Katherine:

There are so many reasons to run, not walk to see JANE EYRE: brilliant storytelling, amazing performances, visually breathtaking, extraordinary score.  An attorney can learn from all of these elements of this fantastic film. I am going to concentrate on yet another one: language.  I think that I learned more about language from this film – specifically – the way that people in crisis speak about their lives – than in any other film I’ve seen in my 59 years.

I don’t know what your relationship is with the novel Jane Eyre. Mine spans several decades. In the summer between 7^th and 8^th grade my friend Jessie Murray said, “Let’s read all of The Brontës and all of Dickens”. We read all of The Brontës and only a couple of Dickens as I recall.  The result is that I have a rather limited and youthful first impression of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, David Copperfield, etc. etc. etc.  I have read Jane Eyre since, and, of course am a big fan of the film from the forties and the most recent British television import.

Again and again, year after year, adaptation after adaptation I was left with the impression of a lot of very suppressed people who are too shut down emotionally to express themselves in words.  Sound familiar?  How often do I work with an attorney whose chief complaint about a witness is, “Won’t talk – I don’t know why.”  Although this can be the case, often I find that witnesses are using all the words that they have to describe their lives and to tell their stories. I also find myself dealing with attorneys who want more – more words, “complete” paragraphs of testimony, perfectly turned phrases and language.

When watching this amazing JANE EYRE, I realized almost immediately that I had been mistaken about the language of the novel and all those films and television shows for more than 45 years. There are no more words.  The characters are not suppressed from a lack of language – they are, each of them, saying all the words that there are in these highly charged emotional moments of their lives.

Is this because the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga brought his Japanese ancestry with him when he shot the film so that the acting lets us know that we need no more words?  Or because the screenwriter, Moira Buffini comes from the tradition of the British theater?  At any rate, I feel like a might really understand haiku as an art form that can be adapted for the stage and screen after seeing this film.

How does this apply to the courtroom? I often say that witnesses speak in poetry and the lawyers try to turn it into some very odd non-fiction narrative form.  JANE EYRE gave this lesson back to me brilliantly.  When you see the film, and you will, think about the “problem” witness you are working with right now.  If you are really daring, you will think about your oral arguments.  Nothing like only having 15 minutes to talk to a judge to keep you writing poetry rather than prose!

Tip: Think “spoken poetry” rather than “narration” when working with language for yourself and your witnesses.

Katherine:

The job of the director in a film is to put us in the world of the film. Creating the time and place of FAIR GAME was a challenge for director Doug Liman and the team he led. Why? They were dealing with “recent history”.

The attorney faces the same challenge – putting the judge, jurors, arbitrators and mediators into the time and place of “recent history”. Recent history is a challenge — two years, five years, seven years, ten years. In a patent case involving technology, for example, this need to put everyone back in the time of the creation of the technology is vital.

Time goes so slowly. Day after day goes by and the changes to our every day lives are subtle. Incremental. And then ten years later you are going to trial. As you watch FAIR GAME you will find yourself over and over again saying to yourself at the start of the film, “Oh, right – that is what it was like…” Why? Everyone has moved forward through all those changes slowly and accepted all the changes as inevitable. Think about your case…you are often trying to get the fact finders to look at just one piece of the whole picture – the technology that is the focus of your case.

FAIR GAME shows attorneys beautifully how you need to make a complete world to take us back in time. As you watch the events of the Wilsons’ lives unfold, you are not seeing them in a vacuum. Every visual clue that you get from the cars to the phones to the costuming to the computers puts you in that world. That world which happened in our minds not that long ago – but definitely in “recent history”.

How to do this practically? I can remember helping to create a visual for an opening statement. It was a trademark infringement case. We built images one by one on the screen to show how things had changed. A cell phone, a changing computer, headlines from the newspaper, the hair styles – everything that I knew an art director would need in order to create a world for a film. The attorney took the jurors through a “remember when” – three whole minutes from the opening (and three minutes is a long time) to put the jurors back in time using the visual. The attorney told me it was amazing to watch the faces of the jurors as one by one they “got it” and were back in time. And he knew he had their attention there and then. And yes, we won.

TIP: Make sure that if putting your trial back in time is important to the case that you take the time and resources to do it.


Alan:

This is certainly not a new film, but we decided to watch it because we hadn’t seen it when it first came out.

