Friday evening last week, I took the opportunity to see a movie right on its opening day. Two of my siblings and my brother-in-law watched with me at Cinemark in Rialto, California.
I do wonder how a courtroom drama depicting a post-World War II trial resonates with today’s audiences. But as far as I know, Nuremberg, the movie in question, is as relevant a narrative as it was at the time of Adolf Hitler’s demise and the eventual defeat of his despotic Nazis. We’re talking about an event that happened 80 years ago.
Apart from the plot that can be simplified as putting on trial the surviving Nazi top brass, interest in the movie is heightened by the involvement of three remarkable actors—Best Actor Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Rami Malek, and two-time Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon.
Based on the 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai, this movie is a masterful craft of historical depiction with cinematic flair that includes footage showing the aftermath of the actual mass murder, which made the said trial compelling and necessary.
Crowe as Hermann Göring—the biggest fish being tried at the international tribunal that took place in the German city where propaganda rallies used to be held—symbolizes the arrogance and entitlement of Nazi leaders. He is the highest-ranking official caught, essentially representing the worst of the Nazis who had already cowardly taken their lives, like Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, and, of course, Hitler himself.
Crowe’s Göring is, as you can expect, an imposing figure even in prison. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets an Academy nomination just for that heart attack scene.
I am still giving it to Brian Cox, though, for the definitive Göring portrayal, which he showcased in that turn-of-the-millennium docudrama of the same name.
Surprisingly, Leo Woodall (Sgt. Howie Triest) and John Slattery (Burton Andrus) are two standouts stealing the spotlight, with the former appearing as the mild-mannered translator helping Malek’s Douglas Kelley perform his role as psychiatrist, and the latter serving as the loud, pushy, yet endearing commandant of the Nuremberg prison.
The film is an acting ensemble, with the fine writing—thanks to director James Vanderbilt’s impressive screenwriting résumé—complementing the powerful screen presence of both Shannon and Malek. Even the other Nazi figures, given their moments, delivered. Simply put, the characters are fleshed out. Besides, they benefit from how historically defined their roles are. Even without saying a word, you can sense the badness of a person pinpointed as responsible for spreading hate and false narratives through journalism.
The shots’ atmosphere and look, too, give us the feeling of being right there. Thus, when images of Nazi atrocities are shown, you feel like the theater itself has become the courtroom. The quietness of that scene eerily embraces the doomed, screaming souls.
Conversations between Göring and the psychiatrist can be best described in one word—abracadabra—which, upon being uttered, seems to bond them. I did not feel sleepy at any point in the film, even if there’s not much literal action. Well, a fast-paced, gripping thriller banked on verbal conversations can’t be a bad movie.
My biggest takeaway is how the film clearly sends the message that it’s not enough to just capture the enemies and execute them right away. Far from romanticizing the situation, there is a need for the villains to be in court and formally sentenced for their crimes. The world had to know what they did, and punishments must be meted out accordingly after being proven guilty. They were obviously guilty. The magnitude of the Holocaust meant no excuse or scapegoat could take the blame. It was a conspiracy that showed how bad people could be because of ideology and fanaticism.
Millions of innocents were murdered without trial during World War II. Doing the same to what was left of the Nazi regime would have been anticlimactic. The Nuremberg trials turned those racist, narcissistic leaders of that German regime into caged wild animals—which they deserved. It was a form of victory for the world.
These days, we no longer have the Nazi-constructed concentration camps. But we have nastily corrupt people ruining societies, making the lives of the general public miserable. These unfair people deserve fair trials, too. They should be made accountable for what they are doing, like Göring and the lesser-known Nazis at Nuremberg. If that happens, let’s hope nobody gets bribed to hand them cyanide capsules.
