Trial Films on Trial

Austin Sarat, Jessica Silbey & Martha Merrill Umphrey, Trial Films on Trial: Law, Justice, and Popular Culture (University of Alabama Press, 2019).

Despite the fact that the medium of film is one of the most pervasive means by which many citizens come to know the justice system, trial films are rarely analyzed and critiqued. The chapters cover a variety of topics, such as how and why film audiences adopt the role of the jury, the narrative and visual contentions employed by directors, and the ways mid- to late twentieth-century trial films offer insights into the events of that period.

-Publisher's Description