Recreating a Lynching, Part II

Kelly Baker

My previous post on Screening a Lynching focused on the cinematic recreations of the Leo Frank Trial and subsequent lynching. This is my very tardy follow up post, and I promise no more about Leo Frank from me until at least next year.

The newest attempt to narrate this sensational trial and its aftermath is The People Vs. Leo Frank (2009), which based largely on Steve Oney's book, And the Dead Shall Rise:The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank (2003). The docudrama relies on dialogue from the historical record as well as interviews with scholars, including Leonard Dinnerstein who has his own book on the trial and lynching, as well as descendants of those involved in this historical event. The People Vs. Leo Frank takes the position that Frank was obviously innocent and documents Frank's innocence with detailed accounts on the crime scene and trial. What I like about this rendition is its attempt to situate both the trial and the lynching in place, period and culture. The early moments of the docudrama highlight Atlanta's growth as a city, the place of the Jewish population in the Southern city and the growing concern over Jewish immigrants by 1913. What I was not as interested in was the crime show feel of the whole film. The film maker spent much time on excrement, blood stains, and questionable testimony. These, I guess, make for good entertainment for the popular audience, but in many ways, The People rehashes previous renderings of the case. For instance, the film strongly suggests that Jim Conley, the black janitor, was responsible for the murder of Mary Phagan, which might be true.

There were two things that were particularly striking to me about this docudrama. First, there was not enough attention to the problem of anti-Semitism. The documentary actually seems to suggest that anti-Semitism was not a real presence in American culture before the lynching, which is wholly untrue. One of the most fascinating parts of the docudrama involves how Frank's attorneys tried to use black prejudice to combat the religious prejudice that their client faced. Moreover, the prosecutor Dorsey argued that the defense "injected religious prejudice" in the trial because he obviously believed that he was not pandering to Jewish stereotypes. What The People successfully visualizes is the clearly anti-Semitic atmosphere of Atlanta, and the avid belief of Frank's attorneys and supporters that a white (Jewish) man, Frank, would not be convicted by the words of a black man, Conley. They were clearly wrong. I was initially skeptical of the film maker's use of re-enactment, but to see as well as hear Conley's testimony made it clear by the jury chose to believe him. His story was debauchery, and the jury and the larger Atlanta wanted to believe that Frank was a sexual pervert who violated vulnerable young white women.

Second, the women of the trial and the lynching are merely placeholders. My frustration is not simply directed at this film on this point, however. Frank's wife, Lucille, instead of being an active and ardent supporter of her husband, becomes a good looking woman who tenderly touches Frank's hand, sits quietly in the courtroom and writes him poetic love letters. This does not represent the actual Lucille, who was quite vocal about her husband's innocence. She is simply a silent sufferer through out. Not surprisingly, Mary Phagan is the poor, wretched victim. She appears in Frank's office to ask for her pay in her best clothes for the Confederate memorial parade. She's blonde and polite, and she gently asks Frank if there will be more work for her soon. The next time Phagan appears in the docudrama, she's dead. Luckily, there is some commentary from scholars about the place of young women in factories in the South and the gender and class conflict that arises, but visually this piece of the story is missing. Phagan becomes a placeholder and warning for young white women. Her sweet persona is much more important than her actual personhood. Nancy MacLean writes effectively about the class and gender impetus for the lynching of Leo Frank, and I would have liked to see some of her insight here. For a film about a lynching in a which the death of a young woman is central, women are relegated to silent second tier characters while the voices and actions of men become the leading narrative. Granted, the film is about Frank, but I would really like to see someone tackle the implications of the visual culture of Mary Phagan and her hagiography. The film even recreates the stream of young women who testified against Frank, but we don't hear much of their voices. Instead, their appearances and purported innocence is what we see on screen, and I would have liked more reflection on the inaccuracies of the their testimony as well as how these young women became the voice of Mary Phagan.

My final point on The People Vs. Leo Frank (and Leo Frank for awhile) is the actual visualization of the lynching in the docudrama. This recreation shows the level of planning and strategy in the capture and subsequent lynching of Frank. Frank was removed from prison without a lock broken or a shot fired. The film estimated that it took ten minutes to remove this famous prison from his prison. His captors drove him to Marietta, Phagan's hometown. The lynch party was not chaotic but solemn. Visually, the lynching scene focuses on Frank's feet. Gradually, the viewer sees Frank's form hanging from a tree with crowds gathering slowly. Then, the film uses actual photographs of the lynching to juxtapose with the reenactment. Over 15,000 people passed by Frank's body at an Atlanta funeral home. The rope was cut into small sections and sold.

