A Murder Trial of a Black Man

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Schumacher uses crucial amounts of dialogue to support clarify the plot and move the action along. Cinematography approaches are also employed to assist accomplish enhanced understanding and character development. Schumacher (1997) relies on devices like quick editing and pushy camera work to add emotion to numerous scenes inside film. You will discover various images throughout the film which are symbolic of its themes and convey Metz' ideas about film representing the "seventh art." For example, the jury is all-white. Quite a few scenes of Ku Klux Klan members in white robes, burning crosses, and lynchings abound, conveying the symbols of hatred and racism that still, based on the film, run rampant in the South. Whilst everybody knows Hailey is guilty from the murder on the two redneck thugs who rape and try to kill his daughter, these kinds of images symbolically represent that racism and prejudice that may perhaps cause these kinds of actions. This kind of images are used to underscore the factor that would this kind of an event unfold involving a white girl, it is likely a man like Hailey would be acquitted. Jake underscores this point once he suggests that racism and prejudice usually convict blacks of what would bring exoneration for whites, "Until we can see each other as equals, justice is never going being even-handed. It is going to remain absolutely nothing more than a reflection of our individual prejudices" (Schumacher 1997).

Despite the many black folks during the film, the filmmakers focus primarily over a white characters. This sort of images reinforce the ethnocentric thinking and worldview that dominate the South. As Carl Lee says to Jake at one point, "See Jake, you think for example them. That's why I picked you?When you consider me, you don't see a man, you see a black man" (Schumacher 1997). All of the images convey the message that you can find two varieties of justice in America, one for whites and a single for blacks. In a moving speech during his summation, Jake graphically recounts the rape and robbing of Hailey's daughter's innocence by the white thugs. At the end of his summation, he asks the all-white jury, "Can you see her? I want you to picture that small girl. Now imagine she's white" (Schumacher 1997). Despite vigilante justice becoming against the law, the cinematography and images throughout the film assist the revenge taken by Carl Lee Hailey. They do so inside a manner that not merely makes us cheer of the crowd outside the courthouse once Hailey is acquitted, but also in a way that makes us question the pervasive nature of racism and hatred in present-day society and their impact on the justice system.

The film provides images of justice in addition to people who defend it and individuals who undermine it. A national civil rights organization would prefer its hand-picked lawyer on this high profile case.

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