I'm thinking of the scene where the Amish boy ducks into the next bathroom stall just as Danny Glover busts open the one he was just in and retrieves his fallen hat just in the nick. Was this similarity to the Indiana Jones scene intentional or just incidental.
shareI've never actually thought of it that way, and it makes sense, but I'm pretty sure it was just coincidental. After all, that hat was too big to fit under the stall wall, and would have naturally fallen off, and the kid had to pull it back or else he would have died. Peter Weir also does not seem to be the kind of director who would blatantly rip off a famous movie, especially in his first Hollywood movie.
It's funny how the colors of the world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen
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pbp720-1 wrote: <<I'm thinking of the scene where the Amish boy ducks into the next bathroom stall just as Danny Glover busts open the one he was just in and retrieves his fallen hat just in the nick. Was this similarity to the Indiana Jones scene intentional or just incidental. >>
There was a very real reason for the hat to fall off Samuel and it has NOTHING to do with the Indiana Jones movies. Watch Witness again and note what happens when that hats are on and off.
I don't believe it's an intentional nod to Indy but I couldn't help think of Indy myself when I saw it, and then having Ford in both movies reinforces the idea.
"These pretzels are making me THIRSTY!"
Think that was just a coincidence but feel the barn scene with Harrison Ford singing "Wonderful World" was a definite nod to "American Graffiti".
shareIndiana Jones was released 4 years after Witness!
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The first Indiana Jones film was "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and was released in 1981, several years before "Witness." In a mini-documentary on the making of "Witness," "Between Two Worlds," the producer mentions that while they were getting the cast and crew together to make "Witness," Harrison Ford was in Europe shooting "one of the Indiana Jones movies." At that point they were having trouble finding a director for the film, until Peter Weir unexpectedly became available due to his "Mosquito Coast" project being put on hold (he made it later, with Harrison Ford).
So one of the Indiana Jones films was out and another "in the can" when they began filming "Witness."