Marc Strauss, Ph.D.Professor Emeritus
Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance
Holland College of Arts & Media
Southeast Missouri State University
Four Classes
1:30 – 5:00 (Zoom ONLY)
Sept. 26, Oct. 3, 10, 17
Sadly, racism, antisemitism, war, censorship (book-banning, restrictions to freedom of speech), and other issues of intolerance, hatred and fear continue to drive human beings to embrace not their better angels but darker devils. Throughout history, creators in all the arts have found ways to re-present, mirror, and investigate these troubling aspects of humanity in a partial effort to help us figure out a healthier way forward alone, and together. Marc Strauss, Ph.D., will introduce, show, and guide discussion on four courtroom drama films produced from 1959 to 1962 that deal with some of these still-pertinent, age-old issues.
September 26: Anatomy of a Murder (1959)—With a Duke Ellington score and direction by Otto Preminger, this trial film stars James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, and George C. Scott as they struggle with the “fallibility of the human factor in jurisprudence.” Based on an actual 1952 murder trial. (2 hours, 40 minutes)
October 3—Inherit the Wind (1960)—A parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial about Creationism as a means to discuss McCarthyism, the film is based on a 1955 play that was written in response to the chilling effect of the McCarthy era investigations on intellectual discourse. Stars Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, and Dick York. (2 hours, 8 minutes)
October 10—Judgment at Nuremburg (1961)—An epic courtroom film directed and produced by Stanley Kramer, it stars Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, William Shatner, and Montgomery Clift, and is set in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1948. The film deals with the Holocaust and non-combatant war crimes against a civilian population, the post-World War II situation and the geopolitical complexity of the actual Nuremberg Trials. (3 hours)
October 17—To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)—Starring Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, and Brock Peters, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is brought to the screen as a searing indictment of racism. (2 hours, 9 minutes)
Marc bio: Marc Strauss, Ph.D.
My most recent book, Discovering Musicals: A Liberal Arts Guide to Stage and Screen (McFarland; 2019), is available at McFarland & Company, Inc., leading publisher of academic nonfiction in the United States, at: https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/discovering-musicals/. Or google “Marc Strauss” at www.amazon.com for a selection of my writings.