Peter Weir had established himself as one of the Australian ‘New Wave’ of directors in the late 1970s and early 1980s with PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1977) and THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1982), starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver.
It was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling – and he certainly made his mark in the 1980s. In 1989 he directed Robin Williams in the inspiration school drama DEAD POETS SOCIETY, but back in 1985, he collaborated with Harrison Ford on the first of two films (the other being THE MOSQUITO COAST (1986) with Ford starring opposite Helen Mirren)
WITNESS (which had the working title of CALLED HOME) tells of Philadelphia Detective John Book (Ford) who has to deal with an Amish mother and son, Rachel and Samuel Lapp (Kelly McGillis and Lukas Haas) when Samuel is witness to a murder in the toilets at the Philadelphia main train station. Kept in town to testify and try and identify the murder suspects, Book is a little unsure of the pair, but when he is shot by a suspect, the three escape into Amish country, where Book has to recover.
One of the elders (Jan Rubes) finds Book suspect, but Book has to use the cover of the Amish community to protect both the family and himself….
Even today, WITNESS is against the grain of many of the cop thrillers that defined the 1980s, particularly the LETHAL WEAPON series and Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds offerings like SUDDEN IMPACT (1983) and SHARKY’S MACHINE (1981). Although it follows many of the key elements that a good cop thriller yields to, it is the Amish sequences, particularly the building of a barn that set this aside, plus a wonderfully atmospheric score by composer legend Maurice Jarre (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA)
Ford was determined to break out of blockbuster mode, having just completed his second outing as Indiana Jones the year before WITNESS in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, but he maintained the true star quality. McGillis would break out herself a year later as Tom Cruise’s love in TOP GUN and then co-star opposite Jodie Foster in THE ACCUSED (1988), for which Foster won an Academy Award.