JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG: Blu-ray re-issue (UA, 1961) Kino Lorber
The penultimate
moment of realization for condemned German justice, Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt
Lancaster) is, in fact, the haunting epitaph to Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961); a weary
Janning imploring American Chief Judge, Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) with a
personal atonement for all the atrocities committed under Nazi socialism,
adding “I never knew it would come to
that. You must believe me.” Haywood’s sobering reply: “Herr Janning…it came to ‘that’ the first time you sentenced a man to
death you knew to be innocent.” By
then, audiences had been treated to 179 minutes of intense courtroom
histrionics, some fairly weighty – if poetic – speeches, expertly delivered by
the principle cast, and, an artistic framework built around the very first mass
public exposure to the gruesome newsreel footage taken by the American
liberator’s film corps at Dachau concentration camp. While no accurate number
of casualties incurred will likely ever be known, for certain the tally of the
murdered accrued there is in the thousands. Too often, the meticulous narrative
construction of screenwriter, Abby Mann’s sublime melodrama is overlooked. What
Mann has achieved is nothing short of a miracle; his expansive canvas of world
events lyrically distilled into a highly personal and unlikely ‘respect’ peppered
in sublime disenchantment, dishearteningly expressed by Tracy’s world-weary
Haywood for Lancaster’s demoralized Janning.
In his courtroom
summation, Haywood points to the staggering and unholy truth of it all; Janning
– the tragic figure, whom Haywood staunchly believes “loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his
soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and death of millions by the
government of which he was a part. Janning's record and his fate illuminate the
most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial. If he and the other
defendants were all depraved perverts - if the leaders of the Third Reich were
sadistic monsters and maniacs - these events would have no more moral
significance than an earthquake or other natural catastrophes. But this trial
has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and
extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities
so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination.” Haywood’s penultimate assessment is,
perhaps, even more prophetic today. “There
are those in our country too who speak of the protection of the country. Of
‘survival’. The answer to that is: ‘survival as what?’ A country isn't a rock.
And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing
for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world - let it
now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: justice,
truth... and the value of a single human being!”
By his own
admission screenwriter, Abby Mann did not set out to write a propaganda piece.
Indeed, in his passionate resolve to spare his entertainment the trappings of a
lengthy diatribe or heavy-handed indictment on the atrocities committed under
Adolf Hitler’s reign, Mann focused the crux of his documented theatrics on the
conflict of personalities at play in this electrifying courtroom drama. Many
today will forget Judgment at Nuremberg
began as a play filmed for television’s popular live-theater program, Playhouse 90; the roster including the
inimitable Claude Rains (as Haywood) and newcomer, Maximilian Schell – the
brother of famed German star, Maria Schell. Max’s star turn in the TV drama
made him an obvious choice for the movie version, although it took the clout of
director, Stanley Kramer to insist on his reprise. The part was heavily sought
after by Marlon Brando - a far more ‘bankable’ name above the title then.
Schell’s superb
and Oscar-winning performance as defense council, Hans Rolfe is counterbalanced
in the movie by Richard Widmark’s venomous prosecuting attorney, Colonel Tad
Lawson. Viewed today, both performances are apt to occasionally veer into grotesque
caricature; Schell’s defense – the impassioned German, refusing to bow in his
singular and glowing admiration for Janning/Widmark’s telescopically focused
prosecutor, who refuses to entertain even the notion any virtue or shred of
morality at all has survived the hellish deluge of the Nazi holocaust. But
Schell’s performance remains more steadily on course; Widmark’s passionate
reveling in punctuation of every last syllable as written becoming marginally
tedious near the end. Other roles went
to Judy Garland, spellbindingly brilliant as the fragile, Irene Wallner;
Montgomery Clift as the surgically enfeebled Rudolph Peterson, and, Marlene
Dietrich’s world-wearily embittered Madame Bertholt, former wife of a
high-ranking Nazi general since put to death for war crimes. Of all this
glittering assemblage, Dietrich’s is perhaps the most poignant and truest at its
core. The sultry and gender-bending Dietrich – one of Germany’s brightest
cinema stars in the late 1920’s and early 30’s – had forsaken the Nazi
occupation of her country in 1939, becoming a U.S. citizen. Her outward
condemnation of her former homeland, “the
German people and I no longer speak the same language”, incited
considerable ire back home that would continue to linger for decades yet to
follow.
