To the questions raised and largely answered by “The Witness,” another can be added: What constitutes a big film? James Solomon’s stunning documentary was produced on a tiny fraction of a Hollywood spectacular’s budget, and its audience will be small, at least at first. Yet it topples what we’ve come to accept as a pillar of contemporary wisdom, and brings news about human nature in the process. By any sensible measure that’s big indeed.  The pillar had been standing, despite some erosion, since the 1964 murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese on a nighttime street in Kew Gardens, a pleasant residential enclave in the New York City borough of Queens. Two weeks after her death, the New York Times reported in a front-page story that “38 respectable, law-abiding citizens” watched Genovese’s killer stalk and stab her in three separate attacks over the course of more than half an hour, and did nothing.  That account has become an enduring emblem—not just of urban apathy in a bygone era, but of man’s indifference to man. The film makes the point briskly with recent headlines comparing Trayvon Martin and even Syria to Kitty Genovese. We see clips from TV series that have evoked the case over the decades: “ Perry Mason,” “All in the Family,” “Law & Order.” A 1994 clip shows President Bill Clinton retelling her story as settled truth: “It sent a chilling message suggesting that we were each of us not simply endangered but fundamentally alone.” In our time, when the world seems to be coming apart—as it did then; she was murdered four months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—the facts surrounding her death still resonate with our darkest fears about modern life. But they weren’t facts, as “The Witness” reveals with the painstaking care and inexorable drama of a police procedural. Much of what we thought we knew about this signal event is dead wrong.  The detective who investigated the case obsessively isn’t a cop, but Kitty’s youngest brother, William; he was 16 years old when she died. He’s not the only one who had doubts about the veracity of the original story. In 2004 the Times questioned some of its own conclusions in a piece based on the extensive research of a Kew Gardens resident and amateur historian named Joseph De May Jr. Mr. De May appears in the film, but it’s Bill Genovese who’s seen tracking down witnesses (their accounts are enthralling); interviewing A.M. Rosenthal, the Times editor who broke the story (“This story has never died,” Rosenthal says, defending it zealously); speaking with other reporters who had worked the story at the time ( Mike Wallace and Gabe Pressman admit to having accepted the Times version uncritically because of the paper’s influence and perceived authority); and practicing his own form of shoe-leather journalism for 11 years, with Mr. Solomon’s camera present at crucial moments.  Shoe leather didn’t figure literally here, since Mr. Genovese lost both legs in Vietnam. (He enlisted, he says, because he didn’t want to be like the apathetic bystanders who’d done nothing—or so he believed at the time—to help his sister in her mortal pain.) The physical energy with which he pursues his citywide explorations is only one measure of his determination to uncover the truth—and to rediscover Kitty as the vibrant young woman she had been, rather than the grim symbol she came to be for her family and the world.  As the film’s guide, resident interviewer and pre-eminent witness, Mr. Genovese is as eloquent as he is companionable—so much so that it’s hard to understand why “The Witness” tells us nothing about his working life. (The press notes say only that he was retired when he began his investigations.) Other concerns about Mr. Solomon’s film are worth noting. On-screen dates would have been helpful for significant interviews, but none are provided. The admirably smooth narrative flow is too smooth in one respect; no one acknowledges the presence of the camera, even though one interview subject looks as if he’d been sandbagged by it. Certain scenes, including one crucial phone call, appear to be re-creations, but they aren’t identified as such. A climactic sequence, on the other hand, is clearly a re-creation, with an actress screaming screams that are shattering, more than half a century after the fact.  “The Witness” is remarkable for its emotional impact, and its clarity. The picture that emerges isn’t perfectly clear; the whole truth will never be known, Bill Genovese says. What he has made known, though, is valuable. Shoddy journalism and sloppy police work made a dreadful event seem worse than it was. Kitty did not die alone; she died in the arms of a friend who rushed to her aid. A film has breathed new life into the spirit of its long-dead subject.  Documentaries about New York are in abundant supply. This one is a harrowing piece of investigative work by Sarah Burns; her father, Ken Burns; and David McMahon. Their film examines the notorious case of five teenage boys from Harlem who were sent to prison for the 1989 assault and rape of a white middle-class woman in Central Park, a crime to which a known serial rapist confessed many years later.  Set mostly in Lower Manhattan, Zachary Heinzerling’s fine debut documentary was hardly noticed by a national audience. On the surface it’s about nothing more—or less—than a troubled marriage that has somehow managed to last 40 years. Beneath the surface, though, and then startlingly out in the open, is a history of rivalry (both husband and wife are artists), enmity, reluctant devotion and, most startling of all, enduring love.
More than 50 years after the murder of Kitty Genovese shocked the nation, the victim’s brother revisits the supposed facts of the crime; directed by James Solomon