ANATOMY OF A MURDER

D: Otto Preminger; with James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell, Eve Arden.

Columbia/TriStar Home Video

In any year, director Otto Preminger's 1959 courtroom classic Anatomy of a Murder - which stars James Stewart as an affable but very determined defense attorney, would be worth revisiting simply for its sheer entertainment value. But the ongoing trial of O.J. Simpson for the accused murder of his wife, Nicole, and mutual friend Ronald Goldman gives the film renewed resonance. Anatomy strikes a chord not because of similarities in plot (in fact, except for the courtroom setting and the charge of murder, there are none) but because of the way Preminger integrates events taking place within the courtroom and the meandering, often stultifying life unfolding outside of it. His approach eschews the hustling, high-voltage approach of Witness for the Prosecution and A Few Good Men; it's closer in tone and style to such reserved, intimate, slower-paced entries in the genre as The Verdict and Philadelphia, putting almost equal stress on dramatic high points and the quieter moments in between. It's the kind of movie in which an easily bored judge gently reprimands a witness for giving a raucously funny answer to a simple question, then reassures the spectators that "the attorneys will provide the wisecracks;" later in the picture, two attorneys get into a shouting match in court, then immediately apologize to the judge, the jury, and the spectators for conducting themselves in such a sloppy, emotional, undignified way. (At times, Anatomy of a Murder is so laid-back in its storytelling approach, and so affectionate yet unsentimental in its portrayal of American small town life, that it seems like it could form a dandy double bill with the recent Robert Benton melodrama Nobody's Fool.)

A critical and commercial hit, the film won admirers for its uncharacteristically gritty, low key, everyday narrative about an Army officer (Ben Gazzara) on trial for shooting a local bar owner he believes raped his young wife (Lee Remick); audiences also appreciated Preminger's ability to keep them riveted to a movie that runs close to three hours, and for some of the dialogue's startling frankness. Of course, by 1995 standards, there's nothing really shocking on display - just references to "rape," "semen," "completion," and similarly clinical terms - but at the time, Preminger told critics he believed the only way he could have gotten away with putting such material in his script was by hiring James Stewart, that lanky icon of unpretentious decency, to deliver it. The film also pays close attention to legal research, precedent, and process. It's especially interested in the minutiae of courtroom technique, analyzing the calculated theatrics of trial attorneys, explaining why they choose to sit, stand, smile, nod, or raise their voices to reinforce particular points. Some of the courtroom moments are cynical even by today's standards - defense attorney Stewart introducing the results of a police-administered polygraph test even though he knows the court won't allow it, because even if his adversary's objection is upheld, the jury will have filed the information away anyhow; prosecutor George C. Scott intentionally standing at an angle that will block Stewart's view of a witness, and, later, introducing a convicted felon as a witness when all else fails.

Unlike the vast majority of courtroom dramas made both before and since, Anatomy of a Murder presents a world in which heinous and tawdry events ultimately serve only as minor distractions from daily life. Whether they're involved in the plot's central events or merely bearing witness as they unfold, Preminger's characters conduct themselves with a detached, relaxed, sometimes even playful demeanor; watching them joke and spar and occasionally flirt while the fate of an accused killer's life is being determined may strike a resonant chord with CNN-era viewers.

The world of Anatomy of a Murder isn't the kind commonly seen in Hollywood movies, let alone courtroom pictures; it's a world where momentous events must struggle for attention in a world packed with smaller, subtler ones, and the filmmaker presents both types of events with the same sly, detached, slightly skeptical attitude. The people who populate Preminger's tiny northern town aren't watching the trial on TV, but at times they act as if they might as well be; even when the story is at its most gripping, Preminger continually reminds you that "important" is a relative term; it depends on who you are, where you live, and what you choose to become interested in. In that sense, the sights of Marcia Clark and Johnny Cochran arguing at length about the appropriateness of an angel lapel pin and Stewart and Scott arguing grandly over points of procedure that neither of them really believes is important are closer than you might think. One is fictional, the other factual, but they're joined by an eerie, transparent, cynical quality. The film never loses sight of the fact that inside a courtroom, what's happening might seem like an epic spectacle, but for those of us bearing witness from beyond its confines - in the street, in our cars, or on the living room couch - it's just one more kind of entertainment.

- Matt Zoller Seitz