Law and Film: Introduction

Abstract

What we have brought together in this collection is a selection of contemporary scholarship in Law and Film in a range of jurisdictions. Law and Film has been a focus of the Law and Society Association at its Annual Meetings through the 1990s and has attracted scholars from different backgrounds. We include four pieces from Germany, three from Britain, and four from the United States of America. Inevitably the concentration within most of the essays is, however, on the dominant cultural products of Hollywood. The paucity of material other than American in the area of law films is itself an issue which is addressed in a number of the essays presented here. We have provided a selected chronological bibliography of writing on law and film at the end of this introduction. This bibliography indicates how recent has been scholarly work on law and film and the recent genesis of this scholarship has helped shape the varied nature and style of the works presented here. Not surprisingly there is no consensus about what to look at in law and film nor in what form these studies are best conducted. There is then a variety of approaches to the issue of how film looks at law. Some of the writers in this volume have based their analysis on a wide range of films, whilst others have provided a close reading of the work of either a particular era, film-maker or writer. The interests and paradigms the writers adopt include social theory, literary theory, and film studies. Further, a number of films recur within the essays and are the subject of analysis from these distinctive perspectives. We welcome this diversity which is inevitable in a field of scholarship that seeks to cross traditional boundaries. There are a number of strands of inquiry which have emerged in this collection. Three principal areas can be identified. The collection looks at the nature of the films produced portraying law and lawyers. The essays look at the significance and impact of these law films on the public perception of law and the legal process and the influence on the practice of law itself.

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