Amazing how long ago it all seems. And how intense the run up to the Iraq War was. And how so many of the issues and people in the film seem like ancient history.

I want to focus on the center of the story. The writers and the director decided to make the story an interweaving narrative of the personal and the political….the marriage of Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joe Wilson, as well as the politics and the events leading up to the War in Iraq.

When telling a story, how to structure the narrative, where to throw the focus and how to select what to include and what to omit are the essential decisions facing all storytellers….film makers and lawyers alike.

De-selecting is always the critical issue. You can’t possibly include everything. And you can’t possibly make ALL issues central. In this case, the filmmakers decided to have the emotional impact lie in the personal and to allow the political to ride on top of that.

The questions: Does this decision diminish the political story? Is the marriage of equal weight and interest to the viewer as the political story? And Does it work?

I leave it up to each viewer to determine.

TIP: Weigh carefully where you want the emotional center of your story to reside. Make sure that the emotional basis of your case can comfortable rest on the legal, intellectual basis of your case.





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Alan:

I really wanted to like LINCOLN LAWYER. I usually like Matthew McConaughey and I always like Marisa Tomei and John Leguzamo. And a film about an attorney seemed like a natural for our blob. The film however was a hot mess.

One of the essential elements of any narrative/story is to have someone to root for and to have a strong villain or antagonist. Well, there wasn’t really any hero to root for. McConaughy’s character had no moral center at all, other than an appreciation for the money he could make and the ease with which he could manipulate the system. Especially at this time in our society when Defense Lawyers already seem to have an uphill battle (well, the defendant must be guilty of something, why else would he have been arrested) to portray a Criminal Defense lawyer as only concerned with money is not only unrealistic, but irresponsible.

I really wanted to like him. However, he offered NO real redeeming qualities other than self-preservation and some loyalty to his daughter and his friend, his investigator. These friendships however were not really developed. The set up didn’t offer us anything to root for. What a disappointment.

TIP: Always make sure that you provide a story that has a strong hero, someone to root for with qualities you admire, as well as a clear antagonist to root against.

Katherine:

Okay, I confess. I fell asleep several times during the film. I’d say I saw maybe half of it. Yep, it lost me at “hello”. I guess what scares me is that I just told a lawyer yesterday during a workshop that if a juror falls asleep that the other jurors will discount what that person has to offer in the jury room. “You were asleep! You have no vote!” Of course, that is when the case is active, well done, alive. What if instead of that, the juror who was asleep says to her fellow jurors, “What did I miss?” and they say , “Nothing. Don’t worry. We can fill you in if you really want to know anything.”

TIP: Don’t put them to sleep.





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Katherine:

The thing about spending time on the road is you can watch movies in your hotel room that you don’t have time to catch up with in the movie theater because you spend time on the road. Okay, I’ll admit it – I never would have chosen to see THE NEXT THREE DAYS either on the road or in my hotel room…but…I was lucky enough this trip to have Alan in my hotel room.  So we watched it together.

It is a fascinating study for lawyers, I think, on how not to tell a story. What is left out of the plot line makes it difficult to follow – and often what is left in is a bit odd.  I kept thinking about how hard it is to put together a trial story. How hard it is to maintain suspense, not tell all the details, but set the pathway clearly so that the jurors can follow it.

Watching an actor like Russell Crowe acting his brains out and not knowing why is very sobering. Why? Because somewhere in a court right now there is an attorney heavily emotionally invested in a story and a jury who doesn’t know what the heck is going on.

TIP: Check and re-check that your trial story is easily followed, clear, and “hole free” for your jurors.

Alan:

The film also brought up, for me, the challenge of expectations.

I bought the film because I usually love Paul Haggis, I think his is truly an original, gifted voice. I really like Russell Crowe and from all previews and what I had seen, the film seemed like an action movie with a strong human story. So, I went into this with certain expectations. And mostly, I was left wondering, HUH??!!

It wasn’t a bad experience, and yes some of my expectations were fulfilled. But, overall, I was so disappointed. I wanted more. I EXPECTED more.

When an attorney takes on a certain case, or has established a certain reputation…or when her client has a reputation that creates expectations in the public mind, there is a bar established that must be met.

If the story or the lawyer or the client or the case is somehow incongruent with those expectations, does not rise to that bar, then the jury will translate their disappointment into a decision against you. It’s a tricky and delicate thing.

