Delayed Reaction: Judgment at Nuremberg

Premise: German judges are put on trial for their involvement with the Nazi party.

 

I think the biggest problem with Hollywood's obsession with Nazis and the Jewish Holocaust isn't that we don't need to hear about it anymore. Rather, it's that we only hear about that holocaust. The fact that it took The Act of Killing to educate me about the Indonesian genocide from 50 years ago or that I can't name many of the more recent mass killings in other countries is the problem. It's good that the world has movies rubbing our faces in our collective indifference. The Nazis are an easy target for how easily they can be made into villains. They killed millions of people, bought into eugenics, and tried to take over all of Europe. And, let's be honest, swastikas are super recognizable. There are other bad people than the Nazis though.

 

I've noticed that the Holocaust gives filmmakers a pass to break the rules that audiences would otherwise pick at. Schindler's List is overlong and in black and white. Judgment at Nuremberg is 3 hours and mostly just courtroom scenes. Not a lot of other topics could get away with that pacing, bleakness, and occasional monotony.

 

Judgment at Nuremberg is absolutely "eat your vegetables" cinema, but I liked it anyway. It's very effective at what it sets out to do. It reminds audiences of the many atrocities of the Nazis beyond the mass killings. It challenges the notion that most Germans didn't know what was going on. It explains the creeping nature of the rise of Naziism: the initial appeal of it that left to people passive later on. It even points the finger back on the rest of the world who also ignored or even praised the warning signs. The film is a chilling reminder that it's only unfathomable in hindsight. Still, the most unsettling part of the movie is when it cuts to actual footage of the body cleanup at the camps: British forces that had to bulldoze the corpses into mass graves. It's remains more chilling than anything I've seen in a horror movie.

 

The movie meanders somewhat. I think I'd prefer the 2-2.5-hour version of the movie that only took place at the courthouse and took out all the conversations elsewhere. Those give some nice context for what Germany was like during the trials, but I think much of that could've been covered in the trial. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, so I'd sometimes get confused about who everyone was. Some of that is just because I don't recognize a lot of the actors. I'm sure I'll be able to pick Montgomery Cliff out of a lineup one day but not today. Thanks to the way political discourse has evolved over the years, I noticed a lot of whatabout-ism in the defenses in the movie. It's better used here than how I hear it used now. They at least stayed on topic with all their "what abouts". Still, it's not an argument style that has aged well.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend