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Law on Film
Law on Film explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films, even to those that are not obviously about the legal world. Film, meanwhile, tells us a lot about the law, especially how it is perceived and portrayed. The podcast is created and hosted by Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer, legal scholar, and film buff. Each episode, Jonathan and a guest expert will examine a film that is noteworthy from a legal perspective. What does the film get right about the law and what does it get wrong? Why is law important to understanding the film? And what does the film teach about law's relationship to the larger society and culture that surrounds it. Whether you're interested in law, film, or an entertaining discussion, there will be something here for you.
Law on Film
Ali (2001) (Guest: Dave Zirin) (episode 41)
Muhammad Ali is widely recognized as one of the greatest athletes of all-time and one of the most important figures of the 20th century. In addition to his long and celebrated career as a boxer and three-time heavyweight champion of the world, Ali changed the conversation about race, religion, and politics in America. Ali’s refusal to be inducted into the U.S. military during the Vietnam War on religious grounds—a profound act of resistance that resulted not only in Ali’s three-plus-year exile from professional boxing, but also a criminal conviction and five year-prison sentence that Ali almost had to serve until it was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court—represented a pivotal moment of the 1960s. Ali has been the subject of numerous books and documentary films, including the Oscar-winning When We Were Kings (1996) and The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013). He is also the subject of the 2001 Hollywood biopic, Ali (co-written and directed by Michael Mann and starring Will Smith as Ali), which focuses on the ten-year period from Ali’s capture of the heavyweight crown from Sonny Liston in 1964 to Ali’s fight against George Foreman in Zaire in 1974 (the famed “Rumble in the Jungle”). Once a sharply polarizing figure, Ali became one of the most celebrated and eulogized individuals in America, whose rich, if not incomparable, legacy reverberates around the world today.
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:22 Formative experiences
5:00 From Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali
10:26 Opposition to the Vietnam draft
13:16 Ali’s loss of his prime years
15:42 The broader significance of Ali’s opposition to induction
18:08 Ali’s legal challenges and the U.S. Supreme Court
22:48: The Fight of the Century
24:06 From a symbol of resistance to reconciliation
27:50 Becoming a global icon: The Rumble in the Jungle
35:30 Ali and Howard Cosell
36:57 Ali and Malcolm X
41:08 Some problems of the Ali biopic
44:12 Ali’s post-boxing career
47:53 Sports and resistance: Ali's legacy
Further reading:
Hauser, Thomas, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (1991)
Kindred, Dave, Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship (2006)
Lederman, Marty, “The story of Cassius Clay v. United States,” SCOTUSBlog (June 8, 2016)
Lipsyte, Robert, Free to Be Muhammad Ali (1978)
Marqusee, Mike, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties (2017)
Remnick, David, King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (1998)
Zirin, Dave, Muhammad Ali Handbook (2007)
Zirin, Dave, The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World (2022)
Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.
For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html
You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com
You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz
You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm
You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast