In Cold Blood

(Richard Brooks, US 1967, 134 min., 35mm)

Courtroom Dramas. Based on Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, which itself was based on direct reporting of the real-life violent slaughter of a well-to-do Kansas family for the sum of $40, this film was shot in a stark black and white that underscores the dispassion of the killers. The film’s flashback structure provides temporal distance from the murders while allowing the audience to get to know the killers—resulting in a humanization in contrast with the acts they are accused of. Their lives hang in the balance as the film culminates in an impassioned debate about criminal punishment. This is the last great legal drama before the genre made a return in the late 1970s.