"Decoration Day" When "Decoration Day" opens, we find Judge Albert Sidney Finch, retired from the bench, seemingly enjoying his days fishing. As he puts it: "a man, a dog, and all kinds of quiet." What happens to Albert Sidney's "quiet" retirement? What makes it so difficult for lawyers to walk away from the world of law (and its entanglements)? Albert and Rowena have a friendly disagreement about exactly how Albert Sidney has walked away from his work. Albert Sidney says he retired; Rowena says he quit. In Albert Sidney's case, he makes it quite clear he wants to be left alone. Why don't those around him simply take the man at his word? When Billy Wendell, Albert Sidney's godson, comes to visit and ask for help in dealing with the government on behalf of "old Gee," he doesn't get all that warm a welcome. (Albert Sidney says that Billy's visit is "trespassing.") Billy asks Albert: "You okay Uncle Albert?" Albert Sidney tells him: "Just fine Billy, just fine." But we know that things are not "fine" in quite the sense Albert Sidney would have Billy believe.
What conclusions about a life in law is one to draw from these film lawyers who seem to have so little control over their "quiet" lives?
Michael Waring, the young lawyer who represents the government and its efforts to bestow a Congressional Medal of Honor on Gee, has some things to learn as well. How does his involvement in the Gee case change him? If we change when we learn something important about ourselves, what has Michael Waring learning that might have brought about the change? A student in the Lawyers and Film course, discussing "Anatomy of a Murder" found the film to be about loyalty. Can we say, in a similar way of "Decoration Day," that it is a film about secrets? How is a man's secret connected to what he most needs to learn about his own life?
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