The irony, of
course, is Marlene would forever be linked to Germany in her American career;
often cast as an ex-pat, spy or scheming – if sinfully exotic – foreigner,
perpetuating the myth of the good/bad German in America movies. In Judgment at Nuremberg she is, quite
simply, the shattered soul of a nation, revealed to Judge Haywood by an, at
first, glacial exterior slowly – even unexpectedly - to melt into tender friendship,
doomed to an abject pity and ultimate refusal as Haywood’s perspective on the
German people’s complicity under national socialism turns from compassion to
letdown and eventual – if restrained – scorn. Dietrich’s international fame led
to a reconciliation of sorts with Germany. In later years, she toured the
country in a ‘one woman’ show that mesmerized audiences.
On the surface, Judgment at Nuremberg is a fairly
weighty tome, covering not only the atrocities of the Holocaust but also
examining the geo-political hotbed of complexities surrounding the actual
Nuremberg trials. Almost miraculously, Judgment
at Nuremberg never deviates into typically heavy-handed courtroom
theatrics; Abby Mann’s critique of the persecution and genocide of European
Jews is unapproachable, when transferred as crimes perpetrated by a corrupt German
autocracy against its racial/religious and eugenic groupings. Alas, Abby Mann
could find no one to produce it; the general – and nervous – consensus being
not enough time had passed between the proposed film and actual events; at
least enough for them to be considered ‘ancient
history’. Hollywood en masse might have also seen a distinct parallel
between Mann’s prose and the, then, even more recent scourge of the McCarthy
witch hunts, resulting in the blacklisting of some of its most prominent
talent. Better not to pick at that scab. For Mann has perceived ‘blind
patriotism’ as the villain of his piece; recognizing that under considerable
stress even extraordinary minds, sculpted with the most altruistic of moral convictions
and high-functioning intellect, could be swayed into its maelstrom of ethical turpitude.
Along the road
to immortality, Mann was repeatedly discouraged from proceeding with his plans
to turn the TV drama into a major motion picture. However, Katherine Hepburn
had seen Playhouse 90, had been
moved by it, and furthermore, had thought it a splendid vehicle for her lover,
Spencer Tracy. Tracy agreed, but only if Stanley Kramer would direct it. With
such heavy-hitters on his side, United Artists green lit Judgment at Nuremberg; Mann, going to work assembling his all-star
cast from a roster of Tinsel Town’s finest. To the film version, Kramer brought
his own inimitable brands of conviction and energy; a passionate film-maker’s
eye with a keen sense of timing. Kramer had hoped to shoot the entire movie in
Berlin and Nuremberg. In the end, half his wish was granted; approximately
fifty percent of Judgment at Nuremberg
shot among the rot and ruins of those decaying cities. Kramer also had dozens
of photographs taken of the actual courtroom where the Nuremberg trials had
taken place to better inform his production designer, Rudolph Sternad, and set
decorator, George Milo in their meticulous recreations.
In retrospect, Judgment at Nuremberg can also be seen
as one of the first – of the last – blindingly all-star pictures to emerge from
the decade that gave us such grandiose ensemble entertainments as The Guns of Navarone (1961) and
Kramer’s own jam-packed It’s A Mad, Mad,
Mad, Mad World (1963). Courtroom dramas are, perhaps, the most exigent form
of movie entertainment to pull off successfully – primarily because the
‘action’ takes place inside a single confined space with the principles
immobilized in seated positions. Kramer did, in fact, ‘open up’ the play to
accommodate the demands of cinema; his departures from the courtroom yielding a
rich tapestry of vignettes to showcase and crystalize the pall and lingering
devastation inflicted on Germany’s nationalism and pride. There is very little
room within the framework of Abby Mann’s original to infuse a more lighthearted
flair. But Kramer managed brief flights into quaint comedy nonetheless;
perhaps, the most charming of them all featuring Tracy’s Haywood stopping for a
sausage at an outdoor market. He takes notice of an attractive German fräulein,
quietly smoking a cigarette. The two exchange mildly flirtatious glances and
she quietly says a few words with tenderness he does not understand before
departing. Inquiring for a translation from the street vendor who has overheard
their conversation, Haywood is told the girl said “Goodbye, grandpa!”
