Freedom. Equality. Civil liberty. These are the foundation stones of the United States’ constitution, and nothing is so close to the hearts of the American people than a rousing story chronicling success in upholding them. What is so fascinating and welcoming to see in THE CASE AGAINT 8 is that here the story is not just about the defence of those rights, but their extension to those who have previously been denied them – gays and lesbians.
Shot over 5 years, the film documents the long legal battle that successfully overturned California’s Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that defined marriage as only between one man and one woman. Beginning in August 2010, when two same-sex couples filed a law suit against Prop 8 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the film stays with these couples and their legal team right up until June 2013, when the case was finally settled in the American Supreme Court.
There is nothing clever, fancy or avant-garde about this film – it is, if you’ll excuse the bad pun, a straight documentary – but there does not need to be. This has all the power of the classically compelling tale of people fighting for their beliefs, injustices overturned, true love rendered triumphant. Who wouldn’t be standing in the aisles clapping and crying at the end of that? But what is so compelling about the film, in addition to its story, is the way in which it reveals how entirely rooted in drama the US legal system is. The two same-sex couples who file the law suit were chosen by the legal team from thousands. They were auditioned, vetted, chosen for their suitability and, without a doubt, their photogenic media-friendly appeal. Preparation for trial is a process of rehearsal and role-play. Trial day is the première. Cases are won and lost, not just on the weight of a good argument, but more often by the best performance. THE CASE AGAINST 8 is edited to show this brilliantly, allowing time and space for the key players, but also the supporting actors — for instance, the equal rights lawyer who declares that so many conservatives have come out in support of gay marriage that he now thinks he’s fighting for the wrong side. A light, comic, often camp, touch adds a spring to this film that befits its subject matter and balances perfectly the carefully treated, heartfelt moments of sorrow, pain and remembered discrimination, which it also does not flinch from documenting.
“Cases are won and lost, not just on the weight of a good argument, but more often by the best performance…”
Add to all this, the gift that the legal team brought into unforeseen union the two foes of America’s perhaps most famous twenty-first century trial – the Supreme Court resolution of the 2000 Presidential Election. From opposite sides of the courtroom to here, standing united, Conservative Theodore Olson (who represented Bush) and David Boies (who represented Gore) make queer but productive bedfellows in their defence of the equal right to marriage for all. The film’s courtroom drama doesn’t quite reach fever pitch since filming rights for inside the courtroom were denied. Some of the most rousing speeches have to be reread from court transcripts and lack the emotion that no doubt powered their live delivery. Yet the film doesn’t suffer much from this unavoidable absence. The overturning of Proposition 8 was a triumph for US gay rights, and that Ben Cotner and Ryan White had the foresight to film the whole process from the very beginning is a triumph for documentary making. Be proud, be very proud.
httpvh://youtu.be/yyyQu-uZ4ZE