SCREENING A LYNCHING by Matthew Bernstein is an engrossing meditation on how film and television represented a traumatic and tragic episode in American history that continues to fascinate people to this day. 

In this book, Bernstein offers the first analysis of the feature film and television representations of the 1913 Leo Frank case. Looking at Oscar Micheaux's film Murder in Harlem (1936), Mervyn LeRoy's film They Won't Forget (1937), the Profiles in Courage television episode "John M. Slaton" (1964), and the two-part NBC miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan (1988), Bernsteins explains the difficulty in presenting controversial issues such as racism and class resentment in mass media. However, he argues that film and television shows can provide worthy interpretations of history, even when they depart from the exact historical record. 

The book is available for purchase through UGA Press at http://ugapress.org/0820327522.html and through most major online booksellers. 

Best,
Erin Wilson
University of Georgia Press

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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu