{"id":9604,"date":"2010-04-11T23:58:15","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T04:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=9604"},"modified":"2010-04-11T23:59:24","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T04:59:24","slug":"capital-punishment-and-the-contemporary-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/04\/capital-punishment-and-the-contemporary-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"Capital Punishment and the Contemporary Cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>American cinema of the last century includes a large number of films with major characters on death row.\u00a0 James Hogan\u2019s silent film \u201cCapital Punishment,\u201d for example, screened in 1925.\u00a0 During the 1950s, the death penalty was at the forefront in such respected films as Fritz Lang\u2019s \u201cBeyond a Reasonable Doubt\u201d (1956), Robert Wise\u2019s \u201cI Want to Live\u201d (1958), and Howard Koch\u2019s \u201cThe Last Mile\u201d (1959).\u00a0 The late 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century saw an even greater number of films inviting contemplation of the death penalty.<\/p>\n

The latter flurry of films perhaps relates to the period\u2019s especially pronounced campaign to end capital punishment.\u00a0 In keeping with the often-heard assertion that Hollywood leans to the left politically, most of these films seem opposed to the death penalty.\u00a0 Some express their opposition in the fashion of a \u201cmessage film,\u201d while others proffer more subtle dramatic narratives.<\/p>\n

Despite their abundance and general tendencies, however, these films from the turn of the twenty-first century are, if subjected to more careful scrutiny, surprisingly ineffective cinematic expressions of opposition to the death penalty.\u00a0 \u201cDead Man Walking\u201d (1995), the most acclaimed of the films, includes superb performances by Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon but is disappointingly ambivalent about capital punishment.\u00a0 Other films such as \u201cThe Chamber\u201d (1996), \u201cLast Dance\u201d (1996), \u201cA Letter from Death Row\u201d (1998), \u201cTrue Crime\u201d (1999), and \u201cThe Life of David Gale\u201d (2003) invite viewers\u2019 sympathy for those sentenced to death by suggesting they were wrongfully convicted and sentenced in the first place.<\/p>\n

As a result, the films stop short of truly indicting the hateful practice of capital punishment and of insisting all those facing death at the hands of a vengeful state should be spared.\u00a0 The films do not grow out of a deep and profound love of humankind, surely the most powerful basis for opposition to the death penalty.\u00a0 Despite their apparently progressive alignment, the films have been of little help in the campaign to end capital punishment once and for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American cinema of the last century includes a large number of films with major characters on death row.\u00a0 James Hogan\u2019s silent film \u201cCapital Punishment,\u201d for example, screened in 1925.\u00a0 During the 1950s, the death penalty was at the forefront in such respected films as Fritz Lang\u2019s \u201cBeyond a Reasonable Doubt\u201d (1956), Robert Wise\u2019s \u201cI Want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-popular-culture-and-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}