Tip: Manage the expectations of the jury. Or meet them. Expectations can be resentments waiting to happen.

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Alan’s brilliant blog on coming in second made me think of another thing that actors and lawyers have in common – “auditioning”.

Nowhere is the actor’s audition process explored more thoroughly in film than in the 2008 documentary EVERY LITTLE STEP. It is on movie channels these days and out on DVD.

This award winning film follows the auditions for the revival of the brilliant Broadway Musical A CHORUS LINE. Of course, A CHORUS LINE is a musical whose plot line revolves around the audition process to get into the chorus of a Broadway Musical. This almost “play within a play” aspect to the film makes it a great study of the auditioning process reflected on many levels – almost like a “Dance In The Mirror” of the joy and angst of this process.

When lawyers compare what they do in court to performing before an audience I always say that what they are doing in the process of the actor’s work life is auditioning. Will they accept you? Will they reject you? Will you get the role (leader of the winning team) or will you not get the role (and thus become the leader of the losing team)?

How does an actor go out day after day – “putting himself/herself on the line”? What effect does it have both on the quality of the audition itself and on the emotional life of that actor? Who can do both really, really well? Who ends up either slighting the audition or their emotional life or both?

Sound familiar if you are a lawyer? Oh, yes. That’s why I find it the same. I challenge you to find yourself in this movie. I know you will. Secretly, I know we all think if we are a legacy in the law we are as relaxed as Charlotte D’Amboise (the daughter of the great choreographer Jaques). Or as brilliant as Jason Tam who “nails” the role of Paul right away. But most of us will find ourselves in some other actor’s reality.

We can accept it, work to make our “auditions” and the emotional response to the rejection more measured…but know that this always was and always will be a part of the process we all share.

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KATHERINE:

No one was more flabbergasted than I was not to see a single Oscar nomination for the brilliant British film MADE IN DAGENHAM. I know it is still in some theaters and it certainly is on the menu of the hotel room I am in so I know that you have access to this wonderful film with great insight for attorneys. (more…)

We loved TRUE GRIT and highly recommend it as not only a great ride, but as a great learning tool for attorneys.
Alan:

Joel and Ethan Coen are wonderful filmmakers. In addition to directing, they are also writers and adapters. TRUE GRIT is a spectacular achievement and offers us many lessons for both actors and attorneys.

Again, here is a situation that calls for wearing many hats. When directing, the writer is aware of what is being done, and when writing the director must be aware of what will be done. However, for each task the focus must be complete.

And with TRUE GRIT, there is another important lesson for the attorney. Here is a story that we all thought we knew. John Wayne won an Academy Award for this film, didn’t he? Didn’t this story already get told, several decades ago? (more…)

THE FIGHTER is a film which we find has helpful lessons for lawyers that occurred in the making of the film.

KATHERINE

Alan and I had the pleasure of watching a screening of THE FIGHTER in which the director, David O. Russell was there for a “talk back”. A talk back is when the audience has the chance to talk with someone who is involved with the film after the screening. Russell had with him the real man on whom the film is based (and for whom there were tons of fans there), fighter Micky Ward. This low (for Hollywood) budget movie was shot in 31 days. And here is where the lawyer lesson starts. Russell said that if there had been money, he would have told “the whole story”. The whole beginning of Micky’s life he found interesting and intrinsic to the story. And, of course, everything that happened after the “big fight” which is the climax of this film. However, because of these constraints, he was forced to tell a better story. (more…)

THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a brilliant must-see movie for every attorney. This is what award winning filmmaking looks like. And, like so many films, it has great learning points for lawyers.

ALAN

THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a remarkable achievement.

What a brilliant pairing of writer Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher. I agree with Aaron Sorkin’s comment at the Golden Globes that director David Fincher was able to make typing or talking about typing dramatic. What can attorneys, who most often are pairing with themselves as both writer and director learn from this duo? (more…)

Alan:

Julie Taymor’s adapatation to film of Shakespeare’s last and greatest play, THE TEMPEST, captures all the magic and poetry of the text and achieves something remarkable. In film, the director captures and controls the attention and focus of the viewer through editing and cutting. By employing extreme close ups and tight shots of one and two actors, Tamor creates an intimate, personal story about relationships. The themes of forgiveness, power, aging and acceptance within the text are maintained here. But, what is most striking is how human and real the relationships are within the story. (more…)