Anatomy of a Fall: Interpersonal Drama as a Courtroom Drama

This paper considers the French filmmaker Justine Triet’s 2023 award-winning film, Anatomy of a Fall, through a screenwriter’s lens. It challenges the assertion that the film is a courtroom drama. Using the work of one of the key thinkers in the field of film studies, Phil Parker, this paper will demonstrate how and why Anatomy of a Fall is in essence an interpersonal drama. It will provide an overview of courtroom dramas before discussing the most popular template used in genre, the one based on the hero’s journey. It will then set out the seven components of an interpersonal drama, as described in Parker’s account, applying each in turn to Triet’s film. This paper will evaluate how law is itself a protagonist in interpersonal drama. Although this film is not a legal movie, it is nonetheless an excellent comment about the law, because all social relations can be seen as legal relations and legal subjectivity.