The construction of legally relevant facts. A study based on the film The trial of the Chicago seven

Abstract

The article analyzes the legally relevant facts in the subjectivity of the characters in “The Trial of the Chicago Seven”, a film by Aaron Sorkin produced in 2020. The film recounts the anti-Vietnam War riots that took place in Chicago in August 1968 on the occasion of the Democratic Convention and the trial in which the leaders of the demonstrations were indicted. The article facilitates the understanding of the subjective construction of legally relevant facts from specific historical and socio-political contexts. Methodologically, it was proposed as a result of a qualitative exploratory research that sought to  demonstrate the relationship between cinema and law and its ability to understand the role of the subject and subjectivity in the construction of legally relevant facts, complementing the content analysis as a tool. It is concluded that cinema and law are constructions that facilitate the understanding of the causal elements of the Chicago events of August 1968. Furthermore, film is a tool that facilitates hypothetical approaches to the ways in which legally relevant facts are constructed and, in this particular case, to the ways in which the facts were constructed in the prosecution of the trial of the leaders of the protest movement.