Law and Film: Introduction
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00174 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| Author | Stefan Machura,Peter Robson |
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 28, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2001
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 1–8
Law and Film: Introduction
Stefan Machura* and Peter Robson**
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.
1
ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*Law Faculty, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Geba
¨ude GC 8/135, D-44780
Bochum, Germany
** The Law School, University of Strathclyde, 173 Cathedral Street,
Glasgow G4 0RQ, Scotland
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