CW: Transphobia, Death
...And Justice for All (1979) begins with a black, trans-coded character, named Ralph Agee, being escorted into a holding cell block at the local police station wherein she is subjected to all manners of humiliating and degrading practices.
The cops force Ralph to strip naked right in front of a cheering crowd of inmates, who stand a few centimetres away from where she is, the jail bars being the only thing keeping them at bay. The entire scene is deliberately framed as horribly dehumanizing.
There might have been an intentional parallel between this character and Marsha P. Johnson of Stonewall Riots' fame but that is mere speculation. What matters here is that Ralph's basic human rights are being trampled for the evident amusement of her law-enforcing captors.
The scene sets the tone for the rest of the film, which is about the American judicial institution and who truly benefits from it. Agee's story is one of the many narrative threads weaving this tapestry.
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Another such story is that of a lower-class, young white man named Jeff McCullaugh who gets mistaken for a wanted criminal and rushed through a cruel system eager to condemn him, all at the hands of an uncaring judge - played by John Forsythe. Said judge happens to be charged with sexual assault.
All of these stories are tied together by Al Pacino's character, the protagonist, a defense attorney juggling all these cases and personal crises at the same time: Ralph and Jeff, the rapist judge (who blackmails him into court representation, by the way), and every other aspect of his life.
...And Justice for All paints an unflattering, unflappably verosimile picture of American "Justice" from the perspective of someone who tries (emphasis on "tries") to help those who cannot help themselves. Fighting the good fight but crashing on the wall of societal biases.
People like Ralph and Jeff are left to rot, cast down into the hell of the prison system by the hands of bigoted, classist, racist judges upholding the sanctity of the law. Only for the very same system of laws to bend over backwards in order to shield them from accountability when they are the ones who commit the crime. It's an all too familiar hypocrisy of which this film is merely scratching the surface... but the blood is still dripping out of it.
The direction is solid and the acting is superb - unsurprisingly, given the cast. Al Pacino was knocking it out of the park in the 1970's with Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather films, Sidney Lumet's Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. The latter, in particular, is relevant. If I had a nickel for every time Pacino played a trans ally in the 1970's...
Let's go back to the opening scene from ...And Justice for All. Whilst Ralph was being degraded in front of an eager audience. Pacino's character was lying on the floor inside one of the cells. He observed the scene in stunned silence as a homeless man was peeing himself beside him. This is how the protagonist is introduced, by witnessing a gross violation of human rights and getting urinated on for the trouble.
In an instant, you may understand his character, his motivations and his entire journey throughout the diegesis. The journey of a man trying to do good in a world that will quite literally piss on everything for which he stands, while he fails to help others.
Pacino has a penchant for playing the down-on-his-luck, well-meaning everyman constantly on the edge of spiraling and this role is no exception. Truthfully, everyone in the cast brings their A-game regardless of how much screen time they may have been given.
Robert Christian, in particular, brings forth a dimension of genuine frailty and humanity to Ralph Agee, a character that, in a lesser script, would have been reduced to a one-note joke. Her collective scenes are less the 20 minutes in total but she leaves a damn strong impression! The many times someone in a position of power makes her remove her wig are some of the most understatedly potent scenes in the entire picture. The casual cruelty on display is heartbreaking to watch. Christian's performance is what saves this role from being mere thematic fodder.
At the end of the day, this is what ...And Justice for All is actually about: humanity. Pontificating over the inherent unfairness of American institutions would have rung utterly hollow had the film forgotten to actually focus on the humans who are affected by all this, in depth. Without showcasing the horrid treatment reserved to the likes of Ralph and Jeff as well as who they were as people, their wants and needs, ...And Justice for All would have failed both its statement thesis and at forming a connection with the audience, because there would be no reason to care.
It sounds so painfully obvious when I type it all out like this but the sentiment speaks to the urgency by which I utter these words: there is no Art without Humanity, and there is no Art that can confront social issues without understanding people. Everything is interconnected, our experiences and the representation of said experiences as we exist under any form of governing bodies.
We literally live in a society.
And it's a society, the one we live in, that has been divided in castes and classes, by race, religion, sexuality and how much money one has in their bank accounts. It's a society that cares not for the fate of those who have been forced to reside at the very bottom...
I have more to say about Ralph's actor.
Robert Christian was an award-winning theatre thespian from New York. He's had several roles both in films and TV, one such role was that of Bob Morgan in the soap opera, Another World.
That would end up being his final role.
Christian died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1983. He was one of the earliest victims of the disease. He was 43. Robert Christian was a queer, black man who died of AIDS in the 1980's.
There are many thoughts, feelings floating in my head as I write this: anger, sadness, frustration, powerlessness. There are many, many things I could be adding right now to bring this entire essay to a full circle but, realistically, what is even left for me to say?!
What I will tell you, instead, is to go watch ...And Justice for All. It's not perfect and some aspects of it may have inevitably aged poorly, but it's real! It's a "prestige" Hollywood outing from 45 years ago with real queer representation and a real queer actor. It's not made up like freaking Goncharov! Do not let the memories of Robert Christian and Ralph Agee fade into obscurity like so many before and after it.
That's it. That's all I have to say.
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Sources: elisaroll.com/queerspaces and IMDB.
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