The emotional
core of Judgment at Nuremberg is
centered on Haywood’s burgeoning friendship with Madame Bertholt; the widow of
a high-ranking Nazi official who has already been executed for war crimes.
Haywood’s stay in Bertholt’s former residence is fraught with a quiet unease by
two of Bertholt’s former servants; Mr. and Mrs. Halbestadt (Ben Wright and
Virginia Christine). Haywood’s introduction to the city reveals its desolate
wasteland. “I didn’t think it was this
bad,” he confides to fellow justice, Kenneth Norris (Kenneth MacKenna).
Indeed, Germany is a shell of its former self; the specters of Hitler’s reign
lingering about. Stanley Kramer aptly begins Judgment at Nuremberg with the implosion of the Nazi insignia – a
stone wreathed swastika – toppled from its perch at the
Reichsparteitagsgelände. From here, Haywood is introduced to his personal
attaché, Capt. Harrison Byers (William Shatner), the Halbestadts and, not long
thereafter, Madame Bertholt, who has come to take a few prized mementos from
the house. Bertholt is distant. But Haywood is compassionate and allows her to
retrieve whatever she wishes without question or inspection of the goods being
taken.
From these
auspicious beginnings, Stanley Kramer delves into the trial; presided over by
Haywood, Norris and a third judge, Curtiss Ives (Ray Teal). The prosecution,
helmed by Col. Tad Lawson, is intent on exposing the distortions and
perversions of German law, as dispensed by a motley crew of grey-faced and
steely-eyed former judges. These included, Dr. Ernest Janning – once, the
foremost progressive influence in modern German justice. Also in the dock are
Justices Emil Hahn (Werner Klemperer), Werner Lampe (Torben Meyer), and
Friedrich Hofstetter (Martin Brandt). Each enters a plea of ‘not guilty’ in tandem, cumulatively
represented by impassioned defense council, Hans Rolfe. Haywood is empathetic
toward the accused. Indeed, as he points out, some feel the trial of these
judges is a redundancy stalemating the post-war recovery. But Haywood is
determined to press on. In his free time, he explores the city. A widower, he
begins an unlikely friendship with Madame Bertholt, suggestively to lead to
something more. She introduces him to the traditions of Germany before the war.
Lawson is adversarial toward Bertholt. But his more blatant vitriol is spared
for the trial where he and Rolfe frequently clash over contentious talking
points about the extent to which the German justices had prior knowledge about
the gruesome fates awaiting innocent defendants their verdicts condemned.
We hear
testimony from Dr. Karl Wieck (John Wengraf); once, a mild proponent of
National Socialism, but long since having changed his opinion, Rolfe suggests
to avoid his own prosecution. Also called to testify is Rudolph Petersen
(Montgomery Clift, in a mesmerizing performance); a shell-shocked remnant of
his former self since being ordered to submit to medical sterilization. On the
witness stand, Petersen accounts the hour he was forcibly taken away and made ‘half the man he used to be’. Clift, who
survived a near fatal auto accident that deprived him not only of his matinee
idol good looks but also the self-confidence that went with it, is tragically
exquisite as this bumbling and wild-eyed figure, infused with nervous ticks as
he holds up a picture of the real Petersen’s mother, shouting “Look…my mother! Was she feeble-minded?!?”
