The Witness 2015 123movies

Watch: The Witness 2015 123movies, Full Movie Online – Bill Genovese’s decade-long journey to unravel the truth about the mythic death and little-known life of his sister, Kitty, who was reportedly stabbed in front of 38 witnesses and became the face of urban apathy. THE WITNESS begins in 2004 when The Times questions its original story: the number of witnesses, what they observed, the number of attacks. None was more affected by the story than Bill. He vowed not to be like the 38, volunteered for Vietnam, and lost both legs. What if Kitty’s mythic story is an urban myth? Breaking his family’s half-century of silence, Bill seeks to find the truth confronting the witnesses, the killer, their families and his own. THE WITNESS is about bearing witness, loss and forgiveness, and what we owe each other..
Plot: A brother’s journey to unravel the truth about the mythic death and little known life of Kitty Genovese, who was reportedly murdered in front of 38 witnesses and has become the face of urban apathy.
Smart Tags: #historical_reinterpretation #urban_legend #lesbian #parking_lot #handicapped #bystander_effect #crime_documentary #biographical_documentary #witness #murder #interview #part_animated #new_york_city #investigation #indifference

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Ratings:

	7.0/10 Votes: 4,399
	90% | RottenTomatoes
	79/100 | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 79 Popularity: 5.764 | TMDB

Reviews:

**A brother’s quest to learn the other side of the crime.**

My last documentary film was a couple of Oscar nominees that I saw before the award ceremony. I’m not that into documentaries compared to the feature films I watch on the regular basis, but time to time I try if I get interested after learning what it’s all about. Likewise, I found this one, though it is not a science or nature theme that I usually prefer than anything else. I have enjoyed many murder mystery films, but this one is a documentary. So I wanted to know the experience of watching the real story with real clips and interviews of real suspect, witnesses and what the victim’s family says about it.

This was about one of the America’s most talked crime of the previous century. It took place 50 years ago, on 13th March 1964. A young woman was murdered where nobody came to rescue her. So after all these years, the younger brother of the victim, who was a very young boy then did not remember much of the event and following incidents, is now trying to investigate and if possible to get a new perspective of that dreadful day. His journey begins in search of truth.

Like any documentary films, it started off without notifying us what’s going on. But very soon the basic information revealed. Bill Genovese, who is on the wheelchair tells us what he little knows about his sister Kitty. Then the focus goes back to the day she was murdered. She was alone on the street, but there were plenty of eyes that witnessed from a nearby apartment building when a man approached Kitty and what followed was a horror. No one came forward, otherwise an innocent soul would have been saved.

> “For years, I avoided the details of that night, because they were just too painful, but it’s worse not knowing the truth.”

After debating about the crime like the motive to commit it, the film right away turns its all focus on what’s wrong with those who saw it, but failed to do anything. Bill meets some of the witnesses and gets their perspective. The stories of how they saw it and how they reacted to it. Unfortunately, many of them are passed away as it was a half a century old incident. Bill, as well as the filmmakers tried their best to get useful and fresh info, but the investigation did not go anywhere as we expect in a feature film.

The sad part of this film is there’s barely any original clips, except a few personal archive footages of the victim. Because CCTV cameras were not found anywhere near the crime scene like todays world, not even 911 was existed. They say, this crime was one of the reasons to implement the 911 concept. The incident impacted the US big, to fight crime after many debates to introduce many other precautionary measures. This topic was also used for the college thesis and other researches. So basically it changed the system that America began to fight back.

It was an outrageous event, but this film lacked something. Like I said the visuals, how that night would have looked like. They should have recreated it, instead revealing everything orally. Particularly the same event described by different people who witnessed it, that was this film’s notion than the crime as the title hints. So pretty much succeed in its quest, along with Bill, who led his one man research team. As a documentary film, it is a fine product, but nothing like the feature film’s murder mystery. So don’t go for it with such expectation other than eager to learn the truth in a realistic way. So, recommended, but only for the selected audience.

_7/10_

This is a very well made film. I grew up hearing about the story of Kitty Genovese, but the facts that are widely accepted as truth aren’t accurate. This film puts the record straight. There are some surprises, and the ending reenactment was heart wrenching.

