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By Dennis McLellan. Feb. 8, 2003 12 AM PT. Times Staff Writer. William Kelley, a television and film writer who shared an Academy Award for screenwriting for his work on the 1985 movie...
May 22, 2017 · 5.22.2017. Global Black History. By Eli Rosenblatt. W illiam Melvin Kelley, the experimental novelist and filmmaker—who mastered and reinvented a kind of midcentury literary style crafted from a colorful array of language and perspectives—died in Manhattan on February 1, 2017, at the age of 79.
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In April 1984, an Amish community outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, attends the funeral of Jacob Lapp, who leaves behind his wife Rachel and eight-year-old son Samuel. Rachel and Samuel travel by train to visit Rachel's sister, which takes them into Philadelphia. While at 30th Street Stationwaiting for a connecting train, Samuel goes into the men's ...
In his book The Amish in the American Imagination (2001), scholar David Weaver-Zercher notes that Witness is primarily concerned with the intersection of contrasting cultures, a recurring theme in several of Weir's films, including The Last Wave (1977) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). Weaver-Zercher notes that the conflict between Amish a...
Development
Producer Edward S. Feldman, who was in a "first-look" development deal with 20th Century Fox at the time, first received the screenplay for Witness in 1983. Originally titled Called Home, which is the Amish term for death, it ran for 182 pages, the equivalent of three hours of screen time. The script, which had been circulating in Hollywood for several years, had been inspired by an episode of Gunsmoke that William Kelley and Earl W. Wallace had written in the 1970s, which in turn had been ba...
Casting
Lynne Littman had originally been in talks to direct the film, and though she ultimately did not, she recommended Lukas Haas for the part of Samuel, because she had recently worked with him on her film Testament. The role of Rachel was the most difficult to cast, and after Weir grew frustrated with the auditions he had seen, he asked the casting director to look for actors in Italy, because he thought they would be more "womanly". As they were reviewing audition tapes from Italy, Kelly McGill...
Pre-production
During the weeks before filming, Ford spent time with the homicide department of the Philadelphia Police Department, researching the important details of working as a homicide detective. McGillis did research by moving in with an Amish widow and her seven children, learning how to milk cows and practicing their Pennsylvania German dialect. Weir and cinematographer John Seale went on a trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was running an exhibition of 17th-century Dutch Masters. Weir d...
Witness had its world premiere at the Fulton Opera House in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in on February 7, 1985. The film was screened out of competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critics consensus states: "A wonderfully entertaining thriller within an unusual setting, with Harrison Ford delivering a surprisingly emotive and sympathetic performance." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of ...
Negotiation expert William Ury summarised the film's climactic scene in a chapter titled "The Witness" in his 1999 book Getting to Peace (later republished with the alternative title The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop) and used the scene as a symbol of the power of ordinary citizens to resolve conflicts and stop violence. Japanese fil...
Wahlbrinck, Bernd. WITNESS Revisited: An Appreciation of Peter Weir's Famous Film, Tumbleweed 2020, ISBN 978-3-9821463-5-5Kelley, William and Earl W. Wallace (based on the screenplay by Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley). Witness, Pocket Books; Media Tie In, 1985 ISBN 978-0671545956Witness at the American Film Institute CatalogWitness at IMDbWitness at AllMovieWitness at the TCM Movie Database- February 8, 1985
- Edward S. Feldman
Oct 27, 2018 · Sarah Hughes. Sat 27 Oct 2018 11.49 EDT. He was a rising star of the American literary scene whose debut novel, a dark satire on race and America, was acclaimed in 1962 when he was just 24. Now the...
Famous screenplays by » William Kelley was born on May 27, 1929 in Staten Island, New York, USA. He is known for his work on Witness (1985), The Winds of Kitty Hawk (1978) and The Blue Lightning (1986). He was married to Nina Kelley. He died on February 3, 2003 in Bishop, California, USA. Update this biography »
Feb 8, 1985 · WITNESS, directed by Peter Weir; screenplay by Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley; story by Mr. Kelley, Mr. Wallace and Pamela Wallace; director of photography, John Seale; edited by Thom...
William Melvin Kelley (1937–2017), novelist and professor at Sarah Lawrence College, 2008 winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement. Bill Kelley (American football) (1926–2015), American football tight end who played for the Green Bay Packers in 1949. William Kelley (screenwriter), Academy Award-winning screenwriter ...
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