The scene of the mass crime : history, film, and international tribunals / edited by Christian Delage and Peter Goodrich.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Delage, Christian.

Goodrich, Peter, 1954-

Series:

Discourses of law.

Discourses of law

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War crime trials.

Trials (Political crimes and offenses).

Trials in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

xiii, 227 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, N.Y. : Routledge, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Scene of the Mass Crime takes up the unwritten history of the peculiar yet highly visible form of war crimes trials. These trials are the first and continuing site of the interface of law, history and film. From Nuremberg to the contemporary trials in Cambodia, film, in particular, has been crucial both as evidence of atrocity and as the means of publicizing the proceedings. But what does film bring to justice? Can law successfully address war crimes, atrocities, genocide? What do the trials actually show? What form of justice is done, and how does it relate to ordinary courts and proceedings? What lessons can be drawn from this history for the very topical political issue of filming civil and criminal trials? This book takes up the diversity and complexity of these idiosyncratic and, in strict terms, generally extra-legal medial situations. Drawing on a fascinating diversity of public trials and filmic responses, from the Trial of the Gang of Four to the Gacaca local courts of Rwanda to the filmic symbolism of 9-11, from Soviet era show trials to Nazi People's Courts leading international scholars address the theatrical, political, filmic and symbolic importance of show trials in making history, legitimating regimes and, most surprising of all, in attempting to heal trauma through law and through film. These essays will be of considerable interest to those working on international criminal law, transitional justice, genocide studies, and the relationship between law and film.

Contents:

Introduction / Christian Delage and Peter Goodrich

Getting the past right, or the future? / Pieter Lagrou

Building the official narrative / William A. Schabas

Competitive narratives: an incident at the Papon trial / Henry Rousso

Gacaca courts in Rwanda: a local justice for a local genocide history / Hélène Dumas

The Raion trials in the USSR (1937-1938) / Nicolas Werth

The trial of the "gang of the four" / Anne Kerlan:

The Nazi People's Court (1944) or the failure of "total justice" / Johann Chapoutot

The Majdanek trial : the holocaust on trial on film, Kazimierz Czynski's Swastyka i Szubienica (1945) / Stuart Liebman

The psychological evaluation of Duch : a criminal against humanity in Cambodia / Françoise Sironi

Pleading guilty : the case of Duch in the Khmer Rouge trial : defending Duch / François Roux

The place and participation of the victims in Duch's trial / Brice Poirier

Hollywood : previsualization and post 9-11 style / Vincent Dozol

The "other" 9-11 : the Chilean coup and its visual memory / Constance Ortuzar

Visualizing 9-11 / Christian Delage

Portfolio / Peter Goodrich and Linda Mills, Edward Hillel, Richard Sherwin.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on metadata supplied by the publisher and other sources.

ISBN:

1-136-33066-6

0-415-68894-9

0-203-12198-8

1-283-86229-8

1-136-33067-4

9780203121986

OCLC:

823387075