The Addiction (1995)

For this second seminar of our Law and Film series Dr. Alberto Rinaldi will give a reading of Abel Ferrara 1990s vampire tale: The Addiction (1995).

On the surface, Ferrara’s cult classic about two New York grad students-turned-vampire appears to be a metaphor for drug addiction. However, this cinematic nightmare in which its various characters gradually sink deeper and deeper into the perils of evil, hides deeper metaphors still. What lies beneath this story of urban vampirism? Why it is staged in an academic environment?

Law (international law in particular) constantly deals with evil: crimes, mass murders, genocides etc. What demons take over when we fantasize about (im)possible propositions on human justice? And what are our addictions, when we write texts and advance theories in well-aligned paragraphs, accompanied by exhaustive footnotes? What if we realize that we ourselves are implicated in that evil we are trying to describe? Is law there to redeem us?

The Addiction poses a series of unsettling questions over human nature, guilt, and justice. Questions that every law student and practitioner sooner or later confront, when faced with the inexplicability of evil.

Invite-only event.

Contact the Law and Film team: Vittoria Becci and Edward van Daalen