Framed

Women in Law and Film

Autor: Kamir, Orit
Editor: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822336365
eISBN Pdf: 9780822387763
Lloc de publicació: Durham , United States
Any de publicació digital: 2006
Mes: Gener
Pàgines: 352
DDC: 792.082
Idioma: Anglés

Descripció

Some women attack and harm men who abuse them. Social norms, law, and films all participate in framing these occurrences, guiding us in understanding and judging them. How do social, legal, and cinematic conventions and mechanisms combine to lead us to condemn these women or exonerate them? What is it, exactly, that they teach us to find such women guilty or innocent of, and how do they do so?

Through innovative readings of a dozen movies made between 1928 and 2001 in Europe, Japan, and the United States, Orit Kamir shows that in representing “gender crimes,” feature films have constructed a cinematic jurisprudence, training audiences worldwide in patterns of judgment of women (and men) in such situations. Offering a novel formulation of the emerging field of law and film, Kamir combines basic legal concepts—murder, rape, provocation, insanity, and self-defense—with narratology, social science methodologies, and film studies.

Framed not only offers a unique study of law and film but also points toward new directions in feminist thought. Shedding light on central feminist themes such as victimization and agency, multiculturalism, and postmodernism, Kamir outlines a feminist cinematic legal critique, a perspective from which to evaluate the “cinematic legalism” that indoctrinates and disciplines audiences around the world. Bringing an original perspective to feminist analysis, she demonstrates that the distinction between honor and dignity has crucial implications for how societies construct women, their social status, and their legal rights. In Framed, she outlines a dignity-oriented, honor-sensitive feminist approach to law and film.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Conceptual Framework
Part I: Feminist Critique of Law Films that Honor-judge Women
- 1. Rashomon (Japan, 1950): Construction of Woman as Guilty Object
- 2. Pandora’s Box (Germany, 1928): Exorcising Pandora-Lilith in the Weimar Republic
- 3. Blackmail (England, 1929): Hitchcock’s Sound and the New Woman’s Guilty Silence
- 4. Anatomy of a Murder (U.S.A., 1959): Hollywood’s Hero-Lawyer Revives the Unwritten Law
Part II Cinematic Women Demanding Judgment
- 5. Adam’s Rib (U.S.A., 1949): Hollywood’s Female Lawyer and Family Values (Read with Disclosure and Legally Blonde)
- 6. Nuts (U.S.A., 1987): The Mad Woman’s Day in Court
- 7. Death and the Maiden (U.S.A., 1994): Challenging Trauma with Feminine Judgment and Justice (Read with The Piano)
Part III Women Resisting and Subverting Judgment
- 8. A Question of Silence (Netherlands, 1982): Feminist Community as Revolution (Read against ‘‘A Jury of Her Peers’’)
- 9. Set it Off (U.S.A., 1996): Minority Women at the Point of No Return
- 10. High Heels (Spain, 1991): Almodovar’s Postmodern Transgression
Notes
Bibliography
Index