|
About the Film Series
To help celebrate the opening of Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body, an exhibition on the history of forensic medicine, this March the National Library of Medicine presents Screen Forensics, a series of entertainment movies with forensic themes.
Forensic medicine has always had theatrical elements. To command attention and gain acceptance, over the centuries scientists have dramatized their findings and credentials, and presented themselves as authorities in courts of scientific opinion and courts of law.
And from the very inception of forensics as a field, writers and publishers, and later directors and producers, have made murder and the dead body, and the procedures of forensics, visible to a wider public — in the form of entertaining non-fictional and fictional narratives.
Cinematic murder mysteries, with some forensic elements, date from the earliest days of entertainment film, but for a long time there was a taboo on graphic depictions of the dead body. Forensic stories with more detailed views of death, decomposition and mutilation began appearing with some frequency in the mid-1990s, first in movies and on cable television, then on broadcast television. Millions of film- and TV-viewers have found such stories enormously appealing. Forensic narratives stage and interpret death and the dead body for us. They set the distress, disorder, excitement and moral rupture of murder within a reassuring legal and scientific order. Within the forensic formula, narratives and views of violent death become pleasurable.
Each evening will consist of…
- introductory remarks by historians, film critics, or NIH scientists
- the feature presentation
- a moderated discussion
Admission is FREE and open to all. Refreshments will be served in the lobby. The starting time is 6:00 p.m.
All movies will be shown with captions. Sign Language Interpreters will be provided for the film introduction and discussion. Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate should contact Jiwon Kim, Exhibition Program at 301-496-5963 or the Federal Relay 1-800-877-8339.
|