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Mechanical Witness
A History of Motion Picture Evidence in U.S. Courts
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Book Presentation:
• Presents the first study of motion-picture evidence in US courts
• Schwartz's interdisciplinary approach will appeal to scholars of film, media, and the law
• Concise, accessible history that features some of the most noteworthy criminal cases in U.S. history
Mechanical Witness will be the first cultural and legal history charting the changing role and theoretical implications of the use of film and video as courtroom evidence. The author moves from the earliest uses of film in the courts of the 1920s to Osama Bin Laden's taped statements after 9/11, revealing how the courts have developed a reliance on film and video technologies and contributed to the growing influence of visual media in twentieth century America. At the same time, the meaning of film and video as used in juridical contexts has developed a theoretical legacy which both resonates with and contradicts existing scholarship—focusing on economic, social, or aesthetic factors—which hitherto has defined film's status and cultural contribution.
In the context of a trial, the possible meanings of a film or video can be very different from its meaning when shown in a movie theater or broadcast on television, yet the public and cinema scholars tend to assume that the meaning of an image remains constant. Mechanical Witness demonstrates that we must understand evidentiary film and video's institutional specificity if we are to understand the effects of motion picture technologies on our culture. This study sets the terms for a long overdue assessment of how the entertainment industry has dominated and shaped our film viewing practices, the place of moving picture evidence in the courtroom, and the social and cultural consequences of these intertwined histories.
About the Author:
Louis-Georges Schwartz, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Iowa
Press Reviews:
"This pathbreaking study of case law rescues film studies from the cloisters by tracing the use of cinema in the U.S. courts. Valuable for its research and a model of exposition, this is a marvelous book." - Toby Miller, author of Makeover Nation
"Mechanical Witness is an important piece of film history and it is well situated in ongoing dialogs in film history and theory. It is well written and informed by outstanding research." - Lisa Cartwright, coauthor of Practices of Looking
See the publisher website: Oxford University Press
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