![\"Inherit](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/melodramaresearchgroup\/files\/2014\/12\/Inherit-the-Wind.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAbstract:<\/p>\n
The trial sequence is a longstanding feature of Hollywood cinema\u2019s narratives, from the silent era through to today. Despite a rich and varied history, the cinematic trial is most often associated with what Francis M. Nevins (1984) terms the \u201cGolden Age\u201d trial film, a small number of Hollywood productions made in the 1950s and 1960s that believe in and reinforce notions of a working, just system of law (for example: 12 Angry Men<\/em>, To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>). I contrast this representational mode, focused on active, male protagonists \u2013 often in the role of the legal professional \u2013 with the depiction of the courtroom trial in a number of female-centred melodramas of the period that place a female protagonist on the stand. Paying special attention to films such as Written on the Wind<\/em> (1956), Peyton Place<\/em> (1957), and Madame X<\/em> (1966), I locate a mode of representing the trial that is distinctly melodramatic in its emphases and conventions. The focus on the courtroom as a site of repression and revelation, and the designation of speech and silence during the trial, work alongside the employment of other conventions of melodrama including its hierarchical point-of-view and stylistic and narrative \u2018excesses\u2019. This produces a separate mode of representation that alternately works with and pushes against the conventions of trial depiction, giving voice to something other than a dominant, law-affirming point of view.<\/p>\n More information about Patrick:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www2.warwick.ac.uk\/fac\/arts\/film\/current\/postgrads\/graduate_research\/patrickpilkington\/<\/a><\/p>\n All are welcome to attend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are very pleased to welcome Patrick Pilkington of the University of Warwick’s Film and Television Department to the University of Kent. Patrick\u00a0will present a talk entitled ‘Laws of Desire: The Courtroom Trial Sequence in Classical Hollywood Melodrama’ which will … Continue reading