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The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court (Landmark Law Cases and American Society) Paperback – October 21, 2008

by Laura Wittern-Keller (Author), Raymond J. Haberski Jr. (Author)

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It was only a forty-minute foreign film, but it sparked a legal confrontation that has left its mark on America for more than half a century. Roberto Rossellini's Il Miracolo (The Miracle) is deceptively simple: a demented peasant woman is seduced by a stranger she believes to be Saint Joseph, is socially ostracized for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, but is finally redeemed through motherhood.

Although initially approved by state censors for screening in New York, the film was attacked as sacrilegious by the Catholic establishment, which convinced state officials to revoke distributor Joseph Burstyn's license. In response, Burstyn fought back through the courts and won.

Laura Wittern-Keller and Raymond Haberski show how the Supreme Court's unanimous 1952 ruling in Burstyn's favor sparked a chain of litigation that eventually brought filmmaking under the protective umbrella of the First Amendment, overturning its long-outdated decision in Mutual v. Ohio (1915). Their story features a more formidable cast than did the film itself, with the charismatic Francis Cardinal Spellman decrying the film as a Communist plot, while outspoken film critic Bosley Crowther vigorously advocated "freedom of the screen." Meanwhile, movie producers stood by silently for fear of alienating the Church and its large movie-going membership, leaving Burstyn to muster his own defense.

More than the inside story of one case, this book explores the unique place that the movies occupy in American culture and the way that culture continues to be shaped by anxiety over the social power of movies. The Burstyn decision weakened the ability of state censorship boards and the Catholic Church to influence the types of films Americans were allowed to see. Consequently, the case signaled the rise of a new era in which films would be more mature and more controversial than ever before.

Focusing on this single most important case in the jurisprudence surrounding motion picture expression, Wittern-Keller and Haberski add a significant new dimension to the story of cinema, censorship, and the history of First Amendment protections.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This lively work will stand as an important contribution to film history."—Historian

"[The authors] have taken this critical Supreme Court decision and constructed a thoughtful historical narrative that contextualizes it for a popular audience. Their book is accessible public history that demonstrates the importance of the Supreme Court in regulating public taste. . . . The authors’ concluding bibliographic essay is critical for anyone currently working on American motion picture history. It not only introduces readers to the key books and articles on motion picture censorship and archives related to the subject, but it also includes references on the creation of an American audience for foreign films."—American Historical Review

"An interesting, well-written case study . . . of a case, [that] dealt with the constitutionality of a New York statute that permitted the banning of motion pictures on the ground that they were ‘sacrilegious.&8217; . . . The case is discussed in the context of the history of film censorship in general, and the authors provide a well-documented account of how this controversy emerged from a simple dispute into a Supreme Court decision that affected the entire nation."—Choice

"Wittern-Keller and Haberski have produced an entertaining and readable work that will appeal to students studying the history of freedom of speech, and also to faculty who wish to enliven their constitutional law pedagogy with a case which has been obscured by time but which nevertheless deserves a second look."—Law and Politics Book Review

“An important milestone in the history of America’s ‘cultural wars,’ the Supreme Court’s 1951 decision in Burstyn v. Wilson deserves to be told in greater detail than previously provided by general histories of film censorship. Thanks to Wittern-Keller and Haberski that has now been accomplished.”—Gregory D. Black, author of Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies

“A fascinating and informative study that shows how debates about a little-known Italian film challenged fundamental ideas in America about censorship and freedom of expression and helped to forge a cultural revolution in the United States.”—Robert Brent Toplin, author of Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood

From the Back Cover

"An important milestone in the history of America's 'cultural wars,' the Supreme Court's 1951 decision in Burstyn v. Wilson deserves to be told in greater detail than previously provided by general histories of film censorship. Thanks to Wittern-Keller and Haberski that has now been accomplished."--Gregory D. Black, author of Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies

"A fascinating and informative study that shows how debates about a little-known Italian film challenged fundamental ideas in America about censorship and freedom of expression and helped to forge a cultural revolution in the United States."--Robert Brent Toplin, author of Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University Press of Kansas (October 21, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 248 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0700616195
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0700616190
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,789,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #155 in Media & the Law
- #1,296 in Censorship & Politics
- #1,304 in Legal History (Books)

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About the authors

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Laura Wittern-Keller
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With a bachelor's degree in history and English from the State University of New York at Albany, a master's degree in history from the Pennsylvania State University, and a PhD from the University at Albany, Wittern-Keller is a history professor. She has taught at Castleton State College in Vermont, at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW), and is currently in the history department at the University at Albany. Her research has focused on the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech and film censorship. From that research have come her first two books, Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, and The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court (co-authored with Ray Haberski). Her next published work came in an exciting new edited collection called Silencing Cinema (international perspectives). Silencing Cinema was published in 2013 by Palgrave. Another chapter has recently appeared in another great edited volume titled Hollywood and the Law (BFI/Palgrave, 2015). Her next book will focus on the McCarthy era and the speech restrictions that resulted in the deportation, denaturalization, and exclusion of supposedly dangerous people. She is also at work on a book about the history of age classification and ratings of movies. She teaches 20th century US urban and constitutional history at the University at Albany and was chosen as the 2007 New York State Archives researcher of the year. The Miracle Case was chosen December 2008 book-of-the-month by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. She lives with her husband, Jim Keller, in Albany, NY and Shrewsbury, VT.
To learn more, http://moviehistory.us
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Raymond J. Haberski
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Professor of History and Director of American Studies at IUPUI; contributor to S-USIH blog; and former Fulbright Danish Distinguished Chair in American Studies
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