the 2^nd to last cubicle. His hands are holding him steady between the two cubicle walls. His position resembles the shape of the crucifix. The boy is holding his hat in his left hand and is no longer wearing it so he is not longer wearing the halo.

Close up of boy holding his breath in to hide from the violent man, emphasis on the terrified look on his face. Cut to man closing the last cubicle door.

An important thing to notice about the costume is how the man is wearing an all grey suit, mirroring the colour and smell of disgusting toilet sewage. He is also wearing a red tie, the colour of blood, which suggests he is involved in a murder or some kind of violence. In thrillers, the colour red is often used to foreshadow violence and blood, for example the femme fatale's red nails in the opening of Sergio Leone's “Once Upon A Time in America” foreshadowing the violence of her getting shot further on in the scene.

Cut to the iconic entrance of the detective policeman played by Harrison Ford. He is surrounded by light blue lighting, meaning he is good as opposed to grey/brown lighting surrounding the murderers in the toilets,

This film shows how in thrillers cities are seen as corrupt and dangerous places as opposed to the safety in for example, the Amish community. However, the use of the traditional Amish culture in a thriller is quite unusual.