From Historical Reality to Cinematic Allegory: The Crisis of Law and Ethical Agency in the Representations of Michael Kohlhaas

Authors : Serap Sarıbaş

Pages : 267-294

Doi:10.46250/kulturder.1705892

View : 58 | Download : 70

Publication Date : 2025-09-10

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This study examines how the political and ethical crisis resulting from the delegitimization of the legal order is reproduced in both literary and cinematic representations, based on a historical incident that occurred in 16th-century Saxony. Focusing on the transformation of the individual into a political subject when the pursuit of justice collides with the limits of the legal system, the Michael Kohlhaas narrative is explored not merely as a historical account but as a critical inquiry into modern legal thought. Originally documented in historical sources as a horse dealer seeking legal redress against the arbitrary actions of a corrupt nobility, the figure of Michael Kohlhaas is transformed into an allegorical character in Heinrich von Kleist’s 1808 novella, where the structural tension between law and justice becomes manifest. The individual action that arises in response to systemic corruption in Kleist’s narrative is transposed into a visual-aesthetic dimension in Arnaud des Pallières’ 2013 film Michael Kohlhaas (Age of Uprising), which opens a new field of inquiry into the cinematic articulation of justice and the representational crisis of modern law. This article, through an interdisciplinary approach, aims to examine the transformation of the Michael Kohlhaas figure, from a historical episode into a literary myth and subsequently a cinematic allegory, within philosophical, legal, and aesthetic frameworks. The representational voids that emerge in the pursuit of justice, in both Kleist’s text and Pallières’ film, are analysed as zones of rupture in which legitimacy is destabilized and a subjectivity grounded in ethical commitment is cinematically reconstructed at the intersection of law, state, and society.
Keywords : adaletin estetik inşası, alegorik isyan, psikopolitik gerilim, sinematik temsil, Michael Kohlhaas

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