The Witness

No, sorry, not the video game. This documentary! It's available from PBS - catch it now before the whole network gets defunded!

Here's what I said on Letterboxd:

A documentary focusing less on the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese and more on her brother Bill's quest, five decades later, to get to the bottom of what really happened on that infamous night. Did 38 witnesses really ignore her cries for help like you were told in Sociology 100? I came here looking for a Rashomon-tinted caper of busted false narratives and a satisfying conclusion - and so did Bill - but, no such luck. Instead the doc makes a late turn toward being a poignant meditation on forgiveness and acceptance amid grief and uncertainty. It's touching, but slight.

To expand just a little bit and give oh-so-minor spoilers, my biggest reaction of any type came very late in the film as Bill prepares to confront his sister's killer, Winston Moseley - a man who confessed to the murder fifty years ago (along with a second one) and who had previously broken out of prison once already while serving his life sentence. Bill just wants to hear Moseley himself describe the events of the evening - whether his sister screamed before she was stabbed, whether a man yelled out a window "leave her alone!" or not, whether Moseley retreated back to his car before turning back around or not, and so on. Bill starts by inviting the Moseley's son - a reverend - over for a filmed conversation, and Bill just displays the patience of a saint with this man. Rather than contrition and humility, all Moseley's son - again, a reverend! - has for Bill is self-pity about what it's been like to lose his father at such a young age, and the only reason his father is still locked up is the notoriety of this particular murder, and oh by the way the only reason he even stabbed your sister to death on the street was because she was calling him the N-word. You can see Bill's heart just drop completely as his eyebrows raise ever so slightly. (Bill's a goddamn double-amputee, by the way, and has been since the Vietnam War. His tenacity and patience are downright inspirational.) But Bill doesn't argue or protest or defend his sister; he just lets the reverend keep showing his ass to anyone watching.

It gets worse! Moseley's son begins to tell Bill that a lot of his friends told him not to even come here today. "Genovese," after all - there's a Genovese crime family, you know? - but hey, he's not afraid to die, if it's his time, it's his time. And Bill just sits there, completely unfazed, and nearly deadpans, "So you're not only cordial for coming here - you're courageous for coming here." Beatify this man.

You know what? After describing all of that, I found this exact clip on the Internet. Watch it: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/514019/the-witness-kitty-genovese/

At the end of the day, this isn't a movie about the Rashomon effect; it's a movie about how little we collectively care for the truth. We retcon our narratives, deny our own apathy, exaggerate news stories for dramatic effect, and simply genuinely forget details as time goes by. I mean, it's clear that facts don't matter - look no further than the current White House for proof of that much - but maybe they never really have!