Nuremberg features a powerful scene with timely ideas.
Listen at the podcast providers of your choice.
Nuremberg is a movie I enjoyed without wanting to write about the entire movie. There's a lot of reasons for this, but one of the biggest is that I'm both a history and movie guy, which means I've learned an awful lot about the about Nazis and prosecuting the Nazis and the Nuremberg Trials. To put it gently, I think this is a good movie that's been made many times before.
That's not to say it shouldn't have been made. Quite the opposite actually. One of the reasons it's good to keep making movies about history and especially dissecting how fascism comes to power and its aftermath, is so we can identify it when we see it and understand how the people who carry out its worst atrocities operate.
And because a lot of the populace only learns about history through movies, giving them more modern takes on these subjects does have merit.
Especially if you include scenes like this one, a scene so effective I'd argue it's reason enough to have the entire movie made.
So in a slight departure from my usual approach to a new movie, I'm going to break down this scene and why it is so vital to the movie and its point. Let's start with how we get here.
The Movie Up To This Point
The movie up to this point is pretty straight-forward. The film centers around U.S. Army Major Douglas Kelly (Remi Malek) who is tasked to examine, monitor and determine the suicide risk of the surviving, and now imprisoned, Nazi leadership. The main attraction being Hermann Wilhelm Göring (Russell Crowe), senior leader over all of Germany's Armed Forces.
Sadly, Kelly spends most of the movie's first half being somewhat entranced and charmed by Göring, who he identifies as a narcissist, but also smart and charismatic. So much so that Kelly begins doing favors for the Nazi war criminal, including delivering letters to Göring's family.
Admittedly the audience can and should be suspicious of Kelly's motives, who sees these interviews as a opportunity to profit via tell all book about his time with the famed Third Reich figure. And doubly so after a criminal Kelly had marked as "not a risk" completes suicide.
And the five alarm fire should be going off when all of the Nazis, including Göring, submit a plea of "not guilty" and Kelly fights with upper brass who have arrested Göring's family in connection with stolen art. Art stolen by Göring from Holocaust victims.
But it still hasn't hit yet for Kelly. Until the prosecution brings out a film projector.
The Scene
I won't go into too much detail about this scene, because it is horrific and features real archival footage taken from concentration camps which include emaciated inmates, piles of bodies, and horrific descriptions of casual cruelty carried out by the guards that ranged from physical, sexual and psychological abuse to murder.
The whole room is, save for the Nazis, are understandably shaken. But Kelly is sick. Viscerally ill to the point that he has to leave the room.
He is broken at this point, in a way he can never be repaired as the movie reveals through the rest of its run time.
Why? It's both simple and complicated.
Up until this point the movie has treated Nazi atrocities as a given. Something without the need for evidence generally speaking, and the precise reason why a series of trials for war criminals are about to happen. We're here to litigate what these people did.
As such, we need to show the court, and the audience, what these men did. And one reel of footage feels like more than enough. The sight of emaciated bodies, stories of brutality, and horrific sights like bodies being moved with construction equipment is all anyone with a semblance of a soul requires to want anyone responsible brought to justice.
But why is Kelly reacting this way? So violently ill to images he had to know would be presented in a trial where his insight is crucial to the prosecution.
The easy answer is that he finally realizes what he's doing. He came into this situation to, whether he would frame it this way or not, to be a war profiteer. To learn all about Göring and tell the world about this famous monster. So seeing a part of the machine the Göring was involved in, is a crushing reminder that he's made a moral compromise.
But the bigger answer? In my opinion, he started to forget.
He forgot who Göring was and is. He forgot that Göring is a bigot, a war-profiteer, a high commander in the Nazi regime. A war criminal on a scale rarely seen. He forgot that the man in front of him is an egomaniac and manipulator that would soften his rough edges for Kelly's sake or to get preferential treatment.
Kelly was tricked by Göring's manners and kind fascade and he hates himself and the man for it. And troubling as it is, it required a devastating reminder of what Göring did to remind him.
That's why I love this scene.
Because the reality is, most hateful men like Göring are not one dimensional. They can be charming or charismatic. That's a large part of why they're dangerous. But as soon as they dedicate themselves to something like the Nazi agenda, that is what they are and should be known by. Because as the film progresses, and history proves, these are not people who reform, or well simply led astray. The reality is, they committed these heinous acts because they didn't think they were wrong. And we should never forget that.
No comments:
Post a Comment