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The proliferation of images of law, legal processes, and officials on television and in film is a phenomenon of enormous significance. Mass-mediated images are as powerful, pervasive, and important as are other early twenty-first-century social forces—e.g. globalization, neo-colonialism, and human rights—in shaping and transforming legal life. Yet scholars have only recently begun to examine how law works in this new arena and to explore the consequences of the representation of law in the moving image. Law on the Screen advances our understanding of the connection between law and film by analyzing them as narrative forms, examining film for its jurisprudential content—that is, its ways of critiquing the present legal world and imagining an alternative one—and expanding studies of the representation of law in film to include questions of reception.
E-Book Content
Law on the Screen
AUSTIN SARAT LAWRENCE DOUGLAS MARTHA MERRILL UMPHREY Editors STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LAW ON THE SCREEN
Amherst Series in Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought edited by Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, and Martha Merrill Umphrey
Law on the Screen Edited by AUSTIN SARAT LAWRENCE DOUGLAS MARTHA MERRILL UMPHREY
STAN FORD U N I VERSI TY PRESS Stanford, California, 2005
Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Law on the screen / Edited by Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, Martha Merrill Umphrey. p. cm. — (Amherst series in law, jurisprudence, and social thought) Essays originally presented at a conference entitled Law’s Moving Image, held April 11–12, 2003, at Amherst College. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8047-5162-5 (alk. paper) 1. Justice, Administration of, in motion pictures—Congresses. I. Sarat, Austin. II. Douglas, Lawrence. III. Umphrey, Martha Merrill. IV. Series. pn1995.9.j8l39 2005 791.43'6554—dc22
2004022528
This book is printed on acid-free, archival-quality paper Original printing 2005 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
Designed and typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/14.5 Minion
To Benjamin (AS) To my boys Theo and Dash (MU)
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Acknowledgments
The essays contained in this book were originally prepared for and presented at a conference entitled Law’s Moving Image at Amherst College on April 11– 12, 2003. We are grateful to our Amherst College colleagues Catherine Sanderson, Helen von Schmidt, Andrew Parker, Marisa Parham, and Nasser Hussain, as well as to Burlin Barr and Jessica Silbey, for their insightful commentary on the papers presented at that conference. We thank our students in Amherst College’s Department of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought for their interest in the issues addressed in this book. We would like to express our appreciation for generous financial support provided by the college’s Charles Hamilton Houston Forum on Law and Social Change and to Amherst’s former dean of the faculty, Lisa Raskin, for her interest and support.
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Contents
c o ntribu to rs On Film and Law: Broadening the Focus a u stin sa r a t, la wr en c e do u gla s, a n d m a r t ha m e r r il l u m phr e y
xi 1
Part I. Studies of Representation Cinematic Judgment and Jurisprudence: A Woman’s Memory, Recovery, a