Law at the Movies

Catalog description

Movie makers have always been fascinated by the law and have taken advantage of the drama law affords to structure their films. In some movies, references to the law are incidental or perfunctory, but in others the law, and especially court room scenes, are at the core of the filmic project. In this class, we shall examine a number of movies that are centered on the law and pair them with the legal issues and problems they touch on. In each class a movie, often a celebrated one, will be discussed in conjunction with a case that presents the same issues. We shall be playing a double game: assessing the dramatic effectiveness of law-related movies, and discussing whether legal issues are illustrated or simplified or perhaps caricatured by those films. The issues we will encounter will include work place harassment, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, First Amendment Rights, natural vs. positive law, the insanity defense, the psychology of juries, medical malpractice, crimes against humanity, legal corruption, pollution of the environment, interracial marriage, religion in the schools, libel and the press, anti-gay discrimination, and military code of conduct.