Law at the movies : turning legal doctrine into art / Stanley Fish.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fish, Stanley Eugene, author.

Series:

Law and literature (Oxford)

Law and Literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Law in motion pictures.

Justice, Administration of, in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

211 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2024.

Summary:

"This book asks "How can legal doctrine be turned into filmic art?" By "legal doctrine" Stanley Fish does not mean the sonorous abstractions that usually accompany the self-presentation of law--Justice, Equity, Equality, Liberty, Autonomy, and the like. Rather he has in mind the specific rules and procedures invoked and analyzed by courts on the way to declaring a decision--lawyer/client confidentiality, the distinction between interdicted violence and the violence performed by the legal system, the interplay of positive law and laws rooted in morality, the difference between civilian law and military law, the death penalty, the admissibility of different forms of evidence. In the movies he discusses, these and other points of doctrine and procedure do not serve as a background, occasionally visited, to the substantive issues that drive the plot and provide the characters with choices; they declare the plot, and character is formed and tested in relationship to their demands. Apparently technical matters are pressed until they occupy both foreground and background and become the movie's true subject. If large, abstract concepts emerge, they emerge at the back end of doctrine and are, in effect, produced by doctrine. These are not law-themed movies; they are movies about the unfolding of legal process." -- publisher's website

Contents:

Introduction : It’s against the law

Liberal heroism and reasonable doubt : 12 Angry Men

The law as blind machine : The Wrong Man

The law emerges from violence : The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon

The law as the object of manipulation : Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and Witness for the Prosecution

Natural law versus positive law : Judgment at Nuremberg

The law's dogma and religious dogma : Inherit the Wind

Visible and spectral evidence : The Crucible

Man-made law as a refuge from both the Devil's assaults and God's commands : A Man for All Seasons

Law as craft : Anatomy of a Murder

Sex, class, and class action : North Country

Speech, radical innocence, and the law : Billy Budd

The law and storytelling : Amistad

Free speech for good or ill : The People vs Larry Flynt and Absence of Malice

Poetry Is against the law : Howl – Conclusion : No more delivered than promised.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Electronic version: FISH, PROF STANLEY. LAW AT THE MOVIES.

ISBN:

019889872X

9780198898726

OCLC:

1404052775