Learning American politics and law through cinema

The Valencian publishing house Tirant lo Blanch, aimed at the university public, has a very interesting collection that mixes two seemingly distant concepts such as cinema and law. The idea is apparently simple, but very effective in engaging readers who are looking for a more enjoyable way to approach issues that can be dry. The key is to find a legal expert who wants to get involved. Many have done so so far, and thus we find, for example, the criminal lawyer Jordi Nieva discussing democratic institutions based on John Ford's classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The latest acquisition of the publishing house has been Joan Ridao, Professor of Constitutional Law at the UB and lawyer in the Parliament (and a former leader of ERC), who tackles one of his specialties, the regulation of lobbyists, based on the film Miss Sloane (2016), directed by John Madden and starring Jessica Chastain.

The volume is divided into two parts. In the first, the author provides a cinematic analysis of the film, and it is here where we discover the more cinephile Ridao, the one who draws parallels with other works in the extensive tradition of American political cinema, from

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) by Frank Capra, to "All the President's Men" (1976) by Alan J. Pakula, as well as Spike Lee's filmography. The jurist also delves into the choice of a decidedly feminist actress like Chastain for a role that speaks of female empowerment against what he calls "shark executives" in the style of what Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) by Martin Scorsese.

Today we will discover how majorities and minorities are formed, the role of subcommittees, investigative committees, hearings (The Constitution of the United States

Here we will discover how majorities and minorities are formed, the role of subcommittees, investigative commissions, hearings, the media, etc. Where Ridao stands out the most is precisely in his specialty, constitutionalism. It is known the weight that the North American Constitution has in the democratic imaginary of the whole world, a basic norm that has been expanded with amendments, some of which are especially well-known, such as the second, which proclaims the right to bear arms and which is the subject of the film.

And finally, it enters into the issue of lobbyists and their regulation, which is the lesson that law students or, for example, journalists specialized in politics seek in this book and which is not the case to reveal in this review.