Law, Literature and Media - Movie Review Example

Law is, by nature, an animal that is not really all that concerned with the truth. Each side has a story, and it is up for the barristers on both sides to pick apart the other persons story, whether the story is true or not. That is the nature of beast. The jury may never know the truth – they only know what facts are presented. Same with the judge. Part of the reason for this is the slippery nature of the truth itself. Philosophers have long had theories about the nature of truth, many of them deciding that absolute truth cannot exist because each individual has their own versions of truth and reality, which become prisms through which any set of facts are viewed. These truth theories are on display in much of our legal cinema and literature, as these works accurately portray the biases that make absolute truth impossible to discern. Among these are the films Rashomon, a classic Japanese film about the relative nature of truth and Twelve Angry Men, a drama about a jury and about how truth is viewed through each of their eyes. One of the theories of truth is known as relativistic truth. This basically states that reality is constructed relative to a groups language, or “group, social class, culture theory, paradigm or world view.”i And, since reality is different for everybody, it cannot be objectively evaluated. According to this theory, there are not just different perspectives, but that these different perspectives “cannot be evaluated across different groupings.”ii In this way, stories cannot produce Truth per se , but rather a truth that is told through each individuals eyes.iii Stories can only produce subjective truth, as opposed to objective Truth by the fact that each individual brings an inherent bias, either consciously or unconsciously, to their own version of the truth. In this way, contextual cues and ideologies can influence the ways that people narrate their lives and the events around them. For instance, a racist ideology will inform how a white individual will narrate discourse between himself and a black individual.iv Ideology refers to beliefs that are shared by a group, as opposed to one individual, although each individual shares the common ideology.v Meanings, social realities, knowledge and emotion are seen to arise from social processes and interactions within particular socially structured contexts.vi Thus, the “world changes according to different paradigms.”vii A persons reality is individual, and, even though the reality might be in conflict with everybody elses reality, their reality is real to them and represents their world. Every incident that occurs in their world is looked upon with individualistic eyes, with individualistic biases that come from individualistic world views, knowledge, social reality and emotions. An example of this is the book To Kill a Mockingbird. In this book, a black man is on trial for the rape of a white woman.viii The people in the small town, Maycomb, where the black man, Tom Robinson, allegedly raped this woman were racists, as southern whites during the 1950s were, especially in small towns. At one point, the townspeople formed a lynch mob to take Tom out of the jail where he was being held for trial, but they were stopped by the presence of the children, especially Scout.ix During the trial itself, it became obvious that Tom did not rape or beat up this woman, Mayella Ewell. First of all, according to the first witness, she allegedly had serious injuries, yet a doctor was not called.x Then, her father, who was another witness, seemed to indicate that there were no injuries, as he seemed confused when Atticus, Tom’s lawyer in this case, asked him why he did not call the doctor when he saw the state that his daughter was in, and he acted confused when asked if he agreed with the description of Mayella’s injuries. His reaction was more or less – injuries, what injuries? Oh, yes, those injuries. Yes, yes, I remember now.xi Then Mayella herself hesitated, on cross examination when asked if she were beaten, first saying that she could not recollect if he did, then saying that he did – yet said on direct examination that he did hit her, “again and again.”xii Moreover, Mayella was allegedly beaten on the right side of the face, yet Tom’s left hand was shrivelled and useless because of a cotton gin accident Tom suffered as a boy.xiii And, since Tom was supposed to have choked Mayella, this would have been impossible, due to the fact that his left arm was useless and his left hand shrivelled. xiv Then she did not answer why nobody heard her scream, even though she had seven brothers and sisters.xv Yet, even though the evidence was pretty overwhelming that Tom did not do a thing, the jury convicted him anyhow.xvi This is an example of relativistic truth, because the jury heard the evidence, and their biases and prejudices led them to believe Mayella’s lies. To them, Tom was guilty simply because he was a black man, and all the evidence in the world would not lead them to believe the truth about the situation, even though it was staring at them in the face. Another theory is that of coherence. This states that people use their experience to come up with hypotheses and concepts to fit a given unusual situation. A person uses elements that are made up of “concepts, propositions, parts of images, goals, actions, and so on,” and then the elements either fit together (cohere) or do not fit together (incohere).xvii If the elements incohere, then one must be accepted and one must be rejected; if they cohere, then they may both be rejected or accepted, but it must be both – one