One of the interesting questions that emerges at the end of the film is how could elite, educated people commit this lynching. The assumption, I guess, is that these types of people would not be involved in brutality. Instead of dodging this question, descendants of the lynchers discuss this very point matter of factly. Those that planned and committed the lynching envisioned themselves as bearers of the law and justice. Phagan was murdered, and her gruesome murder needed to be avenged by another equally gruesome death. In MacLean's article, she quotes a minister who notes that this lynching (this sacrifice) is somehow better because the victim was Jewish and white. It almost made it seem like Phagan's death was vindicated by the lynching, but yet she remained just a banner for a cause not her own person. Phagan remained a victim, and Frank became a victim. And unfortunately, visualizing these events does not necessarily bring clarity to this murky historical event. Recreating a lynching might present the peculiar trial to a modern audience but it does not explain the lasting interest in a trial about the murder of a young white women supposedly by a white man. I, sometimes, wonder if the interest in this case doesn't have to with the failure of the privilege of whiteness in this historical moment. In the repeated disbelief that Frank was convicted by the testimony of a black man, I see glimmers of concern. Maybe I am reading too much into the trial and its visualizations, but again, I begin to wonder.

Recreating a Lynching, Part I

Kelly Baker

In Screening a Lynching: The Leo Frank Case on Film and Television, Matthew Bernstein, a professor of Film Studies at Emory, examines the retelling of the Leo Frank trial (1913) and Frank’s subsequent lynching (1915) in film and on television. (For a quick primer on the Leo Frank trial and lynching, see "Marietta's Shame" and "The Trial of Leo Frank"). Like many others, Bernstein writes about the lasting interest in the trial as well as documents the difference between historical record and dramatic renderings of the story. The fascinating book begins with a discussion of this particular lynching. Frank, after all, was white and Jewish, and the usual victims of lynching were African American men. It still befuddles some that Frank became a victim of such a horrific crime. Speculation about the case and what actually happened still runs rampant with popular claims now that Jim Conley, a janitor at the pencil company where Phagan worked and Frank managed, as the responsible party. (However, the grandniece of Mary Phagan previously made claims that Frank was the murderer).

For Bernstein and other scholars of this particular case, Frank’s fate was sealed because of his religion not because of class or geographic location. Moreover, Bernstein categorizes the “obsession” with this historical event as overwhelming considering the other events of the time period. Bernstein rather than rehashing the case for analysis instead looks at artistic representations of the trial to see how the Frank trial was perceived in both cinema/television and popular culture. The recreations illuminate why trial has such lasting quality. Why were audiences from the 1920s to the 1980s (and now 2009) interested in the lynching of a Northern Jew? What does this story highlight about the American South? Or what does it suggest about the nature of the South that still holds appeal/disgust? Screening answers these questions and provides illuminating discussion of how history is portrayed and the consequences and advantages of these portrayals. Additionally, Bernstein meticulously points about inaccuracies in recreations as well as reasons for creative license taken with the story.

The Frank trial’s allure comes from the sensationalism as well as the ability for the story to be represented so well visually. Bernstein writes:

It is a murder mystery, a detective story, and a tale of cynical and sensational journalism.It has courtroom drama and features an extraordinary sacrifice by a politician. It involves a devoted married couple torn apart by external events. It features the perturbing qualities and multiple ironies of a “wrong man” story…(21).

The Frank trial appeals especially to modern audiences who watch CSI: and its many competitors with something akin to devotion. More importantly, Bernstein’s work questions the dichotomy placed between history and film. Historians like to dismiss the docudrama, but Bernstein pushes historians to realize that are so different from their film counterparts. Rather historians and “visual storytellers” both shape the historical record to present their tales, and this shaping includes representation and elaboration. What I find most interesting about this discussion is Bernstein’s claim that film is able to take “idealized facts of the case” make them authoritative. This would not fly in published accounts but gives the film “greater power and resonance than one based on a fictional work” (23).

The four recreations of case highlight the trauma of the event in an attempt at comprehension, and each tells a different version of the story. For instance, Bernstein notes that Frank’s Jewishness does not appear in either of the films but appear in the television versions. In addition, the story becomes more complete as directors had more access to historical resources. Jim Conley’s role in the trial moves from witness to the actual guilty party of the rape and murder of Mary Phagan that The People Vs. Leo Frank (2009), not included in Bernstein’s work, suggests very strongly. In the early 1960s, the portrayal of Governor John Slaton suggests that he was a selfless white hero, who braved the angry mob calling for Frank’s death. The portrayal of Southerners in these visual retellings sometimes turns to caricature and other times downplay sectionalism all together.

