Film (Forensic Science in Cinema)

Crime investigation has long been a favorite theme in film. Evidence, such as blood, weapons, and fingerprints, can provide fascinating plot twists and many films feature a detective as the protagonist. Crime labs, crime scene investigations, and autopsies often appear in such films. Some are based on true stories, such as the 1971 classic 10 Rillington Place which is about the serial killer John Christie. Others are based on the work of famous crime authors, such as Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler. If the filmmakers have consulted with police and forensic experts to get the details correct, then watching forensic science in film can be both educational and entertaining.

Film critics classify the detective-mystery film, the type that is most likely to feature forensic science, as a sub-genre of the crime-gangster or suspense-thriller movie. These are two of the major film genres, alongside horror, war, romantic comedy, and other genres. When talking about the history and development of film, genre is a term referring to a type of film with a specific theme, structure, content, subject matter, or filmic technique. Like other genres, the detective-mystery movie has undergone many developments and changes during the last century. Some are dark and haunting; others are action-packed, fast-paced, clinical, or even funny. What they all have in common is a narrative that follows an investigation—which is where the forensic science comes in to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the period—and a protagonist acting as a detective figure, be it a private investigator, a police officer, or a forensic expert. The plot of a detective-mystery film is often focused on the deductive ability and diligence of the central protagonist as he or she unravels the crime by gathering evidence, seeking clues, interrogating witnesses, and tracking down suspects.

The first significant detective-mystery films concerned the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, the private investigator created by the Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). There have been more than 160 Holmes movies, ranging from a 30 second silent film featuring the detective that was produced sometime between 1900 and 1905, and the 2002 made-for-TV version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Perhaps the most famous portrayal of Holmes, with his Inverness cape, deerstalker hat, curved stem pipe, and magnifying glass, was by the British actor Basil Rathbone who appeared in 14 of the films between 1939 to 1946, including the classic Hound of the Baskervilles. The magnifying glass symbolizes the Holmes approach to detection: careful, painstaking, and, above all, scientific. The character was modeled on one of Conan Doyle's teachers at medical school, Joseph Bell, who always emphasized the importance of observation in making a diagnosis, advice that is equally applicable to criminal investigation.

Another classic series of detective-mystery films, appearing from the 1930s, featured the brilliant amateur detective Ellery Queen, based on the novels of cousins Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905–1971), who used the character's name as a joint pseudonym. Ellery Queen was to become one of the most popular authors of the golden age of American mystery fiction between the 1920s and 1940s, although the radio plays and films did not, perhaps, have the same impact as the short stories and novels. Other detective heroes of this era include Charlie Chan, Bulldog Drummond, teenager Nancy Drew, and husband-and-wife team Nick and Nora Charles.

Several of the stories of the world's most famous detective writer, Agatha Christie (1890–1976), have been made into films. Her fussy eccentric Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot appears in perhaps the best known of the Christie films, Murder on the Orient Express (1974). Directed by Sidney Lumet, the all-star cast including Albert Finney as Poirot. In the tale, a man is found murdered on the Orient Express and all the other passengers are suspects. It turns out they are all involved directly or indirectly in the case, and each one had a motive. Other Christie films feature a female investigator, the gray-haired Jane Marple, played by Margaret Rutherford, who was the protagonist in four films from the 1960s: Murder She Said, Murder at the Gallop, Murder Most Foul, and Murder Ahoy. Miss Marple has spent all her life in a sleepy English village where nothing much ever happens, but she has a remarkable eye for detail that serves well for crime investigation in any setting.

The history of the detective-mystery film can be traced through the evolution of the type of protagonist that, in turn, reflects changes in the pattern of crime and other societal factors. The gentlemanly approach of Sherlock Holmes, with his emphasis on logic and deduction seemed inappropriate for dealing with organized crime and gangs. Private investigator heroes became more physical, more likely to use violence in their pursuit of the criminal in films from the 1920s to 1940s. A significant development was the emergence of film noir, a film style characterized by moral and visual darkness, developed in the 1940s. Classics of the film noir era include The Maltese Falcon (1941), based on a story by Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) and starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade. The story has Spade investigating the death of his partner and being hounded by the police himself, while getting involved in the pursuit of a valuable statuette called the Maltese Falcon. The Big Sleep (1946) also stars Bogart, this time as as Philip Marlowe, the creation of Raymond Chandler (1888–1959). The complex plot involves seven killings, gambling, pornography, vice, and corruption. Both Spade and Marlowe are typical of the hard-boiled detective hero, preferring action, even violence, to analysis and careful investigation of evidence. These somewhat troubled heroes perhaps reflected the post-war mood in America, where men returning home often faced unemployment, disability, and a sense of alienation.

It was not until the late 1940s that the police and police procedure began to be a major focus in detective-mystery film. A major influence on the police procedural in film was the TV series Dragnet, which ran from 1951 to 1970. Dragnet emphasized the technical side of crime investigation, presenting it as rather less than glamorous. Details such as ballistics, surveillance, and forensic lab work soon began to find their way into film. The policeman hero was organized and methodical in his pursuit of the criminal. However, a new kind of protagonist began to emerge from the 1960s, as exemplified by Dirty Harry (1971), where a San Francisco cop, played by Clint Eastwood, tracks down a serial killer. Another classic from this era, The French Connection (1971), has Gene Hackman playing a New York City police officer pursuing drug smugglers. These heroes were tough and often angry and prepared to use controversial means of solving a crime. The action hero trend continued through the 1980s with films like Lethal Weapon (1987), starring Mel Gibson as a suicidal cop partnered with a more experienced officer as they investigate a drug smuggling racket in a blend of action and comedy.

However, from the 1990s to the present, there has been a return to the more intellectual, well-educated hero prepared to use observation and deduction rather than violence to solve a crime. One example is Clint Eastwood's Bloodwork (2002). Clint Eastwood plays a retired psychological profiling specialist, Terry McCaleb, who is recovering from a heart transplant. The plot twist comes when his new heart turns out to have come from a murder victim. Her death has been staged to look like a robbery gone wrong but is actually the work of a serial killer. McCaleb sets off in pursuit, an unlikely protagonist in comparison with the all-action hero.

Several aspects of forensic science also provide a background for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), directed by Jonathan Demme, in which the female protagonist, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), is a trainee FBI agent-investigator. The film concerns two serial killers, one of them, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), is behind bars while the other, known as Buffalo Bill, has just claimed a fifth victim whose autopsy is narrated in detail by Starling. The killer has kidnapped a sixth victim and the search is on to free her. To this end, Starling attempts to build a psychological profile of Bill, with Lecter's help. Lecter is a psychopathic psychiatrist who cannibalizes his victims and who has always been clever enough to avoid revealing his motives and inner fantasies to forensic investigators. Bill skins his victims post-mortem and also leaves an unusual signature. A forensic entomologist is brought in to identify the cocoon of the Death's-head moth, which is lodged in the throat of each victim. The film contains many other forensic and police procedural references.

Finally a forensic scientist himself becomes the victim in Death of an Expert Witness (1983), directed by Herbert Wise, which was the first film adaptation of the work of the English detective author P. D. James. It features Adam Dalgleish, a detective who writes poetry, and is set in a forensic laboratory in the East of England. The victim, as the title suggests, was also an expert witness. One of his colleagues may have killed him, a nice irony, given that forensic scientists are usually on the side of the law and are rarely under investigation themselves.