cannot be rejected and the other accepted.xviii If they are accepted, according to coherence theory, then that proposition is labeled “true”. Much of law and the films and literature about law deal with the relative truth problem. An excellent example of this is the classic Japanese film “Rashomon.”xix Rashomon is a film that is based upon the concept of “relative reality” - the viewer does not see the truth, and does not know the truth. The viewer only knows everybodys version of the truth, but there is no absolute truth in this story. Anybodys version of the truth is as good as anybody elses, because each version of the truth is a part of that persons reality, and their truth. The viewer never really knows that happens, and each characters version of the truth is motivated by internal factors within each individual participant.xx Set during the twelfth century, the story begins with a woodcutter, a priest and a commoner. All of them have gathered in a large building during a pouring rain. The woodcutter and priest are in shock about an incident that had occurred. As the commoner is new to the situation, he asks what is going on, and the woodcutter tells his story. He says that he was walking in the woods, and happened upon a ladys hat. Then, walking further, he came upon a dead body. The priest states that he had come upon the victim and the lady three days before – he saw them walking, never imagining that the man would meet such a horrible fate.xxi Then, the next scene are the witnesses testifying before a judge, who is unseen throughout the process. In addition to the woodcutter telling his story, we meet another character – a bandit by the name of Tajomura. Tajomura is tied up, having been brought to the court by a bounty hunter. He tells his version of events. According to his version, he met up with the couple while he was sleeping in the woods. He caught a glimpse of the lady on the horse, decided that he must have her, and devised a plan to get her by murdering the husband. He then chases down the couple, and tells the man that he knew of a place in the woods where the man can buy swords. The man foolishly follows Tajomura into the woods. There, Tajomura pounces on the man and ties him up. To humiliate the man, he brings his wife to the place where the man is tied up. He then rapes the wife in front of the man. However, she submits to him willingly at some point, and starts kissing him back as he kisses her. She then states that one of the two has to die, because she cannot live with two men knowing her shame of being raped. She will go with the survivor. Tajomura unties the man to make a fair sword fight, and the two duel. Tajomura ends up killing the man. When he goes back to find the wife so that he can take her, she is gone, and he never sees her again.xxii Tajomuras story is motivated by his own personal biases. In his story, the wife submits to him, kissing him passionately, putting her hand on his neck. He is an expert swordsman in this version. The wife tells him that she will go with him, willingly, if he wins the duel between himself and the husband. He portrays the husband as weak and humiliated. At the same time, there is an element of negativity in his own portrayal as well. For instance, in his story, he acts rather crazy – laughing maniacally at inopportune times, and generally acting like a wild savage. It is interesting that he would portray himself in this way, which leads the viewer to believe that he is either very self-aware or believes that these traits, the ones that make him seem crazy, are positive attributes.xxiii The next story is that of the wife. Her story begins where she finds the husband tied up in the woods. She tells the judge that Tajomura raped her, and she was not at all willing in this version. After Tajomura rapes her, he leaves and she is faced with her husband. Her husband, still tied up, is looking at her with hatred in his eyes. She tells the husband to stop looking at her like that, and if she has shamed him, then he must kill her. She begs him to stop looking at her with such hatred, but he continues to glare. Then, she tells the judge, she passed out and, when she came to, her husband had a dagger in his heart. She screamed and left the woods. She does not know how he was stabbed. Through it all, she is portrayed as weak, a victim. There is not a hint that she wants to go with Tajomura. As with Tajomura, the wifes story is colored by her biases. In her version, she is a completely innocent bystander who did nothing wrong. She does not offer to go with Tajomura, and cannot understand why her husband suddenly despises her. She is weak, a damsel in distress, a total victim. This is probably because this is how she sees herself – helpless, weak, faithful. According to her reality, she would never do harm to another person, and would never betray her husband. The fact that he felt that she had betrayed him devastated her to the point where she wanted her husband to kill her. The next story is that of the victim, talking through a medium. Through the medium, the man tells his story to the judge. In this story, Tajomura rapes his wife. After this happens, the wife asks Tajomura to kill her husband while he is tied up. This disgusts Tajomura, who tells the husband that he will kill the wife if the husband asks him to. The husband does not say anything. Tajomura then unties the husband and leaves him and the wife there in the woods, the wife begging Tajomura to take her with him. The husband, humiliated by his wifes betrayal, commits suicide with a dagger. xxiv The husbands story indicates his own biases. He obviously