published by the WeChat public account "Intelligent Legal New Media". In 2003, the American Film Institute selected 50 heroes and 50 villains in film history in the past 100 years. The 1962 film "Kill a Mockingbird" Atticus Finch, the lawyer played by Gregorian Parker, became the first big screen hero in the century-old film history, overpowering James Bond and Indiana Jones. In the film, Tom Robinson, a black man, is accused of raping a white woman, and Vinci lawyers defended her without hesitation. Anti-racism is the biggest political correctness in the United States today, so Vinci lawyers are the incarnation of justice, shining brightly in black and white film.
So how can you become a hero like Vinci? The film "Bridge of Spies" directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks shows us the three steps for an ordinary lawyer to become a national hero.
The first step is to risk the lives of his family to defend that
Tom Hanks plays a New York lawyer named James Donovan in this film based on real events. The naming partner of a large law firm has three children and can be described as a successful career and a happy family. In 1957, Donovan was 41 years old, and the female writer Harper Lee, who was 10 years younger than him, was writing the novel "Killing a Mockingbird" in a small town in Alabama. I think even if Donovan read the manuscript of the novel at that time, he would never have thought that an insurance lawyer like him could become an American hero like the anti-racist Vinci lawyer.
But one day, Donovan received a notice from the American Bar Association stating that he would defend a Soviet man suspected of espionage. Because the defendant did not know any lawyers and someone had to defend him, the Federal Court handed the case to the Bar Association, and after a vote, the Bar Association committee unanimously elected Donovan as the defense attorney. He was selected because Donovan served as an assistant to US Attorney Robert Jackson during the Nuremberg trial. But that was already 12 years ago, and he is now an insurance lawyer. And more importantly, the pressure and danger of defending a Soviet spy in the United States during the Cold War has surpassed that of Vinci in "Robin." So his house was shot, and the lives of himself and his family were greatly threatened.
If you carefully observe his expression after the shooting, you will find that he is actually smiling! Why did a 7-year-old American boy smile after being shot? Because the boy is demonstrating the way to avoid danger he learned in school, is to stand against the wall. The school just let go of a national defense education film about the possibility of the Soviet Union dropping an atomic bomb on the United States.
So what should we do after receiving death threats? Not only can't back down, but also go to the next step without hesitation.
In the second step, expressing the immense respect for the Constitution
is to foresee that defending the Soviet spy is thankless, so the Bar Association and the trial judge just want him to go through the scene and behave. For example, a conversation in the judge's office before the trial:
Donovan: I don't think we can finish this in three weeks. You know, we have a lot of evidence.
Judge: Do you want to postpone it?
Donovan: Give me six weeks. I mean, basically it’s only myself and my colleagues dealing with the
judge: Jim (Donovan’s middle name), are you serious?
Donovan: Yes, indeed, I mean it. You can see from the file...
Judge: Jim, this man is a Soviet spy!
Donovan: They said he was...
Judge: Come on, lawyer! Of course, I respect you very much, and we respect you very much, because you have taken on this unthankful case, this person will have legal proceedings, but we are not here to fool each other. He will be vigorously defended, and then, God bless, he will be convicted. Come on, lawyer, let's not fool each other.
In the eyes of Donovan, a staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution, the presiding judge must have failed the Constitution while he was studying in law school. But he couldn't "follow the crime" to teach judges what the Constitution is, so on the eve of the trial, Donovan explained to a CIA agent why he said that "the Constitution is the foundation of the United States":
you are Detective Hoffman. Clerk, right? German descent. My name is Donovan, of Irish descent. Both parents are Irish. I am of Irish descent, and you are of German descent. But what makes us all Americans? There is only one thing, one thing, and the only thing, and that is the book of rules, which we call the constitution. We obeyed those regulations, which made us American citizens. That is what protects us as American citizens.
This passage can be regarded as the opening remarks of the Constitution class of the American Law School. With this constitutional belief, Donovan walked into the court with no hesitation, just like the lawyer Vinci in "The Robin". Since the presiding judge does not regard the Constitution as its spiritual belief, there are many violations of the Constitution in the procedures. So Donovan fully grasped these loopholes and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, so the film appeared in other legal movies, which are rare scenes of the Supreme Court of the United States. Faced with nine justices, Donovan still focused on elucidating constitutional principles. Because the second step is to repeatedly express the incomparable respect for the Constitution.
Of course, it is not enough to express respect for the Constitution. There is a final and crucial step.
Third, resolutely practice the American dream in action
The U-2 crash occurred on May 1, 1960. An American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down in Soviet airspace. Francis Powell, a pilot on a spy mission, was captured by the Soviet Union. On August 19, Gary Powell was convicted of espionage in the Soviet military court and sentenced to 3 years in prison and 7 years of hard labor. After serving 1 year and 9 months in prison, on February 10, 1962, the Soviet Union decided to use him in exchange for another KGB colonel, Rudolf Abel, who was arrested for espionage in New York, USA. It was the Soviet spy that Donovan defended. Because it was at the freezing point of US-Soviet relations, the CIA approached Donovan, hoping that he would negotiate with the Soviet authorities in the name of a lawyer and exchange Soviet spies for American pilots.
In Donovan's view, if the transfer is successful, not only the American pilot will be free, but his client, the Soviet spy, will also be able to return to their homeland. So he gladly accepted this "non-litigation business" and went to East Germany alone.
At this time, a doctoral student named Frederick Player in the Yale University Department of Economics was arrested while traveling to East Germany to find a professor and girlfriend. So Donovan also wanted to rescue the PhD students, but the US government represented by the agents believed that if only one could be replaced, the more "valuable" pilots must first be replaced. But in Donovan's view, only saving pilots but not students, is this still the spirit of equality in the United States? Everyone's life is equally precious. So he insisted on changing one for two, otherwise he would not let anyone go. At his firm request, his client, a Soviet spy, was eventually exchanged for a pilot and a Yale University PhD in Economics, which not only helped the three prisoners regain their freedom, but also demonstrated the principle of equality. , To popularize what is called advanced patriotic behavior to ordinary Americans is to actively practice the American ideal, that is, freedom and equality. This is the core of the American dream.
The woman in red who appeared twice in the film is not a passerby, she is a symbol of the American public. In the past, the red-clothed women despised and hated Donovan because of the agency spy case. Now, after the stormy constitutional popularization and the ideal display of the American dream, she finally cast her admiration and admiration on Donovan.
So through three steps, Donovan, an ordinary insurance lawyer, became a hero of the United States. As for the subsequent trip to Cuba to deal with the Pig's Bay incident, the negotiation with Castro and the rescue of 9703 hostages were merely repeating the third step.
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