Court film
A judicial film , judicial drama or judicial drama is a feature film that deals with court hearings . Mostly capital crimes are discussed in order to be able to effectively film the drama of an unforeseen course of negotiations and the areas of tension between law and justice or between lies and truth. Due to the peculiarities of the US legal system , which often grants the actors greater sovereignty and thus makes dramatic twists more plausible, the court film is primarily based in the cinema of the United States .
history
The first examples of court films already existed in the silent film era : The Passion of the Maid of Orléans (1928) is considered one of the milestones in film history . Due to the strong dialogue orientation of court film, however, it was only positioned as an independent genre after the introduction of the sound film . During the Nazi era , the court film was used for propaganda purposes in films such as Casilla's sensational trial ( 1939) and Venus in front of a court (1941). The court film experienced a heyday in the late 1950s with films such as The Twelve Jurors ( Sidney Lumet , 1957), Witness for the Prosecution ( Billy Wilder , 1958), Who Sows the Wind ( Stanley Kramer , 1959), Anatomy of a Murder ( Otto Preminger , 1959), The judgment of Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) and Who disturbs the nightingale ( Alan J. Pakula , 1962). Court films were popular as a vehicle for the star system , as the film-bearing actors were able to act expressively in the reduced environment of the courtroom. Since court films were comparatively inexpensive to produce, the number of court films continued to rise until the 1990s.
Motifs and staging
The plot of a court film normally extends over the entire course of a process up to the announcement of the verdict. The tension-carrying elements can be diverse: unknown witnesses appear, juries deliberate for a long time or new evidence is provided at the last minute. The overarching topics of the court film are ethical questions such as the gap between legal perception and the legal situation. Often the accused appears to be powerless at the beginning of the judicial system, an overpowering opponent or a prejudiced public and has to prove himself with his courage in the course of the film.
The image design in the court scenes is characterized by half-close shots in order to give the people in the spatial limits of the courtroom sufficient opportunities to play and express themselves. Design means such as the reaction shot are often used to let the viewer puzzle over the progress of the action based on mimic clues on the faces of the actors. The unity of place, time and action is usually preserved.
literature
- Paul Bergmann, Michael Asimow: Reel Justice. The Courtroom goes to the Movies. Kansas City, 1996.
- Matthias Kuzina: The American court film. Justice, ideology, drama. Göttingen, 2000.
Individual evidence
- ^ Frank Henschke: Judgment film In: Thomas Koebner (Hrsg.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Films. 2nd Edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-010625-9 , p. 285 ff.