Nuremberg

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★

Rated: M

Directed by: James Vanderbilt

Based on the Book: ‘The Nazi and the Psychiatrist’ by Jack El-Hai

Written for the Screen by: James Vanderbilt

Produced by: Richard Saperstein, Bradley J. Fischer, James Vanderbilt, William Sherak, and Walden Media’s Frank Smith, Benjamin Tappan and Cherilyn Hawrysh alongside István Major of Filmsquad and George Freeman.

Starring: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Mark O’Brien, Colin Hanks, Wrenn Schmidt, Lydia Peckham, Lotte Verbeek, Andreas Pietschmann.

JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON Opening Statement at the Nuremberg Trials, November 21, 1945.

“The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”

The film begins on May, 7^th, 1945.

It’s an introduction of white font on black background, a foundation of black and white, right and wrong, good versus evil.

An Allied soldier pisses on a Nazi symbol.

The war is over.

A car drives through the lost, migrating civilians as the driver honks the horn.

A hand reaches to tear the white lace from a young girl’s dress to wave to the soldiers in surrender.

It’s Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe).

They’ve captured Hermann Göring alive.

Göring waits in the car for the soldiers to retrieve his luggage.

Nuremberg is based on the account of those who lived to tell the tale and those who didn’t.  Of chief U.S. prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, AKA Justice Jackson (Michael Shannon) making a precedent whereby war criminals can be held to account in an international court of law for crimes against humanity.

“Robert Jackson basically invented the international criminal court,” notes screenwriter and director, Vanderbilt.

Historical consultant for the film Michael Berenbaum points out (regarding the capture of Nazi’s at the end of the war), “Churchill wanted to shoot them, and Stalin wanted a Stalinist trial – where the outcome is already decided. The new American president, Harry S Truman, wanted to make it about justice.”

The racism against the Jewish people in Germany began with the Nuremberg Laws recited at the seventh Nazi Party Congress by Göring, and Justice Jackson wants the war to end with Göring facing his crimes in a courtroom of law.

The psychiatrist to analyse the Nazi inmates as they wait to stand trial is U.S. Army psychiatrist Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek); the task he feels, above his paygrade.  But he quickly becomes immersed after meeting, Hermann Göring – Reichsmarschall and Hitler’s second in command.

Kelley wants to dissect the psychology of the captured Nazis to understand what makes them different; what is it that makes them evil.  He wants to write a book.  And he plans to understand by conducting tests like the Rorschach inkblot test – the response of each prisoner giving the audience insight into each captured Nazi’s state of mind, of their focus – ‘blood’, ‘butterfly’, ‘vagina’, ‘Jewish vagina’.

It’s also about listening, everyone wants to be listened to. Kelley states, ‘It’s a natural instinct.’

The black and white theme continues throughout the film with the black and white footage of the concentration camps undeniably evil.  The fade from black and white is also used to depict the courtroom to take the audience back in time.  But it’s more than a step back in time, it’s a differentiation between the black and white, good and evil of what happened in those concentration camps, versus the colour footage of the conversations between Kelley and the Nazis, between the Allies and the defeated, to depict the many shades of human nature.

Vanderbilt states, “I like the idea of taking characters you’d think would be one way and then showing another side of them, which is also exactly what Kelley found in Göring.”

And to show a more grounded perspective of the effects of war is Sgt. Howie Triest (Leo Woodall) as translator.  A character one can relate to.  A person who has lost his family to the Nazi regime and is now speaking to the leaders in person, holding himself back.  Waiting for his time to show them who he really is.  Waiting to take some part of himself back from the ones who took so much.

This is a courtroom, psychological thriller dominated by the dialogue of characters that show all the shades of humanity, both the good and bad and all that’s in between.  The film is structured around the three main characters: Göring, Kelley and Robert Jackson – the casting exceptional with the performances from Russell Crowe, Rami Malek and Michael Shannon giving the film a worthy and powerful impact.

Russell Crowe is particularly commanding with his portrayal of Göring’s power and intelligence, making the wait for Göring’s next play, absorbing.  Göring’s a complicated character that requires a balance of charm, manipulation and wit; a likable yet evil character that dominates the screen.

To capture the suspense and emotional tone of the courtroom, director Vanderbilt set up a particularly poignant scene by running, ‘[…] four cameras simultaneously, [to] allow the actors to perform an unbroken 17-page scene. The takes would last up to 25 minutes on their own.’

So the expression of each character has a more genuine aspect because the reactions are recorded as the scene is happening, capturing each nuanced change in feeling.

Although the film isn’t set on the battlefield, there’s imagery that’s disturbing and hard to shake.  The footage of the concentration camps shown in the courtroom nauseating, sickening and something we should never forget.

The film felt like a warning, with insight into the politics of the time. How Adolf Hitler made Göring feel good to be German again.

About the devastating loss of WWI crushing Germany so the people came to hate so much they almost conquered the world just two decades later.

Seventy million dead.

So hard to believe it happened.

‘How is what I just saw possible?’ Kelley keeps asking.

The statement in the film, ‘The only clue to what man can do is what man has done,’ continues to resonate.

And the message that has left me unsettled and wondering about the world right now was that Kelley wanted to know what made the Nazis evil, what was the difference between them and everyone else?  In Kelley’s opinion, nothing.