Two things in particular from Bernstein’s work are of interest to our readers. First is the troublesome issue of how to portray anti-Semitism. Some of visualizations ignore the issue entirely. In Profiles of Courage (1964), an episode devoted to Governor Slaton downplayed anti-Semitism as the cause of the lynching but this rendition was one of the first to even present anti-Semitism at all. Instead, the episode highlighted demagoguery of Tom Watson who created “phobias” in the Southern populace. What is striking here is the inaccuracy with the historical record because Watson’s sentiments about the trial highlighted his virulent anti-Semitism. Interestingly, The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988) toned down Watson so that the miniseries was not overwhelming about prejudice against Leo Frank as a Jew. Anti-semitism appears in the miniseries in trial scenes. The docudramas presented by Bernstein illuminated the unease at how to portray the trial and lynching with prejudice as the basis. Thus, playing down prejudice to make audiences more comfortable was acceptable. Yet highlighting the shocking fact that Jim Conley, an African American man, was believed over Frank, a white man, seems to be central for all the recreations. Perhaps, Frank’s Jewishness gets in the way of retelling by complicating presentations of race and ethnicity. It might just be easier to suggest that Frank was white, and only present his Jewishness as religious affiliation.

Second, the focus on how to recreate a lynching and discuss such violence is also central to Bernstein’s book. Visualizing a lynching proved difficult for the films and television programs. To present the trial, directors also had to present a lynching. Thus, they provided glimpses of the act and Profiles showed a picture of Frank’s body, though The Murder of Mary Phagan recreated the whole act. Moreover, audiences might not be able to stomach the recreation. Yet audiences might like to imagine the chaos and spontaneity of a lynching rather than to see the planning and organization by firmly middle class leaders of Georgia communities. If we only see Frank hanging, we are somehow able to avoid thinking about the careful precision of his demise. The Murder of Mary Phagan illuminates the precision, which, I think, enhances the brutality. This miniseries, however, shows a much smaller crowd that gathered to see Frank’s body. People watched and “consumed” lynchings, and the death of Frank was no different. For those interested in the Frank trial or simply interested in how film renders history, Bernstein’s book is a worthy read.

Next week, I’ll continue the discussion of Leo Frank while reviewing the new docudrama, The People Vs. Leo Frank.

The People Vs. Leo Frank

Kelly Baker

The lynching of Leo Frank remains a subject of historical and popular interest. Frank, a Northern Jew, was accused of the rape and murder of Mary Phagan. For crime show buffs, the case contains mishandled evidence, questionable testimony, and good old fashioned prejudice. Modern audiences might have a hard time believing the mismanagement of the case, but the historical record clearly shows the political as well as social pressures that the judge, jury and prosecutor faced to find Phagan's murderer.

The trial and the resulting lynching have been dramatized in film and literature since the 1920s, and the most recent dramatization, The People Vs. Leo Frank, airs on PBS tonight at 10 pm EST.

The new film combines reenactment and interviews to shed light on this case. CNN describes the film:

It's a classic whodunit, starting with the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl and ending in a lynching. It was grist for a prosecutor's political aspirations, a case that was appealed all the way to the country's highest court and a story hotly debated in the national press.

At the center of it all was Leo Frank, a northern Jew who'd moved to Atlanta to supervise the National Pencil Company factory. When the body of Mary Phagan, a white child laborer, was found in the basement, law enforcement homed in on Frank. He was tried and convicted, based on what most historians say was the perjured testimony of a black man, and sentenced to death. But when the governor commuted his sentence in 1915, about 25 men abducted Frank, 31, from the state prison and hung him from a tree in Marietta, Georgia.

Considered one of the most sensational trials of the early 20th century, the Frank case seemed to press every hot-button issue of the time: North vs. South, black vs. white, Jew vs. Christian, industrial vs. agrarian. In the years since, it has inspired numerous books and films, TV programs, plays, musicals and songs. It has fueled legal discussions, spawned a traveling exhibition and driven public forums.

The answers to these questions, or theories, keep coming.Who murdered Mary Phagan? What forces were behind the lynching of Frank? Why should we still care?

"Leo Frank was not a good ole Southern boy. He was different and not ashamed of being different," said Ben Loeterman, whose new documentary, "The People v. Leo Frank," will air Monday on PBS. "The test of us as a society is not necessarily how we treat the best among us but how we treat the most questionable."

Later this week, I'll post my thoughts about this particular film and the current scholarship on Leo Frank. I encourage other contributors (especially Art Remillard) to join in the discussion on why this cold case has such popularity still and what Frank's lynching says about the religion and intolerance in 1920s America.