sees his wife as somebody who is capable of this level of betrayal. This view speaks volumes about their relationship. This view states that the husband saw the wife as somebody who has obvious hatred for him, and he probably had hatred for her as well. The fact that, in each persons version, the husbands and the wifes, each betrayed the other in each respective versions tells the viewer that this relationship was dysfunctional and built on a shaky foundation of very little, if any, trust. In the husbands version, the wife has hatred for him and he is the innocent victim. In the wifes version, it is the opposite. Each sees himself as the victim in this relationship, and the other person is the cause of their problems. This is shown very clearly by their respective stories. The woodcutter then tells his story to his companions. It turns out, he saw what had happened, or at least claimed to. He said that Tajomura, after having raped the wife, is begging her to marry him and leave her husband. For her part, she is not a weeping widow in this version, much like in the husbands version. In fact, she told Tajomura that she was tired of her existence with her husband, and that Tajomura would be a way to take care of the situation. In other words, she was tired of her husband and saw the perfect way to get rid of him, and that was by having Tajomura kill the husband. She then encourages the two to duel, laughing maniacally throughout. The two duel, and Tajomura stabs the man.xxv After having the watched the movie, with four radically different stories about the same incident, the viewer is left with the notion that no one reality is correct. Each of the stories are equally plausible. Which one of the stories is the correct story is impossible to tell. According to the commentating on the DVD, there are subtle clues to let the viewer know that the woodcutters version is maybe not correct. Ordinarily, the woodcutters version would be the one most believable, as it is objective and not as clearly biased as the participants. He was only a witness to the crime, and has nothing to gain by lying. He also does not have the pre-set social views that would skew his reality on the matter. He does not hate the wife or see her as capable of great betrayal, as does the husband. He does not hate the husband, and see him as possibly controlling, as does apparently the wife. He is not obsessed with the wife, as was Tajomura. Therefore, his version should be the most believable. However, his version is undercut by his version of the duel. According to the woodcutter, these two duel in a clumsy manner, almost making a parody out of the situation. Since this is an experienced bandit and a nobleman involved in this fight, it does not make sense that they would fight in such an ungraceful and incompetent manner. Because of this detail, doubt is cast upon his story. Also, it is revealed that the woodcutter stole the dagger and sold it, which casts doubt upon his morality. Therefore, the viewer cannot assume that the woodcutter has the “right” version of events, or even if there is a “right” version of events. Every version is the reality of the speaker, and this makes every version correct and equal to every other version. Another movie that deals with these same themes is the classic Twelve Angry Men.xxvi This movie not only deals with how relativism affects ones version of the truth, but also how biases tend to skew how jurors interpret the facts of a given case. One such bias is known as “confirmation bias.” Confirmation bias refers to the fact that human beings “tend to seek and interpret information in ways that are partial towards existing beliefs,” while discounting or avoiding information that contradicts these existing beliefs.xxvii A nearly identical phenomenon is “tunnel vision”, in which a suspect is focused upon, and all evidence that builds a case for conviction is selectively filtered, and all evidence that would exculpate is ignored. (Findley & Scott, 2006, p. 292).xxviii In this story, a young Hispanic boy is on trial for murder. The jury goes back to the room to deliberate. In the beginning, the jurors are clearly shown as not taking the process seriously. One guy is talking about getting out of there in time to catch a baseball game. Others are talking about getting out of there because of the heat. Light conversation is going on between these men, none of the conversation directed towards the case itself. There is one quote that is stated early on that is telling, and that came from a man who states that “these kids must be slapped down before they cause trouble.” xxix The jury takes a vote, and all vote to convict but one. The one juror, played by Henry Fonda, states that he does not know if the boy is not guilty, but he wanted to talk about it. The other jurors, three men in particular, are rather perturbed about this. The others are willing to hear out the holdout, named Davis. At first, the plan is for each man to convince Davis that the boy is guilty, and the facts, on their face, seem pretty overwhelming. A man who lived beneath the boy and his father heard the boy scream “I will kill you;” an eyewitness saw the boy run out after hearing a scream; a unique knife that the boy bought was used in the crime; the boy said that he was at the movies, yet could not remember the movie or who was in it. However, what seemed to be an open and shut case was gradually poked full of holes by Davis. The knife was not unique after all – Davis found one just like it. Maybe the boy could not remember the name of the movie or who was in it because the police were questioning him after a traumatic