PRIMAL FEAR

1996

Gregory Hoblit

Like 12 Angry Men, this is a court room drama in large measure, although much of it takes place outside the courthouse. Primal Fear is a court case which focuses on the lawyers and district attorney’s office as they square off in a major case. Not only is it a homicide, a capital one at that, but it involves a number of important people in Chicago. It stars Richard Gere and Laura Lindley and marks the acting career of Edward Norton.

Here we to focus on the lawyers in the criminal justice system.

The Roles and Statuses (Mostly professionals)

The Forces of Order (professionalism? Good guys or bad guys?

The film does deal with a great deal of the interaction between the judge/lawyers/defendant in the court room which reflects different personality types (compare the judge in this film with the one in 12 Angry Men).

The film also deals with the relationships between public officials and other groups in the society and these ultimately impact on the criminal courts and the system in general.

The film deals with the problems of presenting evidence and what effect that might have on a jury (i.e. the presenter becomes “tainted” for introducing material about Rushman

Primal Fear is written by photographer turned writer William Diehl, whose first novel, Sharkey's Machine (1978) was made into a film with Burt Reynolds. Primal Fear (1992) is his 7th

Court Room Film or trial films focus on the proving the person(s) guilt.

Prison films deal with the events following conviction.

This would have been another way to have organized the course – steps in the CJ system

Richard Gere Laura Linney (Exorcism of Emily Rose) Ed Norton (First film – later Fight Club. American History X Francis McDormand (Fargo) While Primal Fear is certainly a trial film, the film goes beyond that. . We need to ask what the set pieces are for each of these kinds of film?

Do films about the commission of the crime stress the tensions and suspense of the commission of the crime? Do such films stress the deductive abilities of the detectives or the chases and action in catching the criminals?

Do courtroom dramas stress more verbal kinds of things in terms of examinations and cross examinations?

We have talked about the problems of dealing with wordy scripts and how they can be handled photographically. (Emily Rose).

Try to identify the roles, how are they portrayed and so on.

TRIAL FILMS

The smugness of the legal profession is something which has affected American people's distrust of them. Leitch points out in his book that people were surprised at the number of lawyers involved in the Watergate scandal (I assume he means as opposed to the number of politicians although the vast number of the legislature are in fact lawyers)

The criminal justice procedure invests almost total power in judges and holds them apart from being sued in return for errors.

Lawyers are involved in defense and prosecution in criminal cases, where the idea seems to be to win and not necessarily to find out what happened. While the lawyers are there ostensibly to protect one's legal rights, it has been argued popularly that in effect the rights may be being protected to protect the guilty .

So the legal profession becomes seen as one in which the participants are more interested in fees than in truth.

TRIAL PROCEDURE

Arraignment is usually a criminal defendant's first appearance in court or before a judge on a criminal charge. At arraignment, the charges against the defendant will be read or the defendant will be asked if he/she is aware of the charges against them, and will be asked how they wish to plead. It is not a hearing to determine guilt or innocence.

If the accused remains in jail after their arrest, they must be brought before a judge for arraignment within 24-48 hours after arrest. The exact time limit varies though the U.S. Supreme Court now requires that if a person was arrested without a previously-issued warrant, they must be brought before a judge within 48 hours, so that a judge may determine whether there was probable cause for the arrest.

An indictment is a formal accusation of a felony, issued by a grand jury based upon a proposed charge, witnesses' testimony and other evidence presented by the public prosecutor (District Attorney). It is the grand jury's determination that there is enough evidence that the defendant committed the crime to justify having a trial voted by a grand jury. In order to issue an indictment, the grand jury doesn't make a determination of guilt, but only the probability that a crime was committed, that the accused person did it and that he/she should be tried. District Attorneys do not present a full case to the grand jury, but often only introduce key facts sufficient to show the probability that the accused committed a crime.

TRIAL

Jury selection – (Always important in real life, often important in films see Inherit the Wind, My Cousin Vinnie

Voir dire is a Latin term meaning "to see or speak". Voir dire is a legal procedure conducted before trial in which the attorneys and the judge question of prospective jurors to determine if any juror is biased and/or cannot deal with the issues fairly, or if there is cause not to allow a juror to serve. Some of the reasons a juror might not decide a case fairly include knowledge of the facts, acquaintanceship with parties, witnesses or attorneys, occupation which might lead to bias; prejudice against the death penalty, or previous experiences such as having been sued in a similar case.

The voir dire process allows an attorney to challenge a prospective juror "for cause" if that person says or otherwise expresses a bias against the attorney's case. Each attorney can also exercise a limited number of "peremptory" challenges for which no reason is required. Those individuals who are accepted by both attorneys are impaneled and sworn in as the jury. Voir dire may be directed at the jury pool as a group, asking for a show of hands, or by questioning prospective jurors individually. Voir dire may also be conducted by he judge in some cases.

Multiple story lines that intersect. How do they play off against one another?

What are they, how do they interact, Does parallel story line mean something?

AFTER THE FILM

Opening Scenes: Introduction of characters - everyone is at the party

Closing Scenes: The idea of Vale shying away from public

High points: Waiting for Roy to come out

In courtroom dramas, usually the summing up and interrogation?

End shot: Martin Vale avoids crowd

Parallel stories:

Joey Pinero (Steven Bauer) What did he do? Police roughed him up. Corruption in government (or bureaucracy) goes "excused"

Priest involved in sexual abuse: government cover up by Shaughnessy?

Some Themativ Material (and problems - some of which can be resolved)

SOME ASPECTS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHY:

Is Aaron really so bad? Or is he just sick? Is the motive produced enough to justify the killing? (Would it be regarded differently if Linda Forbes had domne the killing?) How does he stack up against Vale?

Political corruption