Judgment at Nuremberg, one of the nominees for Best Picture of 1961, is really two movies (and it's about as long as two movies as well). In part, it is a courtroom drama, as three American judges attempt in the aftermath of World War II to determine the guilt or innocence of four German judges who used Nazi policies to imprison and sterilize people during the years that Hitler was in power. The film is also about one of the American judges, Dan Haywood (played by Spencer Tracy), and his struggles to make sense of the war and the German people's reactions to it. I have to say that it is somewhat difficult to watch this film at times, given how very differently these two plotlines are presented. If it were strictly a courtroom drama, I think there would probably be a greater sense of tension built through the testimony of various people, played by such notables as Montgomery Clift (who looks so tragic here, so marred was his beauty by a traffic accident years before) and Judy Garland (who takes a couple of small scenes and makes them very memorable).
As it stands, Judgment at Nuremberg tries to show the complexities of German society during and after the war. It raises important questions, particularly ones about the culpability of "ordinary" citizens whose government has take a country down a path of certain destruction. This isn't a particularly comfortable film to watch at times, especially given the graphic nature of some of the testimony. I'm not sure how revelatory some of the points made would have been in 1961, but they must have been shocking to those in Nuremberg and the rest of the world so soon after the war had ended. Even if the imagery of the concentration camps that is used as an exhibit at one point in the film is more familiar to us now, it still has the power to overwhelm us emotionally.
There are many fine performances here. Tracy is good, solid as always. I've already mentioned Clift and Garland, but I would also single out Burt Lancaster. He is exceptional as Ernst Janning, and the testimony he gives is some of the most powerful of the movie. Here is a man who knows what he has done and must now learn to deal with the aftermath of his actions; you can sense just how conflicted he is. Marlene Dietrich, still so beautiful at the age of 60, almost steals the movie in her scenes with Tracy's judge. She is, at turns, tender and seductive and ferocious; her discussion of how much she and people like her hated Hitler is one of the high points of the film. Richard Widmark plays the prosecutor, and his single-mindedness is sharp and intense; it's a pretty devastating moment when you learn why he is so tenacious in his attempts to bring these men to justice.
If you pay attention, you'll also admire a young William Shatner, years before Star Trek and before he became a bit of a parody of himself on Boston Legal. And you'll also see Werner Klemperer as one of the defendants, in a performance that is radically different from his role on Hogan's Heroes. The couple who play Haywood's housekeeper and butler, Virginia Christine and Ben Wright, while he is in Germany are also exceptional actors in small, significant parts. Tracy's questioning of them one night in the kitchen allows them to reveal the depth of conflicting emotions they still feel about the Nazi era. It's a small but emotionally resonant scene.
I have to say that I am surprised after watching the film that Maximilian Schell won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Janning's attorney, Hans Rolfe. It isn't that he isn't good in the part--he certainly is--but aside from one showy moment where he asks how widespread the blame for what happened during World War II should be, he doesn't get to do very much with this role. He mostly just stands and asks questions, something that Widmark manages to do with a greater sense of fire than Schell does much of the time (although Widmark wasn't nominated for his role). It's a key moment in the film when Schell's Rolfe puts the question of justice on trial, certainly, but nothing to compare with what Lancaster gets (and Lancaster wasn't nominated that year either). To watch Lancaster's "defense" is to watch a masterful actor at his peak.
No comments:
Post a Comment