incident, and his fathers dead body was a few feet away. The man could not have heard the boy tell his father that he was going to kill him because the elevated train sped by at just this moment. The woman could not have seen the boy from the distance she was at because she wore glasses, and, since she allegedly saw the boy after getting out of bed, she most likely was not wearing her glasses at the time of the eyewitness identification. One by one, each reasonable juror agreed and changed their vote to not guilty. Little by little what the jurors had thought were absolute facts and evidence of absolute truth were found to be not necessarily true, if not exactly untrue. Each juror agreed that, while they did not know the absolute truth, they also had reasonable doubt about the case, so each voted not guilty. Each saw that the facts, as they were, could be twisted around any way that the lawyers saw fit, and each saw the facts from a different angle than they previously did. Each agreed that the boys background story of growing up in a slum, and the fact that he was Hispanic, were not the facts that should be used, but, rather, the facts of the incident itself. These were the reasonable jurors who came around. However, there were two men who were not reasonable, and they became the holdouts. One showed his extreme prejudice and bias towards Hispanics in a rant about how “them people are nothing but trouble.”xxx His rant about how horrible Hispanics in general were went on for about five minutes, and, one by one, each man got up from the table and literally turned their backs on him. He ended up in a corner, having been shunned by each man, and hung his head, broken and ashamed, suddenly realizing that he was a racist, hateful bigot and that was the only reason why he continued to vote for a conviction. The other major holdout was a very angry man, who ended up yelling and ranting about how ungrateful these kids are, and how you try to bring them up right and they end up causing trouble. In the end, it becomes obvious that the person he is really angry with is his own son, who had not spoken with him in two years. He was obviously projecting his anger towards his son to this young Hispanic defendant and, when he realized this, he had to change his vote to acquittal as well. Thus, all twelve men voted to acquit, having seen that what they thought was absolutely true was not necessarily so, and, at least in the case of the two men, having seen that their biases and hatred was what was coloring their view of the case, not the facts. These men were suffering from tunnel vision – they only focused on the evidence that weighed towards conviction, ignoring the exculpatory evidence – as well as relativistic truth, in that their broad, intrinsic world views was the lens with which they viewed the evidence and the truth. Conclusion These films show that reality is individual, and depends upon each individuals social construct. Each individual has a unique way of viewing the world, and this is their individual reality. Since everybody has their own reality, there cannot be absolute truth, only relative truth. This is the basis for the relativistic theory of the truth, and this is the basis for the movies that were explicated in this essay. With Rashomon, there are four stories of the same event, and no one story is correct. They are all correct, in a sense, as they are real to the person telling the story. Since no one character is superior to any other, just as no one man is superior to another man, then no one reality is superior and they are all equal. Hence, the audience does not get the absolute truth, for this does not exist. In Twelve Angry Men, the men, while noting that the absolute truth of the case may never be known, nevertheless decided that reasonable doubt existed. They came to know that what they believed to be absolute truth and facts are actually open to interpretation, and two of the men came to see how their own hatred and biases caused them to voted for conviction, not the facts of the case. These are two movies that portrayed court proceedings as being havens for slippery versions of the truth. In this, they are accurate portrayals, as courts of law are not a place for the truth. Bibliography All In The Family. Episode 58, first broadcast 3 March 1973 by CBS. Directed by Bob Lahendro and John Rich, and written by Norman Lear and Don Nicholl. Altschuler, J. Re-remembering and re-imagining relational boundaries: Sibling narratives of migration. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6, p. 28 Ask, Karl and Par Anders Granhag. “Motivational Sources of Confirmation Bias in Criminal Investigations: The Need for Cognitive Closure.” Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling 2 (2005): 43-63. Findley, Keith A. and Michael S. Scott. “The Multiple Dimensions of Tunnel Vision in Criminal Cases.” Wisconsin Law Review, (2006): 291-397. Hart, P. (1996) “Narrative, Knowing, and Emerging Methodologies in Environmental Education Research,” Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 1. Hunt, S. (1990) “Truth in Marketing Theory and Research,” Journal of Marketing Theory and Research, 54. Rashomon, DVD, directed by Akira Kurosawa. (Tokyo, Japan: Daiei Motion Picture Company, 1950). Thagard, P. & Verbeurgt, K. (1998) “Coherence as Constraint Satisfaction,” Cognitive Science, 22(1), pp. 2-3. Twelve Angry Men, DVD, directed by Sidney Lumet. (Culver City, CA: MGM, 1957). Van Dijk, T. “Discourse, Ideology and Context,” p. 12. Available at: http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Discourse,%20ideology%20and%20context.pdf Read More