The other
exemplary performance, among the many called to testify, belongs to Judy
Garland. Primarily known as a musical comedy star, Garland is riveting as Irene
Hoffman, a middle-aged frump sent to a Nazi work camp in her youth after being
accused of improprieties with a then grandfatherly Jewish friend of her family,
cruelly labeled a sexual deviant and sent to the gas chambers. Under
cross-examination by Hans Rolfe, Irene suffers a near breakdown; vehemently
denying the allegation - that simply because she sat on the ‘old Jew’s’ lap and accepted candy from
him, there was something more sinisterly sexual about their friendship. Abby Mann had, in fact, based the nefarious ‘Feldenstein case’ in the movie on an
actual trial involving an elderly Jewish man put to death in 1935 for allegedly
carrying on a sexual relationship with an Aryan girl of sixteen. Garland’s
performance is the linch pin in Act II of Judgment
at Nuremberg and she anchors the picture in a sort of resonating ‘sad-eyed’
intensity for all the fallen victims and utterly desolate survivors of the
holocaust, destined to be haunted by the memories and nightmares for the rest
of their lives.
As the climax of
Rolfe’s humiliating insinuations bring Irene to the brink of collapse, her
tear-stained testimony is interrupted by the stoic, Ernst Janning who addresses
the court directly, despite objections from his defense council. Janning
describes the ‘fever’ afflicting the
German people; one predicated on ‘disgrace,
indignity and hunger’. He eloquently surmises the folly of the Weimar
Republic, its fractured democracy leaving a void into which Hitler was able to
whip up his blind-sided - if unified - frenzy from the ashes as both its
paranoia and propaganda. At last,
Janning concedes to the fault in Hitler’s master plan. It was not in the
tyranny he preached, but by how infectious it proved on the hearts and minds of
the people and, more importantly, the judges who had sworn their allegiances to
justice. Now, they too partook of the hysteria, knowing full and well the
brevity of their actions. Janning’s benediction hypnotizes the courtroom. He
speaks of a passing phase becoming a way of life; of a people turned, not to
accept, but willfully desiring the perversion of their own human rights. In his
penultimate moment of realization, Janning points to Rolfe’s skillful defense;
in effect, charging him with the perpetuation of the myth of their innocence.
“I was content to sit silent during this trial,” Janning
concludes, “I was content to tend my
roses. I was even content to let counsel try to save my name, until I realized
that in order to save it he would have to raise the specter again. You have
seen him do it - he has done it here in this courtroom. He has suggested that
the Third Reich worked for the benefit of people. He has suggested that we
sterilized men for the welfare of the country. He has suggested that perhaps
the old Jew did sleep with the sixteen-year-old girl, after all. Once more it
is being done for love of country. It is not easy to tell the truth; but if
there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt must admit
it... whatever the pain and humiliation.”
Armed with the
forcefulness of Janning’s argument, this after having seen the grotesque
concentration camp footage for the first time, Haywood and his cohorts render a
verdict of guilty. Madame Bertholt’s faith in the past; in her husband’s
notorious legacy; her burgeoning hope for an understanding from Haywood;
everything she had once dreamed, known, hoped for and invested in to be the
truth – these principles are devastatingly swept away for all time. In the
movie’s epitaph, Janning bequeaths his writing to Haywood, imploring him to be
compassionate. Haywood is, but his tenderness toward Janning’s predicament has
left him. In his departure from the courtroom, Haywood is confronted by Hans
Rolfe, who wagers that none of the defendants charged and imprisoned this day
will remain so for very long. “In five
years,” Rolfe gloats with a cocky smile, “…the men you sentenced to life imprisonment will be free.” Haywood
nods with sad-eyed agreement. “Herr
Rolfe, I have admired your work in the court for many months. You are
particularly brilliant in your use of logic...so what you suggest may very well
happen. It ‘is’ logical, in view of the times in which we live. But to be
logical is not to be right, and nothing on God's earth could ever make it
right.” The movie’s epilogue reveals Rolfe’s prophecy come true. None of
the convicted served their full life sentences, all of them out by the time the
movie was made.
