Eating Popcorn like a Lawyer: A Law and Film Seminar Series

Organised in collaboration with the Sciences Po Law School, ‘Eating Popcorn like a Lawyer’ is an online seminar series that seeks to establish a continuous dialogue between the fields of law and film. For each installment we invite a prominent legal scholar to discuss and analyse their favourite film(s).

For the second session of the series, Dr. Alberto Rinaldi (lecturer in Law and Film – Sciences Po Law School) will give a reading of Abel Ferrara a 1990s vampire tale: The Addiction (1995). On the surface, Ferrara’s cult classic about two New York grad-students-turned-vampire appears to be a metaphor for drug addiction. However, this cinematic nightmare in which its various characters gradually sink deeper and deeper into the perils of evil, hides deeper metaphors still. What lies beneath this story of urban vampirism? Why it is staged in an academic environment? The Addiction poses a series of unsettling questions over human nature, guilt, and justice. Questions that confront law students, scholars and practitioners when faced with the complexities of evil. And what are our addictions, when we write texts and advance theories in well-aligned paragraphs, accompanied by exhaustive footnotes? What if we realize that we ourselves are implicated in that evil we are trying to describe? Is law there to redeem us?

Come and join us for a “succulent” discussion.

Participants are asked to watch the film beforehand. Information on how to do so will be provided by email after registering.

Zoom. Registration link

The Law and Film team:

Edward van Daalen (McGill Faculty of Law)

Vittoria Becci (Sciences Po Law School) 

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