No Man Left Behind
This was a riveting movie from beginning to end. William Genovese embarks on a long and difficult search for clues as to what really happened to his sister Kitty back in 1964 when she was brutally murdered. As a marine losing both legs in Vietnam, you can feel his pain knowing that his buddies were there for him, but his sister apparently died alone. William slowly begins to fit together a more complete picture of what happened. I think that his honesty and lack of judgment allowed him to discover things that would probably have remained hidden for ever. What is uncovered is complex and not easily defined. What is evident, however, is that nothing can ever replace original and painstaking research. The movie is well produced and the graphic illustrations are imaginative and well placed.

Not just a documentary about Kitty Genovese, but something bigger
The murder of Kitty Genovese has captivated sociologists, historians and journalists for 50 years; strangely, “The Witness” marks my first ever exposure to this bewildering case and may very well be for a number of viewers. The notion that 38 witnesses saw the crime or heard Kitty’s screams outside the Mowbray residence building in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York and did nothing is astounding, yet as “The Witness” discovers, the legend appears to have overshadowed the truth.

“The Witness” follows Bill Genovese, Kitty’s younger brother, on what amounted to an 11-year quest (on film) for answers. The documentary reveals Bill to be a restless truth-seeker consumed by what happened to his sister. Her death shattered his family and dramatically affected the course of his life’s direction, while America held it up as the textbook example of public apathy and selfishness.

Bill begins his investigation with the objective of finding out if 38 people really witnessed his sister’s murder. He tries to track down any and all living witnesses to piece together an account of the night’s events, which leads him everywhere from police reports, to the trial transcript to newspaper accounts. Bill also explores who his sister was and also who her killer was.

The film takes on a murder mystery tone at first with voice-over narration from Bill guiding the story more so than director James D. Solomon. Where he goes, the story seems to go. In some ways it does have a corny private investigator TV special vibe to it, but Kitty’s case is a fascinating one. Bill’s willingness to explore anything and everything about her murder, however, causes the film to lose focus. The objective becomes about obsessively scouring for any kernel of truth.

Then suddenly it becomes clear. “The Witness” is not a documentary about Kitty’s case; it’s a documentary about Bill’s investigation of Kitty’s case. Bill is the subject. Viewers learning of it for the first time will likely get swept up in the details as Bill has for 50 years, but it’s Bill’s dogged search for truth and obsession with this story that ultimately takes center stage and elevates what would otherwise be a compelling but standard-order documentary.

“The Witness” reveals something about the need for truth and more importantly, the need for narratives to fill in what truth is missing. The more people Bill meets, the more stories and accounts that he hears, and the more questions that arise. The percentage of truthful information about Kitty’s murder grows ever smaller in a pool of inconsistent information.

Whereas everyone from the journalists who covered the story to the witnesses to the American public to the Genovese family filled in the gaps in truth with a story that gives it all meaning and allows them to move on, Bill cannot. That’s what Solomon’s documentary is really exploring and revealing in following this infamous case. A reenactment scene at the end of the film is particularly painful and off-putting from a viewer’s perspective, but seen in the context of Bill being the subject, it makes a powerful amount of sense.

The dual nature of “The Witness” will not click with every viewer. Those hoping for a Kitty Genovese documentary will probably find it unsatisfying after a point, while those unable to zoom out and see the ways the film is about Bill will surely find it strange as well. Yet there’s something powerfully meta about the film that will stimulate those who enjoy documentaries for the storytelling.

~Steven C

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Other Information:

Original Language en
Runtime 1 hr 29 min (89 min)
Budget 0
Revenue 0
Status Released
Rated N/A
Genre Documentary, Biography, Crime
Director James D. Solomon, Jessica Robinson
Writer William Genovese, Russell Greene, Gabriel Rhodes
Actors William Genovese, Shannon Beeby, Aaron Adler
Country United States
Awards 1 win & 7 nominations
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix DTS, Dolby Digital, SDDS
Aspect Ratio 1.78 : 1
Camera N/A
Laboratory N/A
Film Length N/A
Negative Format N/A
Cinematographic Process N/A
Printed Film Format N/A