As this symposium demonstrates, to seek the law in literature and film is to cast a very broad net. The treasure recovered ranges from the sublime (Chekhov and Sophocles) and stunning (videotape of a 2003 capital sentencing hearing and the 2007 Swedish thriller “Solstorm”), to the ridiculous (“The Mikado” and “My Favorite Martian”) and beyond (John Waters’ “Trash Trilogy”). The symposium also shows the variety of ways of writing about law, literature, and film, from the Ruthann Robson’s experimental musings on Antigone to Russell Murphy and Kate Day’s very practical applications of narrative to legal education.

Enter Antigone.

Antigone of Thebes, of the accursed family, of the two dead brothers, only one of whom can be legally buried, of the halfbrother who is also her father, and of the silenced sister.

Antigone of the contest with Creon, with the State, with the powers that be and the powers that would be; with the outcome never in doubt.

Antigone of the cave.

Antigone of the many plays by the same name, of some plays under a different name, of cameo appearances in philosophies, of vases and paintings and operas and songs and cinema.

Like any other great writer, Anton Chekhov dealt with some of the most pressing and poignant themes of human existence from which the lawyer, for all his learning and training, is not immune—love, loss, pain, joy, suffering, victory, sorrow, and death. We know that from Chekhov’s humble beginnings on the Sea of Azov, this son of a grocer from Taganrog went on to become a renowned story teller and compassionate medical doctor who died at forty-four and left behind some 240 stories, which he approved for his Collected Works, as well as some of the most influential plays ever to hit the world stage. More on his extraordinarily short but fruitful life later. But what precisely does Dr. Chekhov say to the lawyer?

Librettist Sir William Schwenck Gilbert and composer Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan collaborated on fourteen operettas between 1871 and 1896. Although the score to the first of their operettas, Thespis, has disappeared, companies around the world continue to perform the others. The 1999 biographical film portraying Gilbert and Sullivan’s lives, Topsy-Turvy, received tremendous critical acclaim, sparking great interest in the operettas. Since then, more than twenty DVDs of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas have come on the market, and the renewed interest in the operettas has revived interest in their parodic content.

This Article analyzes the 2007 Swedish film Solstorm, an adaptation of the book The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson. The rationale for engaging with this particular film is to apply Rick Altman’s semantic/syntactic framework for genre analysis to a film that is on the margins of what might be considered a law film. By utilizing this theoretical framework, the Article evaluates both the descriptive and what might be termed the more ideological dimensions of Solstorm to determine whether the film, and other films not clearly within the genre, can be drawn within the boundaries of a law film. Solstorm is a useful example because at first sight it does not appear an obvious choice for inclusion within the category, as there are no court scenes and indeed no trial. Yet, the film shares some common characteristics with more conspicuous candidates. The analysis requires consideration of where concepts of justice sit with respect to the boundaries of law film. Put simply: Is Solstorm a law film? Altman’s goal was to aid the development of genre theory, which is clearly more applicable when there are established conventions and principles with which to work. Although law film has little of this, Altman’s framework is still a useful mechanism to apply to a single film and to link the film back into the wider body of material.

Iconoclast filmmaker John Waters grew up in racially segregated Baltimore, Maryland during the stifling conformity of the 1950s and early 1960s. Waters, now an openly gay man, came of age as a filmmaker in the late sixties. As a young man, he lived in a closed society where racial mixing and homosexual sodomy were illegal. Furthermore, the emerging American youth countercultures—the hippies, anti-war and student movements in the 1960s6—greatly influenced his work. The social and political unrest during this decade often resulted in confrontations with the authorities. Participants in these social movements used the media, especially television, to exploit their arrests and gain support for their causes prior to and during trial.

As early as the seventeenth century, satirists used the travel essay as a means to examine and critique societies, including their own. If an artist’s government discouraged or banned political or social critique, he was necessarily forced to disguise his criticism as fiction—the more fanciful, the better. This practice has carried over to the genre of science fiction (SF). While authors fictionalize many of the elements in SF to make their stories more exciting and bizarre, some elements have made a transition into popular culture because they resonate with the human popular imagination. As a result, many individuals believe that such elements actually exist.

Among them are popular methods of alien transportation, such as the rocket (often pictured as the “rocket to Mars”), the flying saucer, and the alien being interested in making contact with a human, either for benign or (more often) nefarious purposes. The idea that an alien intends to visit Earth in order to destroy the planet or to cause us harm is one that begins with the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds and quickly gathers popularity in novels, films, and television beginning in the mid-twentieth century, fed by actual political and cultural events.

Law school reform may well be in the air. Such reform, however, requires a social, political, and legal process that challenges the existing division of power in legal education. Absent a national accreditation process that compels broad change, the work of law school reform becomes the difficult work of institutional reform. Reform at this level requires the vision of forward-looking deans and faculty pressing reform initiatives—addressing curricular reform and pedagogical innovation, clinical education, and student life—that are matched by a profound institutional commitment of political and financial resources. Even before the recent financial crises, not all law schools were prepared for such efforts or commitments. New law school buildings were built and filled with art, carpets, and ceremonial gestures; housing spacious up-to-date libraries and electronic and media support centers; wired with Internet access throughout; and offering clinical programs and courses that reflect new developments in law. But, the traditional curriculum remained sacrosanct, and the traditional pedagogy remained largely unchanged.

On June 30, 2008, Governor Charlie Crist vetoed a bill enacted by the 110th Florida Legislature that called for the establishment of seagrass mitigation banks on sovereign submerged lands. Mitigation banks are a method by which third-parties can become involved in curtailing the negative environmental effects of development. Coastal development often impacts important environmental resources, such as seagrasses, and developers are typically left to shoulder the burden of compensating for those impacts. Mitigation done by a developer, known as permittee-responsible mitigation, has a history of being unsuccessful and leading to a net loss of resources. On the other hand, new federal regulations recognize mitigation banking as the preferred method of compensatory mitigation because it is a safer, more beneficial means of making up for lost resources. Governor Crist’s veto letter gives the impression that he is genuinely trying to protect seagrasses. Instead, by vetoing the bill, he has removed this beneficial method of third-party involvement—leaving the fate of impacted seagrass beds in the hands of developers.

Sharon and Kirk met in a business finance class at the University of Tampa. They were young and fell in love. Three years later, they graduated, married, and settled down in a small starter home in Tampa, Florida. Soon thereafter, Sharon gave birth to three beautiful children: Kirk, Jr., Tammy, and Geni. Sharon became a full-time homemaker in order to play a key role in their children’s upbringing and to reduce childcare costs. Meanwhile, Kirk worked long hours to provide the family with financial stability.

Unfortunately, the young family’s blissful days disappeared shortly after the birth of Geni when Sharon developed severe depression. Sharon withdrew from her family and the world as an internal darkness consumed her. Kirk quickly realized that he was unable to manage the additional family responsibilities on his own. After much debate, Sharon and Kirk asked Linda, Sharon’s widowed mother, to move in with them to assist with the child rearing and daily household chores. Linda and the three children developed a close bond over the next five years as the children came to rely on Linda for their daily emotional, psychological, and physical needs. Then, early one morning, Sharon killed herself.