Witness

The opening scene is of a young Amish boy who travels to Philadelphia Station on the train for the first time. The young boy finds himself trapped in a toilet cubicle whilst a murder of a police officer takes place, he is the only witness.

The opening shot of the murder scene is an extremely high angled, point of view (from the statue!) shot looking down at the boy in the station. This instantly gives an eerie feel

like a great force is watching over the young boy. Even though the boy is obviously

looking at the statue, it foreshadows the events of the rest of the scene. It's almost like a CCTV shot which Witnesses the events in the train station, which is ironic as the boy is the one who witnesses a murder.

This is a shot of the boy in the toilets of the station. This plays on the audience's fear of confined space and becoming trapped especially with a murder going on outside the toilets as the audience are unsure if he is in danger or not. Tension.

The murder is carried out by a black man which stereotypically represents black/american men as criminals. This is a zeitgeist and represents the mood of the moment in america as there was a lot of gang related knife crime, a majority carried out by black young men.