In a new movie, the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns explores the lives of the men who were convicted, and later exonerated, in the racially charged 1989 Central Park jogger rape case.

Now lawyers for New York City want to explore if much of the film’s unpublished interviews and unreleased footage might help them defend against a federal lawsuit filed by the men nine years ago in which they are seeking $50 million each.

City lawyers have subpoenaed notes and outtakes from the film, “The Central Park Five,” which includes in-depth interviews of the five men, who as teenagers came to embody racial tensions in a city overtaken by rampant crime.

Mr. Burns said the subpoena, dated Sept. 12, came after the city had spent years rebuffing requests for interviews that he felt would help best explain the actions taken by law enforcement officials involved in the prosecutions.