October 13, 2016
Hollywood’s hero-lawyer movies are a distinct group of American feature films. Typically, they each depict a lawyer who unwittingly finds himself at the heart of a moral drama involving a client and/or a community in distress, gross injustice, the rule of law and powerful, obstructive forces that must be overcome. Alone with nothing at his side but his professional…
October 13, 2016
Law movies typically feature champions of justice—archaically dignified, like Gregory Peck’s 1962 Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird, Pakula 1962) or bitterly disillusioned, like George Clooney’s 2007 Michael Clayton (Michael Clayton, Clooney 2007), these champions are often what I have labeled “hero-lawyers” (Kamir 2009; 2012). Cinematic hero-lawyers embody natural justice combined with the law of the land. Often reluctantly, they come…
October 13, 2016
This chapter offers a perspective on the status of Israeli women in 2014. Rather than present the standard review of women’s rights in the public and private spheres, the extent of their sexual victimization and their status in politics, the workplace and academia, the chapter explores Israeli women’s contemporary cinema and follows the themes and critiques raised by it.…
August 18, 2016
This article’s modest goal is to introduce uninitiated readers to the emerging, interdisciplinary field of law-and-film, while presenting them with the framework of one formulation of this new area of research. The article’s first part opens with a brief overview of law-and-film scholarship and proceeds to outline my own suggested conceptualization of the law-and-film terrain.…
August 16, 2016
Every Breath You Take traces the evolution of notions of stalking and stalkers from ancient mythology through medieval folklore and nineteenth-century literature to contemporary film and social science. Critically analyzing stories of stalking within a wide range of historical and cultural discourses, the book suggests that such stories serve social functions, enforcing traditional gender roles…