One of the things I was most dreading about this spring semester at Carthage was having to teach a section of Heritage, the course which all freshmen take…. and nearly all freshmen hate… and which consequently most of us dread teaching. But when it goes well, Heritage can be a very fulfilling experience – and I am happy to say that I am blessed with an exceptionally strong group of students with whom I seem to be hitting it off very nicely. And the best thing is that we are managing to have some really fine class discussions even though my syllabus specifically and clearly states that I am not grading my students on whether or not they participate. (I doubt that coerced participation is really worth very much, although I suppose some of my colleagues might disagree with me.)
Our focus is on how we encounter cultures other than our own – and my single smartest idea thus far was to have the class watch a superb movie from 20 years ago called “Witness.” For those of you who don’t know the film, it tells the story of a young Amish boy named Samuel who inadvertently witnesses the murder of an undercover police officer in the restroom of a Philadelphia train station. The boy eventually is able to identify the culprit as a highly decorated police officer, which puts Samuel in grave danger – along with the officer on the case, John Book. When Book is shot and nearly killed, he drives himself and Samuel and his mother back to their farm in rural Pennsylvania where he recovers from his wounds. At the heart of the story is the tension between this big city cop and the Amish and the cultural gulf that divides them. Ultimately they come to some appreciation of each other but not in a Hollywood-ish “they lived happily ever after” kind of way but rather in a hard-fought real life sort of way, and at the end of the film – after surviving a terrifying gun battle with the crooked cops who find their way to the farm – John Book and his new Amish friends go their separate ways in very bittersweet fashion.
Out of the 22 students in the class, only two of them had ever seen this film – which makes sense, I suppose, but it still makes me feel SO old. This movie was made right before they were born – so this is to them what Ben Hur was for me. . . except that I’ve seen Ben Hur and a lot of other classic films that are actually before my time. But these students seem to have so little awareness of the films of a quarter century ago. . . We might as well be talking about Charlie Chaplin comedies. But how cool to be the one to share this film with them – and how cool that they liked it as much as they did. (You could hear a pin drop in the room – and no snoring!)
There are a lot of reasons to love this film, but one of the most important is the performance of Lucas Haas as Samuel. You can tell from the photograph above that Haas had the most incredible eyes – which made all of the scenes where he is taking in the sights and sounds of the modern world all the more poignant. The hero of the film, John Book, is played by Harrison Ford in what some call his finest performance. One of my favorite scenes is when young Samuel is peaking into the dress drawer where John Book’s personal effects are being kept (this is while Book is still recovering from his wounds) and Samuel ends up taking Book’s gun in his hands, completely fascinated. Book bursts in at that moment and is horrified to see Samuel with the gun and terrified at what might have happened. In the making-of-the-film documentary, Ford says that when they shot that scene, he remembers walking into the room and seeing the young actor Lukas Haas holding that gun – and even though it was obviously something in the script, it was still a terrible and shocking sight to see – the bewildering sight of that sweet young boy with a deadly weapon in his hand. From that point on, I will always have a lump in my throat when I see that scene.
One of the most praiseworthy things about the film is that it’s made with such respect for the Amish. I remember there being a spate of Amish- related TV programs and films around this time – probably in the wake of “Witness” – and I remember at the time my sister Randi pointing out something very disturbing about almost all of these programs. Almost without exception, the theme of all of these programs was basically “the Amish would be so much happier if they just loosened up a little bit and were more like us.” And this wasn’t just a subtle theme- it would be presented quite unapologetically. <<Young amish girl is reluctant to be a cheerleader. Young amish girl becomes a cheerleader and discovers that it isn’t so bad.>> <<Young amish boy is forbidden by his parents from playing organized baseball. Parents realize they have been unreasonable, allow their boy to play, and he wins the big game.>> You get the idea. The great thing about “Witness” is that you come away from it with a deep appreciation for the Amish and their ways and with grave misgivings about the modern society which we have built for ourselves. They are the ones you end up envying and you have absolutely NO desire for them to leave their simple life behind for the life which John Book lives.
If you want to see a magnificent movie, run – don’t walk – to your neighborhood Blockbuster and rent “Witness.” And make sure it’s the special anniversary edition which includes a wonderful documentary called “Between Two Worlds.” It alone is worth the price.