Witness for the Prosecution (1958)

Billy Wilder’s ‘Witness for the Prosecution’

Thematic Elements: Witness for the Prosecution is a court room drama that is full of twists and turns. Perhaps it is a story about how the justice system can be abused and manipulated. If two individuals can use everyone in the jury’s expectations against them, the system is fallible. There also seems to be a line between how the couple was able to trick the courts and how they were able to trick us. The couple is able to use how the audience and the jury perceives them and plays off of those expectations. Maybe the fallibility isn’t in the system, but it is perhaps in humanity. As the viewer sits there with the same level of information as the jury/Laughton has, they can only use that information that is given to them to come to likely conclusions based off of that limited information. Wilder is showing the audience how fallible those perceptions are and how easy they are to be manipulated, even if you think you’ve got a bigger understanding of what is happening.

Camerawork: Wilder doesn’t use a lot of impressionism in this work but instead takes a traditional approach, only showing us what Laughton is shown but does not use camerawork to convey what the audience should be feeling. He does the opposite of what the couple in the film are doing, he’s not tricking us but letting them trick us instead. He uses very technically simple shots that are either providing you with objective information about what is happening or objective information about what a character appears to be feeling. The camera does not try to manipulate or trick us like the characters are doing. This seems to be done to allow the audience to see as objectively as possible with no skewed perception about how they were manipulated. The techniques to achieve this were Wilder’s great pacing, his close ups that conveyed character’s emotions, over the should shots that showed us what the characters are seeing, or compositions that were either in deep focus or highlight the foreground or background to show us pieces of information that were relevant. Wilder is only showing you the necessary information to give the audience the freedom to think and perceive what they want, which is exactly what the couple in the film is counting on to deceive you.

Best Shot: Because Wilder uses a very simplistic approach, there are not a lot of shots that are as telling as a painting would be. However, the shot I’m going with is the shot of Laughton keeping his heart medication all lined up as the day goes on. We know that Laughton has a heart condition and needs to keep his energy levels down to not spring on another heart attack. This shot illustrates Laughton’s need to find the truth in this case and how far he is willing to go to bring that truth out.