New On Blu: JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG

Judgment At Nuremberg was released on Blu-Ray on November 11 in a limited edition of 3000 from Twilight Time.

Judgment At Nuremberg is concerned with the Nuremberg Trials, special military tribunals which were held to address German war criminals, and conducted by Allied forces in the years following World War II. Spencer Tracy plays Judge Dan Haywood, an American judge who is brought in to preside. The film closely followed and makes an odd pairing with Inherit The Wind, another courtroom film with which it shares its director and star.

What makes the specific trial covered by the film so interesting is that it deals with judging the judges of the Nazi courts, most importantly Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), a brilliant architect of modern law whose legal works are studied in classrooms all over the world. Unlike the three other defendants who actively try to absolve themselves, Janning remains stoic and silent, refusing to even acknowledge the legitimacy of the makeshift court.

The legal and moral questions raised by the film are extremely interesting. For example, which is the nobler or more “right” course of action, to refuse to work for a corrupt government, or to stay with it and try to create as much positive change as possible within a flawed system? Even more critically, it’s the job of judges to enforce laws, not to legislate — so should judges be held accountable for ruling bad laws accurately? Judgment At Nuremberg is a three hour film, yet it never feels sluggish or overstuffed because it’s all so fascinating.

Both sides are passionately argued by fairly brilliant lawyers who make many compelling points which may actually sway viewers’ opinions back and forth. The German defense attorney, Hans Rolfe (Max Schnell), is a disciple of Janning’s legal works, and posits that the judges were simply doing their jobs by enforcing the law of the land. The fiery American prosecutor, Col. Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), argues that the laws were so reprehensible that enforcing them is not justifiable — the denial of human rights is too egregious to forgive. By the order of these judges, innocents were exterminated in concentration camps, and their blood is on the hands of the men who sentenced them. We later find that he was a liberator at such a camp, and suddenly his furious zeal makes a lot more sense.

The most shocking part of the film occurs when Lawson shows extremely graphic and disturbing — and real — concentration camp footage to the courtroom, and by extension to theater-goers of 1961 America who simply hadn’t seen this stuff before. In fact, no motion picture had ever shown such shocking atrocities. Even so, Kramer shows some restraint. Though the Colonel shows and describes this footage to the tribunal, the movie audience is spared these visuals of the worst parts, instead simply hearing their horrible descriptions.

My Dad was a career soldier for my entire childhood, retiring from the Army and entering the civilian sector right as I graduated high school. As military kid, one of the most important and formative periods of my life was the time my family was stationed in Mannheim, Germany, from 1991 to 1995. Naturally one of the effects of this time was the absorption of some German culture, and an appreciation for its people. It was clear to me, even as a dumb kid who failed to appreciate the rare privilege of living abroad, that the impact of the war was lasting and present in daily life in subtle ways. Even my presence there, as an American military brat half a century later, was a direct result of post-war relations between Germany and the US.

So it was with a certain familiarity that I watched as Haywood arrives in Nuremberg and tries to acclimate to German culture (mmm, Bratwurst) as well as life on a post-war military base (though we later find that these are not totally new experiences; he was stationed in Germany in World War I without the opportunity to enjoy his stay). Like my own Pop, he is a highly intelligent and virtuous man of humble origins in rural Maine — a rather amazing coincidence, really.

Haywood strikes up a friendship with Frau Bertholt, a warm and noble (though initially mysterious) German woman who we later discover is the widow of an executed Nazi officer, fallen on hard times. She hates Col. Lawson, who sentenced her husband, and there’s an element of tragedy both to her own story and to the way in which her friendship with Haywood seems doomed by conflicting interests, despite their obvious attraction to each other.

In one of the most interesting scenes outside the courtroom, Haywood walks Frau Bertholt home from a night at the opera. As the pair converse, we become more familiar not only with the characters, but with their world. This sequence is a densely-framed look at the busy and war-scarred streets of the city. Background elements include a one-legged man limping, men hanging around the entrance to a pub, and an American GI wooing a local girl. Despite its casual simplicity, it’s a subtly rich setpiece.

The most compelling drama of the film, though, is definitely found in the tribunal. The two sides argue their varying points back and forth with intriguing key witnesses and legal maneuvers, but there finally comes a point where Dr. Ernst Janning can remain silent no longer and demands to say his piece, and it’s at this point that a good film becomes a great one.

As Haywood presides over the trial, he receives pressure from others to influence his verdict in one way or another, particularly some of his politically minded peers who urge him to show leniency in order to promote friendship with the Germans, whose alliance may prove critical in the brewing Cold War. There’s an important parallel in this; like the German judges he can either bow to outside pressure or perform his duties according to what he believes is right.

The Package

Judgment At Nuremberg was released on Blu-Ray on November 11 in a limited edition of 3000 from Twilight Time. It follows the usual Twilight Time presentation: a flat-spined blue case and an 8-page booklet with informative notes by Julie Kirgo.

The movie can be played with (190:26) or without (179:10) the theatrical musical extras of Overture, Intermission, Entr’Acte, and Exit Music, which add about 11 minutes to the runtime. For home viewing, “without” is the definite way to go. This is a three hour movie, after all.

Special Features and Extras

In Conversation With Abby Mann and Maximilian Schell (19:38)