Does the Bulger film cross the artistic line?

An Irish director’s short film about the killers of James Bulger has received an Oscar nomination, and has made us wonder –again – what is permissible in the name of art

For those of us old enough to remember as far back as February 1993, the image from the newspapers and in news footage on television at the time remains indelible: the sight of a small boy being led through a shopping centre, his back to us, his hand by an older child.

We viewed the image through the grainy lens of a CCTV camera, and through the horrified haze of retrospect, because the ...