1. A Man for All Seasons (1966), directed by Fred Zinnemann, involves the story of Thomas More’s criticism of King Henry VIII on the topic of the Roman Catholic Church and the ability to divorce and remarry.
1. The Paper Chase (1973), directed by James Bridges, tells the story of a 1L at Harvard Law School as he struggles to balance his studies with his personal life.
2. In Cold Blood (1967).
3. Lenny (1974).
Comments:
“A Man for All Seasons focuses on the right of the individual to speak or to keep silent, even in the face of a demand from his government that he speak. Today, such a film speaks very directly to us. People in any number of countries are going to prison or dying for speaking, and others are keeping silent because they fear that fate.” —Christine A. Corcos
“I put The Paper Chase at the top of my list for this period. It may not be the best of the movies on the list: In Cold Blood is darkly powerful; Lenny is a compelling story about the often violent opposition of art and law; A Man for All Seasons has, probably, the strongest screenplay. But The Paper Chase, for my money, has the most lawyer clout and influence. It embodies a lawyer’s mythology of what law school is about and how a law school (Harvard Law School) works. It captured what a law school class looked like—and sounded like too—in the late 1960s—and how a traditional law school clashed with the cultural values of that much different time. The Paper Chase also provides a pop-cultural baseline for our current crop of aging law professors and, perhaps, for our law students too. Kingsfield is still Kingsfield; John Houseman’s performance remains alive today, and law professors are still compared with and contrasted to him.” —Philip N. Meyer
“As someone who went to law school not too long after Paper Chase came out, it was eye opening and hugely frightening to me. It certainly helped me keep my achievements at law school in perspective and reminded my that law school is not the true meaning of life when I attended. I also hoped that by the time I attended, the professors had seen the film and made an effort to be more ‘human.’ I teach law school as an adjunct, and I am very mindful (in part because of this film) to be kind, fair and thoughtful to my students. In Cold Blood is one of the most frightening legal films I have ever seen.” —Bonnie Eskenazi