Anatomy of a murder (1959)

A three-hour court drama lingering on sexual mores in an American small-town community, Anatomy of a murder is a captivating, at times even mesmerizing film in which James Stewart is a solitary Bachelor-lawyer called Biegler who dedicates his life to fishing and, more secondarily, it first seems, to his profession. And drinking booze with his alcoholic ex-lawyer pal McCarthy. Otto Preminger’s rendition of life in the courtroom is mostly somber, at times quietly humorous, but rarely melodramatic. It’s a film in which you are allowed to see two men huddling over books in contemplative research. Those scenes set the mood, and renders the film with a throbbing heart – the dynamic between the two lawyers. The bigger drama is that of the one unfolding in court, but the structure of the film is provided by this intimate relationship. And even in court, there is very little of the standard fare, even though there is some battling of the minds, a few ornamental speeches and a hostile prosecution lawyer. But even here, the film shows due patience, letting the audience understand a little of what kind of process a legal process really is – the time it takes, both inside and outside the courtroom. The court is presided by the charming judge, who is presented as a small-town wise man, but without there being anything condescending in that role. The fondness for the rural setting is also enhanced by the character of a big-city state prosecutor, who despises the oddness of the Michigan folk.

The story takes place in a small town in Michigan. A young man is accused of having murdered a bartender. It turns out the bartender might have raped the young man’s wife. The thrill of the story does not in the least reside in the viewer’s puzzle over who committed the crime. What we see is rather people arguing for a case, for and against, guilty or not-guilty – including several remarks and unspoken reactions that are about the personal character of a witness, in this case the wife who seems to have been raped. In this process of justification, a point of view, a range of attitudes towards sexuality and gender are presented. Instead of going with the traditional film convention of unexpected facts appearing that solve the case, Preminger focuses on how events are framed and interpreted in relation to contexts of meaning. The young man is claimed to have been momentarily crazy, and what follows is a long discussion about what it means to lose one’s ability to act thoughtfully and the implications for responsibility that this might. 

The film does all of this calmly, letting the characters speak and react. The film, and many of its character, exudes a respect for the legal system. There is even some tenderness in that approach, which might be a little surprising, given that the theme of the film is sex crimes.

The jazzy score adds some flavor the otherwise rather talky film. James Stewart’s attorney is a jazz fan, and the sometimes jarring and dissonant music lends some sense of restlessness to the crisp images. The music can be heard only outside the court, but it is also an important theme in its own right – the love of jazz reveals something about the solitary attorney and his life.

Another refreshing element of the movie is the rather small, but still important part played with dry wit by Eve Arden. She plays Biegler’s secretary. Her toughness, but also her attention to practicalities like a messy refrigerator and unpaid bills grounds the story even more in ordinary life. This is one of the ways in which Anatomy of a murder never escapes to the glossy spheres of the conventional court drama, where most of what we see is sleek offices and teary or sulking courtroom people.