Projecting the judge: A case study in the cultural lives of the judiciary

• Date: 2008--
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2009)0000046004
• Pages: 93-115
• Published date: 2008--
• Author: Leslie J. Moran

PROJECTING THE JUDGE:

A CASE STUDY IN THE CULTURAL

LIVES OF THE JUDICIARY

Leslie J. Moran

ABSTRACT

Various law and film scholars have noted that the judge occupies the place

of a marginal figure in ‘legal cinema’ and in related scholarship. In this

chapter I want to engage with the debate about the representation of the

judge in film by way of an examination of a South African documentary,

‘Two Moms: A family portrait’ (2004). In the first instance this ‘family

portrait’ appears to be neither an obvious candidate for inclusion in the

canon of ‘legal cinema’ nor a film with a plotline dominated by a judge.

But from this rather unpromising start this chapter explores how a film

about an ordinary family made up of extraordinary people is an

extraordinary film about law in general and about the figure of the judge

in particular.

INTRODUCTION

Reflecting on the ‘ubiquity’ of a genre ‘legal cinema’ in American English

language films Ross Levi (2005) comments that it is a genre dominated by

plots that revolve around lawyers. His search of the online International

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 46, 93–115

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Movie Database revealed 366 titles with plotlines focusing on lawyers (p. xi).

Commentators on law and film scholarship have noted a similar pre-

occupation in that field of study.

1

Using another legal figure, the judge,

Levi’s search of the same database produced 251 ‘hits’. Not quite the equal

of ‘lawyers’ but it suggests that the judge is an apparently significant figure

in ‘legal cinema’. The relative importance of the judge in cinematic plotlines

however, is not reflected in law and film scholarship. Various scholars

have noted that the judge occupies the place of a marginal figure rarely at

the heart of scholarly interest suggesting that this echoes the fact that the

judge is a marginal character within the genre of ‘legal cinema’ (Kamir,

1999;Levi, 2005;Machura & Ulbrich, 2001;Sundermann, 2002). In this

chapter I want to engage with the debate about the representation of

the judge in film by way of an examination of a South African docume-

ntary, ‘Two Moms: A family portrait’ (2004), made by a young emerging

documentary filmmaker, Andile Genge and an established director Luiz

DeBarros.

2

Since its initial showing in South Africa this documentary has

been screened in Europe and North America in various film festivals.

In the first instance the title of the film does not suggest that this film is

either an obvious candidate for inclusion in the canon of ‘legal cinema’ in

general or a film with a plotline dominated by a judge. Nor does the

press release that accompanied the first screening in August 2004 offer much

hope of an obvious law theme. It begins, ‘Meet an ordinary family ...’

(Underdog Press Release, 2004). It goes on to explain that this ‘ordinary

family’ is made up of ‘extraordinary people’.

3

The majority of the original

1,000 hours of footage, ultimately edited down to a documentary of

45 minutes, shot in and near the family home, an organic vegetable farm

near Plettenburg, Cape Province in South Africa, focuses on ‘... the

family’s usual activity’ and the ‘human stories we found within the

family ...’ But, from this rather unpromising start, I want to suggest that

the theme of law and the image of the judge are never far away from the

heart of this documentary family portrait. After introducing the film in more

detail I want to set this documentary within the existing body of scholarship

on the judge in ‘legal cinema’ as this provides the context for my analysis of

the film. Thereafter I offer an analysis of the image of the judge in the film.

In the first instance this will be undertaken by way of a consideration of the

representations of the judge found in the documentary. Inspired by Carol

Clover’s (1998) pioneering work on movie juries my analysis is not confined

to the diagetic judge, that is, the portraits of ‘the judge’ found in the film. I

also explore the possibility of a different kind of judge in the image, the

extradiagetic judge. This is the judge that by way of the narrative, rhetoric

LESLIE J. MORAN94