Law in Film: Globalizing the Hollywood Courtroom Drama
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| Author | Stefan Machura,Stefan Ulbrich |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00182 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 28, NUMBER 1, MARCH 2001
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 117–32
Law in Film: Globalizing the Hollywood Courtroom Drama
Stefan Machura* and Stefan Ulbrich*
(English-language version by Francis M. Nevins and Nils Behling)
The courtroom drama is a prominent film genre. Most of the movies in
this category are Hollywood productions, dealing with the legal system
in the United States of America. What they have in common is that
essential parts of their stories take place in court. These movies have a
tremendous influence on the public’s concept of justice even though very
few of them accurately reflect legal reality. Anyone with legal training
who watches films of this sort will notice in them all sorts of absurdities
1
which are not thoroughly investigated in this paper. Our concern here is
to inquire why even movies that take place in continental Europe follow
patterns of the American system and also why certain elements from
American movies are repeated over and over again.
I. THE REMARKABLE INFLUENCE OF HOLLYWOOD COURTROOM
FILMS
Experience transmitted by media is sometimes a functional equivalent for
experience gained in the real world. American movies have influenced the
image of legal procedure a great deal – and not just in the United States of
America. An English legal expert told us about seeing a young barrister try to
proceed before an English court in a manner that is possible only in the United
States. A Spanish anthropologist who had filmed legal procedures in
California carried her camera into a Spanish courtroom and was shocked to
discover that everything was done differently from how it was done in the
United States. German defendants and lay assessors have indicated in
interviews that they were surprised to learn that procedure in German courts
was so different from what watching television had led them to expect. It has
117
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
1 F.M. Nevins, Review of P. Bergman and M. Asimow, Reel Justice: The Courtroom
Goes to The Movies (1996) 20 Legal Studies Forum 145; M. Kuzina, Der
amerikanische Gerichtsfilm (2000).
also been said by German lawyers that some of the changes in German
procedure over the last few years have been in the direction of letting the
attorneys put on a little more of a show, a performance to impress their clients.
The effect of movies on the appearance of children as witnesses in German
courts is particularly noticeable. Children, juveniles, and adults were asked by
Petra Wolf what they knew about courts.
2
The source of information they
most often mentioned was movies, especially American crime movies and
courtroom dramas. A group of psychologists from Kiel who published a book
for the preparation of children as witnesses found out that, even after seeing
pictures of a German courtroom, children still believed that the judge would
have a gavel or at least wear a wig.
3
In the new edition, the authors explain to
children that there will be no gavel or wig, both of which are crossed out in
red.
4
This picture is repeated at the end of the book, where the children are
asked to guess in which country judges have neither gavels nor wigs.
It is beyond dispute that the cinematic portrayal of the American legal
system and its personnel is far removed from legal reality. Very few defence
attorneys in the real world resemble Atticus Finch as Gregory Peck portrayed
him in Robert Mulligan’s To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), and very few
prosecutors are so blind and biased as their movie counterparts.
5
Movies
dealing with criminal law and procedure are far more common than films
that explore the civil side even though there is far more civil than criminal
litigation in the real world.
6
From movies that portray a jury deliberating on
a particular case, one gets the impression that most cases in the real world
are decided by juries, although in fact they hear only a small percentage of
all cases
7
and the rest are either tried before a court sitting without a jury or,
thanks to plea bargaining in criminal cases or a settlement in civil matters,
never heard by either judge or jury. In the real world, trial by jury is a last
resort. In the world of film it is the preferred choice.
Academics in both Britain and the United States have written on law-
related films, to the point that one observer has called this subject the ‘law
118
2 P. Wolf, Was wissen Kinder und Jugendliche u
¨ber Gerichtsverhandlungen? (1997).
3 P. Hille, ‘Verbesserung der Situation kindlicher Zeugen vor Gericht – Entwicklung
und Evaluation von Informationsmaterial fu
¨r Kinder’ (disseration submitted for
diploma, Institut fu
¨r Psychologie, Christian-Albrechts-Universita¨t, Kiel) (1997) app.
F, fig. 4.
4 P. Hille et al., Klara und der kleine Zwerg (1996).
5 S. Greenfield and G. Osborn, ‘Where Cultures Collide: The Characterisation of Law
and Lawyers in Film’ (1995) 23 International J. of the Sociology of Law 107, at 118;
M. Pfau et. al., ‘Television Viewing and Public Perceptions of Attorneys’ (1995) 21
Human Communications Research 307.
6 P. Robson, ‘Law and Lawyers in Film – Globalising Atticus Finch’ (paper presented
to the Joint Meeting of the Law and Society Association and the Research Committee
on Sociology of Law, Glasgow, 10–13 July 1996) 2–3.
7 V.P. Hans and N. Vidmar, Judging the Jury (1986) 19; P. Duff and M. Findlay ‘Jury
Reform: of Myths and Moral Panics’ (1997) 25 International J. of the Sociology of
Law 363, at 363.
ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001
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