Judgment at Nuremberg is, perhaps,
Stanley Kramer’s finest hour as a film maker. Unquestioningly, it remains one
of his most potent and enduring movies. Based upon the ‘subsequent Nuremberg trials’, Abby Mann’s screenplay is an
impassioned critique of the legalities of justice pitted against the moral
condemnation and outrage focused on the atrocities committed in the name of
nationalistic pride. Mann’s eloquent
speeches are superbly spoken by Spencer Tracy, and particularly, Maximillian
Schell, who won the Best Actor Academy Award. Additionally, Judgment at Nuremberg was nominated for
a total of eleven Oscars; the only other statuette bestowed on the movie for
Abby Mann’s writing. Interestingly, Tracy’s performance anchors us in a sort of
present day relevancy, while Schell’s moody and haunting counterpoint, attempts
with the greatest conviction to whitewash and blindside the legal wheels with
an emphatic defense strategy; evoking every known precedent and even the
jurisprudence of Oliver Wendell Holmes to persuade and manipulate.
The stellar
supporting cast is all just icing on an already exceptionally well-frosted
cake; Tracy’s craggy exterior, coupled with his curmudgeonly world-weariness
proving the quintessence of America’s awkward forthrightness in matters of
policing the world. The other deliciousness at work is, of course, Rolfe’s wily
verbal sparring with Col. Lawson. Here we have two angry men of diverging
mindsets to be sure, but of incredibly like-minded and singular passions:
Rolfe’s fervent belief in his clients’ innocence, but also perhaps in the
tragically flawed past that has brought them all to this moment, never entirely
beaten into the dust, even as it is vehemently challenged by Lawson’s bitter
and even more self-doubting/pitiless crusader for justice; chasing after his
lost cause with hammer and tong, only to be emotionally emasculated by the
excursion. At one point, outside of the
courtroom, and a little worse for the wine, Lawson begrudgingly admits, “One thing about Americans, we're not cut
out to be occupiers. We're new at it and not very good at it.”
Judgment at Nuremberg is a peerless
entertainment, surefooted, as executed by Stanley Kramer, whose command of not
only the language of cinema, but also its space, has yielded an unusual and
varied richness. Courtroom dramas are a main staple of Hollywood movies, though
few have run an epic 3 hrs. 6 min. and managed to remain as star-studded or as
spellbinding for virtually every last minute of their screen time. Judgment at Nuremberg is the exception.
It yields an embarrassment of riches. It is an actor’s movie – also, a
playwright’s – the combined efforts from all these memorable faces, resulting
in a spectacle impossible to top. Through it all runs the fine thread of Abby
Mann’s personal conviction. The pleasure in Mann’s prose is not to be derived
from the performances given – at least, not entirely, but rather, by listening
to the meticulously concocted arguments he manages to bestow without a single
word seemingly left out of place. Cut one line here or add just a few words to
a bit of dialogue and the tenuous balance of the piece could so easily be
thrown out of whack. But Mann’s craftsmanship is immeasurably confident and
astounding. Such is the way with all
great artists who discover the kernels of truth in their art. Mann’s remains a
legacy of astute eloquence, likely to remain unchallenged for a very long time.
Kino Lorber’s
Blu-ray re-issue appears to be identical to the Twilight Time release from 2014.
I am still trying to figure out the wisdom in allowing competing distributors a
bite at the same apple. Ah me, executive logic. Will it never cease to baffle?
This easily bests the old MGM non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVD from 2004. We get a
gorgeous 1080p image with densely layered contrast and fine grain textures.
Twilight Time’s disc had a menu option to play the feature with or without its
overture, intermission and exit music; Ernest Gold’s powerful score repurposed
in 5.1 DTS. Kino’s does not. We also
lose TT’s isolated score track on the Kino. The B&W image astounds – truly
and completely. Fine detail is evident throughout and most noticeable during
the many featured close-ups in hair, skin and clothing. Wow and thank you!
There are extremely minor hints of age-related speckling – barely visible and
hardly worth mentioning. Virtually all
of the supplements included herein have been ported over from MGM’s tired old DVD.
They include a 20 min., largely self-congratulatory conversation between Abby
Mann and Maximilian Schell, a 6 min. sound bite entitled, The Value of a Single Human Being
and thirty minutes excised from the hour long Tribute to Stanley Kramer.
Bottom line: despite the loss the of isolated score and Julie Kirgo’s liner
notes, Kino’s reissue (which is not a
limited edition) comes highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
2
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