Poetic Justice:A Study Of Director Sidney Lumet’s Cinematography

Justice is a fundamental value requirement of public life.Poetic justice is an important way of justice narration,which is not only based on the law of “justice”,but also on the moral concern of the imagination of literary works.Due to his life and practical experience,most of his films are concerned with mental state and life situation of marginalized individuals,which convey the concept of poetic justice.Based on the view of poetic justice,the deeper meaning of Lumet’s films aims to provide society with the realistic value of“justice” construction.This thesis firstly traces the origins and explores the theory of poetic justice,and proposes that the need for the construction of moral justice in cinema is presented,revealing the role of “poetic justice” as a bridge between cinema and public life.In the light of director Lumet’s life and creative experience,he explores the meaningful sources of the characteristics of his works from the stages of immigrant life,Broadway theater experience and military experience.Therefore,the anti-war themes and family themes in Lumet’s films are summarized,as well as the disorder exposure and justice imagination of public institutions.In Lumet’s films,the director,as the creator and “judge,” upholds the measure of moral regulation,and illustrates the issues of justice,moral light,and judicial fairness as important components of the spirit of his films,so as to concretely construct the space and characters of the film texts through the relationship between the court and the lawyers.In the legal space of Lumet’s films,the characters are often in the dilemma of private desire and public justice.They are also in the closed but open space,constituting the corresponding dramatic dilemma together.Viewing the multi-dimensional narrative structure of Lumet’s films,it can be found that whether it is classical narrative,circular narrative,all these narrative threads point to the poetic expression of justice itself under the dispatch of time and space,i.e.the use of“meaningful forms” to become the silver screen speech of legal writing and moral justice.Finally,the realism of Lumet’s film texts is pointed out,that is,the realism of social issues is realized at the material level.In the context of his classic works such as Murder on the Orient Express and Hot Afternoon,he discusses the relationship between human nature and the law,and argues that the realist character of “boundlessness” is the prominent aesthetic characteristic of Lumet’s films.This cinematic character of both “reflection” and“compensation” embodies the imaginary demand for social justice and realistic concerns,and can be an integral part of the current virtual digital ecology and consumerist situation,especially highlighting the educational role of public reason and the ultimate concern for human values.