Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

A semi-retired lawyer decides to act for the defense of a military who killed a bar owner who allegedly raped the military's wife.

This is my second viewing of this film, and I can safely say (although it has been a long time since I watched it for the first time) that I didn't understand it the first time. I will not make a deep analysis here because this film is an established classic and I am sure analyses abound by better men than me. I will only make a few remarks, mostly for myself.
Reading the "hated it" section of the IMDB user comments, I notice that some people had the same problems I had upon my first viewing. This film is not like most other courtroom movies. There is no hero in it. It is not going for the viewer's empathy. It is a movie about Justice as an institution, and it implicitly says two things about it: one, that it is not perfect; two, that, even with its imperfections, it is a necessary institution. On a deeper level perhaps, the movie is an analysis of strategy, conveying the insight, perhaps above all others, that one way to win a case that seems lost in advance is to use your adversary's perfidy against him. We see the prosecution try to, so to speak, kill a fly with an atom bom, and it blows in their face. To close, a few words on the movie's title. In the past, I was a bit aggravated at what seemed to me a completely inappropriate title. I took it to mean that the film was intended as the "anatomy" of a murder, and of course I was disappointed. However, there is no evidence that the title refers to the movie. It seems to fit better as a reference to the trial itself. And then it is necessarily an ironic title, since it is quite evident that this would be a very poor and inconclusive anatomy. This irony seems quite in place when directed against an event within the movie, as opposed to against the movie itself.

Rating: 79 (up from 50)