shippeecw 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.

westonab The Witness is an expedition through the dark and mysterious, shedding light on the heavily misconstrued murder of Ms. Kitty Genovese. The man trying to shed light, for himself as well as others misinformed, is none other than the victim's brother, Bill Genovese. Bill does an amazing job of tracking down ghosts connected to the case, piecing together the true story of his sister's death. The film serves as an accumulation of his knowledge finally shared with the misinformed world. It holds so many beautiful analogies, like Bill's near-death in Vietnam compared to his sister's last moments in Kew Gardens, both of them wondering if they would die alone. I also appreciated how personal the film was; it showed how deeply affected everyone was by Kitty's death: a broken family, a confused brother, and a son trying to do better in light of his father's mistakes. Highly recommend this film!

mallory-64697 The documentary, "The Witness" had no specific intended audience except those that were interested in the case and were wanting to know the truth about what really happened in 1964 with Kitty Genovese. The purpose of this film was to allow Kitty's brother, Bill, to find out the truth about his sister's murder. He looked into as many witnesses as possible and even interviewed the editor of the New York Times in order to uncover the truth. Before watching the film, I had read several articles with differing viewpoints and information. One question that I truly had about these articles and even throughout the movie is if Moseley had gotten in any accident to cause damage to his brain causing him to act out in such a bizarre way or if he was just borderline sociopathic throughout his life and something set him off. The film took place in various places with a main focus on the street that Kitty was murdered. This documentary was very descriptive and informative, providing more information than any article managed. I learned that not only were several details left out of news stories, but that many twists occurred as well. For example, Kitty's friend stated that she would help a million times over again but the stories stated that no one helped out of fear. There were also several people that supposedly called the cops that night, but no phone records were kept of it. Some suggestions that I have on this film include that I wish Bill Genovese had decided to look into his sister's murder sooner, so that more of the witnesses were still alive.

Reno Rangan 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