One of my all time favorites.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The Witness revisits the mysterious events of March 13, 1964 when Kitty Genovese was murdered and witnesses heard the murder take place but did nothing to help. The story follows Kitty's younger brother Billy searching for the true events of that night that newspapers at the time exaggerated to push a social apathy narrative and to sell papers. The film gives audiences a look into the Genovese family's lives after the murder and more about who Kitty was as a person. The film gives additional information never written in prior studies of the case. Billy talks to some of the alleged witnesses who did call the police to learn that some didn't even hear the murder or know they were listed as one of the 37 witnesses in the infamous 1964 article about the murder. The documentary highlights new truths found by Billy Genovese while still showing the unfortunate mysteries about this case.

The documentary "The Witness" was an absolutely captivating film that followed the emotional turmoils of Bill Genovese discovering and coming to terms with the murder of his sister, Catherine Genovese. It dove in deeply into the injustices and inaccuracies brought forward by the case and the New York Times article, "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police." The film was made with the intention of reaching an audience striving to learn more about this extremely famous case. While Bill Genovese is trying to discover and inform us of the truths about his sisters death, the film also intends to teach the audience to not believe everything put out by the media. The imagery and soundbites throughout the film where elegantly capturing raw human reactions and emotions brought forth in Bill's interviews with the "37 witnesses." The film, in a way, changed my way of thinking and opened my mind to truly question everything.

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

The Witness documents Bill Genovese's attempt to understand the circumstances surrounding the murder of his sister, Kitty Genovese. Those familiar with the murder by Winston Moseley and the subsequent explosion of media coverage were most likely the intended audience. With this documentary, Bill sets out to find the truth about what happened on the night of March 13th, 1964, and the alleged thirty-eight witnesses who did nothing. Before watching this movie, I was aware of the true events as well as the sensationalism that followed, and I expected to see the "urban apathy" angle on the events discussed and refuted which was included. My favorite sections of the film were the parts that were stylistic, gray scale, and animated, and where silhouettes of the witnesses looking down on the first attack voiced their recollections of the events unfolding. I also enjoyed the tense interaction between Bill and Winston Moseley's son in which both sides are victims of circumstance. However, I did not like the reenactment where Bill has a woman scream loudly on the same street where Kitty was attacked. It seemed like a cheap way to evoke an emotional response from the viewers and further played into Bill's obsession with the murder. Overall, I enjoyed this documentary, but I was let down by the seemingly intentional lack of conclusion. I would recommend this to anyone curious about the true events and the aftermath of the murder of Kitty Genovese.