Law in Film as a Manifestation of Aesthetics of Law and a Special Case of Law and Literature Movement

Keywords: aesthetics of law, law and literature, law in film, legal cinematography, legal awareness

English abstract: If we put together and systematize research streams: law in film, law and literature, and aesthetics of law, it is easy to reach the conclusion that we are dealing with related subjects, with a certain overlap in research areas. The broadest term is aesthetics of law, whose scope covers the entire law and literature movement, meanwhile law in film is a more detailed aspect of the latter.

Systematizing the aesthetics of law, we can close it in three aspects: the external one, the internal one, and the one called ‘law as a device for aesthetization’. The aesthetics of law in the external aspect deals with manifestations of law, legal inspirations, legal themes, symbols, signs, which were represented through centuries in fine arts. The subject of the aesthetics of law in the internal aspect is the law itself. The third aspect of the aesthetics of law focuses on law as a device for aesthetization of daily life.

In the law and literature movement, the reflections concern either the inclusion of legislative and legal content in literary works (law in literature), or the literary, including aesthetic, value, of normative instruments, and more broadly, also other acts of applying the law (law as literature). A special case of this research stream is legal cinematography, where a film prepared on the basis of a screenplay is treated as a kind of narrative, justifying the statement that law in film further develops the law and literature movement.

The practical aspect of such research – of legal aesthetics, law and literature, and law in film – concerns mainly the significance and influence on legal awareness, and on shaping the attitudes towards law. The key thing here is approaching the problem of influencing legal awareness through other means than the text of a normative instrument alone.