Crime and punishment in the movies
2015
The successful lecture series “Law and Violence in Cinema” of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” will be continued in the coming summer semester. This time, the focus will be on the most common or at least most expected reaction to the violent violation of the law. That a crime must be followed by a punishment seems to be an unquestionable, self-evident norm in almost all societies past and present. Even if it is not always, and in some cases rarely, fulfilled, its abolition would trigger massive fears and insecurity. Film is one of the artistic media that can be used to question this taken-for-grantedness on the basis of individual cases and stories, or at least to show how tortuous, conflict-ridden, uncertain, lengthy and contradictory the path from crime to punishment can be, and what happens to the people involved along the way. Even if the villain gets what he deserves at the end of the movie plot, the better films at least leave their viewers with food for thought. The films selected here are able to achieve this with stories about sinister or monstrous criminals, about government and war crimes and about the coincidence that prevents punishment in the end.
Free admission, without registration
Thursday, 23.4.2015, 19.00 h
Klaus Günther (Co-Speaker of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” and Professor of Legal Theory, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main): The uncanny defendant. Fear and trust in criminal proceedings
about Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, USA 1996)
Thursday, 28.5.2015, 19.00 h
Armin von Bogdandy (Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law Heidelberg and Partner Investigator of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”): Dilemmas of the Yugoslavia Tribunal
about Storm (Hans-Christian Schmid, D-DK-NL 2009)
Monday, 15.6.2015, 19.00 h
Christiane Voss (Professor of Philosophy of Audiovisual Media at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar): Narrative Functions of Punishment and Expectations of Punishment
about Cassandra’s Dream (Woody Allen, USA-GB-F 2007)
Thursday, 2.7.2015, 7 p.m.
Christoph Menke (Principal Investigator of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” and Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main): “Guess I got what I deserve.” The long road from crime to punishment
about Breaking Bad (AMC series by Vince Gilligan, USA 2008 – 2013)
Museum of Modern Art
Domstraße 10
60311 Frankfurt am Main
Organization: Prof. Dr. Klaus Günther, Prof. Dr. Angela Keppler, Prof. Dr. Martin Seel
Organizer: Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” with the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main