Law Commons^™

Filmmaking In The Precinct House And The Genre Of Documentary Film, Jessica M. Silbey

Jessica Silbey

This Article explores side-by-side two contemporary and related film trends: the recent popular enthusiasm over the previously arty documentary film and the mandatory filming of custodial interrogations and confessions. The history and criticism of documentary film, indeed contemporary movie-going, understands the documentary genre as political and social advocacy (recent examples are Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 and Errol Morris’s Fog of War). Judges, advocates, and legislatures, however, view films of custodial interrogations and confessions those that reveals a truth and lacks a distorting point of view. As this Article will explain, the trend at law, although aimed at furthering venerable criminal …