Murder in the Shadows
Pounding rain on the cobblestone alley
Deafens the sound of the woman’s engine
The motor sounds like a gunshot exploding
The engine howls like a wolf
She lays on the asphalt
Her body is cold as night
Her teeth chattering like a fan out of gear
The killer jumps out of the darkness
Fingers scraped and bloodied
The body stiff as a fish in an icebox
Keys, money, purse all still by her side
The murderer disappeared like a ghost
The shadows darken as did the scarred marriage
Witwer is shown in between the heads of the three Pre-Cogs through the fog of the glass, they stare as if they can read his mind. The tranquility is also depicted by the Pre-Cogs floating in water; the water representing calmness and relaxation. Witwer also is taking up the majority of the screen to show how important he is in this serious matter. Generally speaking, blue lighting usually represents peace and serenity. In this shot, the director, Steven Spielberg, is foreshadowing the death of Danny Witwer.
These creatures look like animals in a cage who are being experimented on, rather than people. Spielberg wants the viewer to know that these three characters are not viewed as human, they are seen as objects, whose knowledge is taken by other humans, or in this case, the United States government. Witwer's discovery is very important because not only is the reveal the first time the audience sees the truth, but it also reveals that Witwer was always someone trying to do the right thing, despite him hunting Anderton for a lot of the film.
I believe the overall lighting in this scene is meant to show the Pre-Cogs in a ‘non-aggressive’ state. Spielberg uses this to show that the Pre-Cogs don’t move, almost as if they are more robot than human. This is foreshadowing because later in the film, Witwer is murder when he discovers the truth about Burgess, but the Pre-Cogs don’t predict it because they are offline.
Another detail that Pre-Cogs are less than human are the wires coming from their heads, and these could have something to do with their ability to generate predictions. The lighting on Witwer, combined with the fogginess of the glass also gives him this very concerned, anxious facial expression which is something I found super interesting in this scene; even though the blue lighting is supposed to represent peace he has the nervous look in his eye.
