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Law professor Olivier Lasmoles publishes book on criminal justice and films
Olivier Lasmoles, a SKEMA Business School professor of law and ESDHEM programme director, has released a new book entitled “Le droit pénal fait son cinéma” (Criminal Justice on Screen), published by LexisNexis. In it, he dissects, analyses and discusses 62 films. The book offers a different way to approach, if not necessarily to understand, the complex workings of the criminal justice system.
How realistic is the vision of the law that we see in films? That's the question that Olivier Lasmoles, a professor of law at SKEMA, an auditor of IHEDN (the French institute for advanced studies in national defence) and ESDHEM programme director, has set out to answer in his book.
He investigates whether the way cases are solved in films corresponds to the way the law would treat them in real life. How would a plot written in the USA have been judged in France? Covering everything from Gollum and Harry Potter to Vador, Olivier Lasmoles unravels, analyses, compares and discusses more than 60 films, covering a wide range of themes.
Instructive and of course unmissable
This clever work, which features a double referencing system, offers both a "classic" approach to French criminal law (offences and case law) and an analysis of some sixty concrete examples taken from French and international films. Completely unlike any existing text, this book offers a new way to understand the law. The harshness of the examples used to illustrate the points is fortunately, fictitious and pleasant to read. Gilbert Thiel, a former judge with experience in terrorism trials and First President of the Paris regional court, praised Professor Lasmoles' work: "Law professors are just like judges – some of them enjoy staging a performance.
Not Professor Lasmoles though! He has taken a different, highly innovative and original, approach by inviting his students and readers to explore the law through films. A stroke of genius! Since the dawn of time, people have been irresistibly drawn, despite themselves, to crime, searching unconsciously for the sweet spot between fascination and revulsion. From our early childhood, a constant temptation to break the rules and flout social norms gnaws at us, part of the human condition."
Le droit pénal fait son cinéma (Criminal Justice on Screen)
The French criminal justice system through an analysis and commentary of 62 films
Author: Olivier Lasmoles, Professor of Law and ESDHEM programme director at SKEMA Business School
Publisher: LexisNexis, 250 pages.
Available from bookshops and the LexisNexis online store
Price: €42
