Growing up in Pennsylvania, as I did, you become familiar with the Amish. The oldest Amish community in America is in Lancaster County, some 60 miles west of Philadelphia and half that from my hometown. On fall weekends our parents would take us out there for baked goods and crafts. We’d thrill at spotting an Amish family on the road driving a horse and buggy: the men with their brimmed hats and robust beards, the women with their bonnets and monochrome dresses. Anytime I made eye contact with them, though, I felt bad: You could tell they were used to being stared at.
The Amish intentionally, visibly stand apart from mainstream society (the English world, as they call it) but not because they want the attention. They order their lives around simplicity, hard work and relationships, seeking to submit themselves to the will of God. They reject (most) modern technologies and embrace pacifism. No one I knew growing up thought these were admirable or even interesting qualities; they thought it was weird.
Growing up when I did, my education about the Amish was also peppered with references to Peter Weir’s 1985 neo-noir “Witness.” “Witness” was a major movie in the Dougherty household; my dad still often says goodbye with the film’s closing line: “Be careful out there among them English.” The film is both a taut crime thriller and a heart-racing romance, but watching it again this week—for the first time in years—I appreciated it most as a portrayal of a community of faith, which both repulses and attracts the outside world.
The titular witness is Samuel Lapp (Lukas Haas), an 8-year-old Amish boy. While waiting in Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station with his recently widowed mother, Rachel (Kelly McGillis), Samuel witnesses a murder. He is taken into the custody of Detective John Book (Harrison Ford), a wrecking ball of a cop with little bedside manner. When Samuel identifies one of the killers as McFee (Danny Glover), a narcotics cop, Book realizes that they are caught up in a conspiracy that involves his superior, Chief Schaeffer (Josef Sommer). Wounded by McFee, Book flees with Samuel and Rachel to Amish Country to hide out. Tensions arise between Book’s worldly cynicism and the Amish way of life, as well as the unstated, but undeniable, attraction between him and Rachel. Meanwhile, the killers are closing in.
As a filmmaker, Weir is a master at building a world through depicting activity; see how he fleshes out the school in “Dead Poets Society” (1989) or the artificial world of Seahaven in “The Truman Show” (1998). “Witness” does the same with the Amish community, notably in the famous barn-raising sequence. In this scene, the community builds a barn for a newlywed couple, literally raising the frame by hand because they have no cranes. The organization and work ethic it takes to accomplish this feat are impressive, but even more notable is how the entire community—all genders, all ages—come together to make the project happen, everyone taking on a role. In this incredible sequence we see a community united by a shared purpose and love for one another.
It makes an impression on Book, who comes from a world of violence, mistrust and independence. In this community, people care about each other in active, concrete ways. They approach conflicts head-on, seeking resolution and forgiveness. They hold fast to pacifism, even when it means enduring humiliation or risking danger. It may look absurd to the outside world, but it fills their lives with sacred meaning and purpose. They are not perfect—through Rachel the film at least nods at how these traditionalist communities can be especially restrictive for women—but the hardboiled Book is moved.
Book never fully adopts the Amish way of life, however. While his Amish friends mildly endure abuse from a tourist, Book punches the man out. “It’s not our way,” Eli (Jan Rubeš) chides. “But it’s my way,” Book growls. When the men hunting Samuel arrive, Book likewise responds with violence. But in his final confrontation with Schaeffer, he relies on the community, and an appeal to Schaeffer’s own humanity, to prevent further killing. The episode echoes back to an earlier scene where Eli warns Samuel off from his fascination with Book’s handgun. “This gun of the hand is for the taking of human life,” he says. “Many times wars have come and people have said to us: you must fight, you must kill, it is the only way to preserve the good. But Samuel, there’s never only one way.”
Despite its sympathetic portrayal of the Amish, “Witness” was something of a thorn in the side of the community. Alongside specific criticisms of how Amish life was depicted, the film inspired even more tourists to descend on Lancaster County and other Amish communities, shoving more cameras in the faces of the locals and disrupting their way of life. This is the paradox of living apart from the world: the world notices and inserts itself anyway.
I believe my Catholic faith is meant to be lived in the world, not apart from it. At the same time, “Witness” inspired me to think about the ways in which my faith is, or should be, counter-cultural. I don’t believe I am called to throw out my phone or remove the buttons from my clothes as the Amish do. But I do believe that limiting my use of modern conveniences can help me grow closer to God, and that following Christ means rejecting ideas that our violent, materialistic culture treats as common sense. The goal of my faith isn’t to make people stare; but am I living it actively enough that anyone would notice?
“Witness” is streaming on Kanopy.
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