THE FILM
FILM DIRECTOR: Stanley Kramer
SCREENWRITER: Abby Mann
FILM STARS: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, William Shatner, Werner Klemperer, Karl Swenson, Edward Binns
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Abby Mann
TYPE: Novelization
PUBLISHER: Horwitz
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1963
COUNTRY: Australia
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1961
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Courtroom Drama
WORDS: A short novelisation, a long film. A great one, but long.
The story of German judges being tried, after World War 2, for upholding the laws of the Nazi State against German Jews is a compelling one, and one that may provoke discussion.
“Judgement at Nuremberg” began as a television play made for the Playhouse 90 (an anthology television series) in 1959, directed by George Roy Hill and written by Abby Mann. It was such a success (and controversial) that it became a natural for someone like Stanley Kramer (who loved edgy subject matter) to bring it to the big screen in 1961. (later, in 2001, Abby Mann took it to Broadway). The television play had a great cast with Claude Rains, Melvyn Douglas, Paul Lukas and the magnificent Maximillian Schell as the defence counsel. The film had a greater and more powerhouse cast with Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland,. Montgomery Clift, William Shatner and Maximillian Schell reprising his earlier role (as did Werner Klemperer). Schell also appeared in the later Broadway production albeit in a different role.
The film is a courtroom drama and most of the the stars play various defendants as long cameos. The film is long (three hours) but always compelling with come pointed speeches and surprisingly, notwithstanding the inevitable results, there is a lot even handed insight into the position of the accused. Kramer, despite all good intentions, wasn’t a great imaginative director. His strength came from the material and his casts (which is why, perhaps, he always produced his films). Apart from Mann’s multilevel insightful script the film is kept afloat (and is made great) by all the actors, but especially Maximillian Schell (who went on to went to win the Oscar for Best Actor and (the magnificent) Montgomery Clift (Spencer Tracy was also nominated whilst Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift were nominated for Best Supporting actors (Kramer and the film were nominated for Best Director and Best Film but didn’t win. Mann won Best Screenplay)). Perhaps, because of the Cold War (and wanting to keep the Germans on side from a filmmaking point of view as the exteriors were filmed in then West Germany) the Germans are portrayed more sympathetically than they would have been if the film had been made immediately after World War 2. Interestingly, the screenplay smartly acknowledges that the Cold War had some bearing on the trials.
Abby Mann was a American Jewish screenwriter and had written much for various anthology drama series on US television in the 1950s (an anthology series (radio, television, or film) spans different genres and presents a different story with different set of characters in each different episode. They usually have a different cast, writers and directors for each episode, but not as a rule). He went on to write another “big cast” film about Jewish Peoples and the Nazis (and also directed by Stanley Kramer), Ship of Fools (1965) as well as (the great) The Detective (1968). He created the Kojak television crime show in the 1970s. He was a screenwriter who dabbled in fiction, normally novelising his own screenplays. And, Mann’s book reads like a transcript of the of the film. He is unsparing in his opinion that the German civic leaders and judiciary bore as much blame as the Nazi hierarchy for the injustices, but he is also careful to show how much the whole world contributed to Hitler’s rise. There is a bogeyman but we are all complicit. Mann wrote the original screenplay for Judgment at Nuremberg in 1957, at the tail end of McCarthyism, and the parallels of those persecutions were not lost on him. People losing their jobs, or being jailed for failing to answer questions will never be as bad as forced sterilisations and , imprisonment in concentration camps and executions but it is a slippery slope. And, parallels can be drawn to invents today in the west as social media, the media generally and governments chasing votes, all implement sanctions on transgressors … though ironically, calling anyone a fascist who disagrees. What was black is white, and what is white ions black.
Mann received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In his acceptance speech, he said, “A writer worth his salt at all has an obligation not only to entertain but to comment on the world in which he lives.”
That Hollywood is gone.
Interestingly, despite its best intentions, a question the film doesn’t address (or, rather, doesn’t answer) is the jurisprudential question over the actual legality of the German judges decisions during the Nazi State era. I assume it would get in the way of the “this is what we stand for” speeches but also the film is not about jurisprudence. The question is an interesting one. When applying positivist law (legal positivism) , the judges are duty bound to uphold the laws of the State (and follow, I assume, precedent). The film (and history) seem to argue that the judges should have followed Natural Law (which suggests there is a fundamental moral law the precepts of which are knowable and which should be applied to create just outcomes). The film lands firmly on the side of Natural Law. Despite the legal philosophies being incompatible the Nuremberg Trial reality, however, is mixed. The judges were found guilty (Natural Law) but the relatively light sentences indicate, perhaps, that the court acknowledges they were following the rules of Legal Positivism (applying the laws of the State). All well and good because the West before Nuremberg and after Nuremberg have always applied Legal Positivism. When was the last time you heard a judge say “this law is not just and I’m not going to hear this matter or sentence this person”? Importantly, I assume the repercussions on a judge saying that in 1935 would be worse than on one saying it now. But, we still don’t hear it. Perhaps we don’t have any unjust laws? Well, we don’t have ones akin to the Nazi State laws in relation to Jews but, again, a slippery slope? This is perhaps an oversimplification but jurisprudence was one subject many years ago – I will let others argue, if they wish.
LINKS
TRAILER
SCENES
Maximillian Schell as the defence counsel Hans Rolfe
Montgomery Clift as witness Rudolph Peterson
The natural law v legal positivism debate you mention is an important one, and when you examine many of the judgments of the IMT, its’ legal reasoning is very unsatisfactory and open to criticism.
One problem the ICTR/ICTY had is that once you start relying upon the Nuremberg decisions as precedents, you quickly see how inadequate the IMT’s reasoning was, and how difficult it is to actually distill any well constructed legal principles. There was more than a hint of victors justice and making up things as they went along in the jurisprudence, a fact that some eminent judges at the time (one US Supreme Court judge called it a lynch party) commented upon.
I haven’t seen the film, but after your review I very much want to.
You talk the talk Neville. And you should see the film …. you can watch it between briefs. And, no I don’t.