What were the most arresting films I saw during the year? I have three, not seen in the cinema but on television – and all made for television. What made them striking to me was their tautness. They may have had too much coercive music but I did not notice because they focussed on telling the story efficiently and dramatically. All were about events that happened in real life, and use documentary footage or a documentary style to forge the narrative. All three involved legal enquiries – so they are in the courtroom drama genre.
The first was the documentary about the Hillsborough disaster from 1989 at the football ground of Sheffield Wednesday FC when, as a result of incompetent handling of the football crowds, 96 fans died and 766 were injured. The documentary was simply called Hillsborough and was two hours long. It was first shown in the US in April 2014, but legal reasons only allowed to be shown in the UK on 8th May this year. It was directed and produced by Daniel Gordon, and co-produced by ESPN and the BBC. Its principal focus was on the legal battle to reach a reasonable version of the truth of the event: who was to blame (principally the police) and who was not (principally the fans).
The second was – but I can’t remember the title! It concerned the shooting of a young black male by a policeman in either North Charleston, South Carolina or Charlotte, North Carolina (though I can’t remember which!). It reconstructed the shooting and focused on the subsequent legal trials of the police officer who fired the fatal bullet and the trauma for the families of the victim and of the officer. It was shown on UK television around October this year.
The third was Lawful Killing: Mark Duggan. Duggan had been shot by police officers in the course of arrest for being in possession of a handgun. The shooting occurred in August 2011 and was a contributory cause to the London riots, especially in Tottenham, in the weekend following. The shooting was a dramatised reconstruction and the interviews with those involved were done with actors impersonating the interviewees. Extensive use was made of evidence submitted in the court hearing into the incident. Both in substance and form it had a strongly documentary feel. Directed by Jaimie D’Cruz, produced by Shanty Sooriasegaram. It was first shown on the BBC in December this year.
Sometimes fiction cannot match what real stories can offer, especially in the current style of emotional and visual exaggeration with which fiction is treated. Audiences love courtroom drama, but the fictional one would be hard put to beat the televised courtroom scenes in my second example. But gratifying the viewer like this may make for good television; it does not make for good justice. In the UK, television cameras remain banned from trials, and long may that continue to be the case.
