An introduction between Law and Film

To be honest, the idea to create a blog did not come from me. One week ago, my amazing flatmate simply asked me: Why don't you start a blog about films? Perhaps because I'm very often (not to say always) talking about films, so she can have a rest while I'm blogging! Anyway, after a few days of reflexion, here I am, jumping into the blogosphère.



Why "Between Law and Film"? 



By creating this blog, I didn't want to only focus on the broad topics that are law and film. I will share articles, thoughts and try and develop ideas on specific legal issues that I think are important, or about specific films that I think are worth to mention. Perhaps I should mention here, to be sure you will click on the link "Follow this blog", that I swear I'll write about the next Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight Rises and not too much about law! 



So a blog not only about law or film... but about what exactly? I'll actually try and discuss the relationship and the connections that may exist between law and film. This idea came from my field of studies at the University of Edinburgh, where I'm doing a Master's degree in Law with a specialisation in International Criminal Law; Media and Crime; and Intellectual Property/Copyright. As I thought I was not tired enough, I'm also taking evening lessons in Film Studies (organised by the University). If you mix all these ingredients, you will find my dissertation project, which is precisely to deal with the relationship between Law and Film, a topic that has emerged as an academic field since the late 1980s, mostly within Anglo-American academics. I won't go further on the subject in this first article, but you can find some books and academic references on the page tagged "Bibliography".



What kind of films?




Don't worry, my aim isn't to talk about movies dealing centrally with legal (boring) issues.



The movies I'd like to discuss here can be either directly or indirectly linked with law. The most obvious movies directly linked with law are crime films. Here are some examples, which may be classified regarding their main theme: gangster (The Godfather, The departed, Pulp Fiction), legal drama (12 Angry Men, Erin Brockovich), police drama (Seven, Dirty Harry), superhero (Batman Begins, Spider-Man), murder (Zodiac, The Silence of the Lambs)... 



But I'd also like to share movies where the link with law may be less obvious. I'll only give you two examples here. First, Beyond The Gates, which takes place during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and which is classified by the Internet Movie Database as "Drama" and "History". However, this film deals as well with law, more precisely International Humanitarian Law and the "far-from-perfect" United Nations' Peace and Security system, topics that I've studied during my Master's degrees in Law in France. The other example I've chosen is Gandhi. Although classified as "Biography", "Drama", and "History", for me this movie is clearly linked with law, as Gandhi was first a lawyer, who spend 21 years in South Africa to defend the Indian minority, before becoming the leader of the Indian independence movement.

Thinking Law through Film

So Between Law and Film is a place where I'd like to share information, thoughts on films dealing with crime or justice, as well as civil rights movements, human rights... while trying to develop ideas linked with the law and film academic movement, without looking for a theoretical truth. So I hope you'll enjoy this extension into the blogosphère and that you'll like to participate by commenting and sharing your own ideas.

Raphaëlle

"Et surtout mon corps aussi bien que mon âme, gardez-vous de vous croiser les bras en l'attitude stérile du spectateur, car la vie n'est pas un spectacle, car une mer de douleurs n'est pas un proscenium, car un homme qui crie n'est pas un ours qui danse." 

Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939).