Upper Ground Production
  • Home
  • About
  • Links
    • Film East
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LetterBoxd
  • Home
  • About
  • Links
    • Film East
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LetterBoxd
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

22/5/2017 0 Comments

The Trial: A Murder in the Family | Review

Picture
Picture
Picture
The Trial: A Murder in the Family
Channel 4
Murder trials have always and will always grab society's attention. Just look at the resurgence of O.J. Simpson's trial last year-- multiple documentary series and a full-scale tv drama. The media will always jump at any chance to cover a murder trial because people will be inevitably curious. Channel 4 took full advantage of this infatuation for their new programming, The Trial: A Murder in the Family. The Trial is a pioneering program that takes a look at the inner workings of British justice system. The experiment simulates the proceedings of a murder trial with real barristers, a real judge, and a real jury of 12 average citizens, but with a fictions murder. 

The point of the experiment is to explore how a jury of 12 randomly selected citizens goes about making a life-change decision. The question of the series is how a group of strangers can decide on the guilt or innocence of a single man. What elements come into play as the jurors make their decisions? Did the defense's theatrics will the approval of the jury? Did the prosecution miss the mark with just one witness? Or was it simply because the defendant rubbed a juror the wrong way? This series challenges the validity of a trial by jury and questions whether this ancient tradition is as beneficial as we think. 

Although the case was fictitious, the show's directors, Nick Holt and Kath Mattock, did a convincing job of making the case feel real. Holt and Mattock create a convincing profile for the case using old home videos of actors Michael Gould and Emma Lowndes, as well as made up police interviews tapes and CCTV footage. It didn't take much for one to suspend their disbelief and actually believe that this was a real investigation. The inclusion of these details makes one truly believe they are watching the story of real family's tragedy.   

Yet, the biggest problem I see with this experiment is that the jury was made aware that the trial was fake. Simply knowing that there is nothing at stake with their decision, lowers the gravity of the situation, regardless of how many time you tell them to treat the situation as real. If I was a part of this jury, I would be looking at the case like the murder mysteries I see on the telly, not like a real murder. Does knowing this will be a television program skew the jury's decision towards entertainment or reality? Can a jury being filmed truly act like they would in a real life scenario?

The Trial makes a strong attempt to recreate a trial by murder, but it's simply not possible to get a genuine reaction for a jury who knows the whole case is a fake. 

The Trial airs every night at 9 pm from the 21-25 of May on Channel 4
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Click the images below to read each article

    Features

    Feasting on Females: Consuming the Female Body in Mimi Cave’s Fresh
    Marmalade and Masculinity: Combating Toxic Masculinity with Paddington Bear
    The Delicious World of Miyazaki: Subverting Western Food Standards in Studio Ghibli
    Ugly, Delicious and Political: Politicising Cultural Dishes
    Representing Oslovian Women, starring ‘The Worst Person in the World’
    Culinary Temptations: Italian Cuisine in Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Desire Trilogy’
    David Bowie is... The Englishman Who Fell to Earth
    Kris Marshall | Love, Actually
    ‘Choose a name; something simple’: Names and Identities in ‘Money Heist’
    The Sad Eyes of Punk: Subverting the Rock Star in Anton Corbijn's Control
    The Ghost of David Bowie: Capturing Bowie's Cultural Legacy in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine
    Re-assimilating the Other: Zombies, Mental Illness and Homosexuality in BBC Three’s In the Flesh
    Global Strangers: Existing Between Borders Film Collection
    Animation Artistry in Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers
    Riz Ahmed’s Goodbye to Britain: Confronting Identity and Self in ‘The Long Goodbye’
    Young Film Programmers and the Pandemic
    The Hugh Grant Archetype: Stereotyping British Identity
    “America’s Sweetheart”: White Female Privilege In ‘Gone Girl’
    Why a David Bowie biopic will always be doomed to fail
    Film Oddity: David Bowie and the Screen
    "Did you feel emotional the first time you drove in Sacramento?" Driving with Emotion in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird
    A [Not-so-Distant] Dystopian Future... The Dystopian Landscape of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner
    Politics, Class and the British Home: British Class Represented in High-Rise and Brazil
    The New New Wave of British Cinema: Joanna Hogg and the Middle-Class Social Realist Film
    “I’m Irish.” – Paul Mescal Vs The British Empire
    "Karen, are you crazy?" The Women of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas
    Crafting Insanity: Experiencing madness in Sherlock: The Lying Detective
    The Modern Greek Tragedy: Examining Yorgos Lanthimos's The Killing of a Sacred Deer through Aristotle's Poetics
    "But Wales is Britain. And Britain is Wales." Exploring British national identity in Netflix's The Crown
    David Bowie is the Englishman from Mars: An Examination of Englishness through Stardom
    Supporting the Black Lives Matters movement through cinematic education
    “Maybe That’s Normal”: The Normality of Mental Illness in Normal People
    Dance, Woman, Dance: Revisiting Jim Henson's Labyrinth
    How Social Realism Contributes to the Fetishisation of Britain’s Working Class
    Slut! The Sexual Liberation of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Women
    Time, Illness And Melancholia
    Patrick Melrose And The Trauma Of The Aristocracy
    Is A Most Popular Film Category Good For The Oscars?

    Reviews

    Toronto International Film Festival '22 | Reviews
    BFI London Film Festival 2021 | Reviews
    BFI Flare Festival 2021 | Reviews
    Norwich Film Festival 2020 | Reviews
    Raindance Film Festival 2020 | Reviews
    London Film Festival 2020 | Reviews
    Lie Low | Review
    Review: Macbeth At The Norwich Theatre Royal
    Review: La Traviata At The Norwich Theatre Royal
    A Feminist Day Out At The BFI | Woman With A Movie Camera Summit 2018

    Interviews

    Red Carpet Interviews 
    Toronto International Film Festival 2022
    Interview with Bassam Tarqi
    ​London Film Festival 2020
    Picture
    Interview with Jonathan Blagrove
    Norwich Film Festival 2020
    Interview with Jamie Weston
    Norwich Film Festival 2020
    Picture
    Interview with Stuart Laws
    Grave New World Premiere 2021

    Film East Chats Podcast on BBC Radio Norfolk

    This is a small section of episodes from the Film East podcast. Click here to listen to all episodes. 

      Contact Me! 

    Submit
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.