JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG Movie Review
1961 Stanley Kramer
Writer Abby Mann and director Stanley Kramer use a variation on the traditional courtroom drama to examine the horrors of Nazi Germany. Though their film is long, deliberately paced, and grim, it deals honestly with a difficult subject. Unlike so many works that address Nazism, this one tries not to see it as pure evil, but instead to measure the degrees of individual and collective responsibility for acts that were committed while the Third Reich was in power. Questions of Cold War politics are brought into play, too, further complicating an already thorny situation.
The year is 1948. Top Nazi leaders have already been tried for war crimes, and the Allied tribunals have reached the lower levels. As Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) says, “Now we're down to the business of judging the doctors, businessmen and judges. Some people think they shouldn't be judged at all.” But he and two other American judges must decide the guilt or innocence of four German jurists, among them Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), a respected legal mind who had established an international reputation before the Nazis came to power.
Prosecuting him is Col. Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), whose experiences liberating a concentration camp have made him perhaps too passionate in his desire for justice. Lawson's opposite number is defense counsel Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell), who is equally dedicated to his client and is willing to do whatever it takes to win his case.
Everyone involved agrees that they're dealing with “crimes committed in the name of the law” and so they are trying, in hindsight, to define acts that are legal but immoral. Two cases decided by the German judges in the 1930s become the focal points. The first concerns Rudolf Peterson (Montgomery Clift), a slightly retarded man who was subject to sterilization. The second revolves around Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland) who, as a teenager, was accused of having an affair with an older Jewish man. Outside the courtroom, Haywood sees a shamed and devastated country still rebuilding its shattered cities. Mme. Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich) is a widow whose perspective shows Haywood yet another side of the German character.
As legal dramas go, this one is notably lacking in surprises and fireworks. Instead, it doggedly sifts through the records of the past and tries to determine why decisions were made. Loud moments of anger are brief and startling, but they do lead, finally, to two separate views of the recent past. One character says bluntly, “We have to forget if we are to go on living.” Another admits, “My counsel says we were not aware of the extermination of the millions. He would give you the excuse that we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any less guilty? Maybe we didn't know the details but if we didn't know, it was because we didn't want to know.”
At another point, Janning delivers a reasoned explanation of the initial popularity of Nazism to average Germans, but that does not begin to explain the atrocities. By the end, the filmmakers have made a plausible explanation for a system that slowly turned normal human beings into monsters. More importantly, they do not settle for a conventional conclusion. Their questions are too complex for simple answers that can be reduced to fines or prison sentences. Some viewers may find the closing epilogue an unsatisfactory conclusion to the story, but no one can doubt its honesty.
Cast: Spencer Tracy (Judge Dan Haywood), Burt Lancaster (Ernst Janning), Richard Widmark (Col. Tad Lawson), Montgomery Clift (Rudolf Peterson), Maximilian Schell (Hans Rolfe), Judy Garland (Irene Hoffman), Marlene Dietrich (Mme. Bertholt), William Shatner (Capt. Byers), Edward Binns (Sen. Burkette), Werner Klemperer (Emil Hahn), Torben Meyer (Werner Lammpe), Martin Brandt (Friedrich Hofstetter), Kenneth MacKenna (Judge Kenneth Norris), Alan Baxter (Gen. Merrin), Ray Teal (Judge Curtiss Ives), Karl Swenson (Dr. Geuter); Written by: Abby Mann; Cinematography by: Ernest Laszlo; Music by: Ernest Gold. Producer: United Artists, Stanley Kramer. Awards: Academy Awards '61: Best Actor (Schell), Best Adapted Screenplay; Golden Globe Awards '62: Best Actor—Drama (Schell), Best Director (Kramer); New York Film Critics Awards '61: Best Actor (Schell), Best Screenplay; Nominations: Academy Awards '61: Best Actor (Tracy), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (B & W), Best Black and White Cinematography, Best Costume Design (B & W), Best Director (Kramer), Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Clift), Best Supporting Actress (Garland). Running Time: 178 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV.