“Nuremberg” was written, directed, and co-produced by
James Vanderbilt. He began research in 2013 after reading the book “The Nazi
and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fateful
Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII” by Jack El-Hai. He got Russell Crowe to
star. Crowe was eight years older than the 53-year-old Goring. He reached 277
pounds for the role. Obviously the film was not filmed sequentially because
Goering lost 65 pounds during his confinement. The film was nominated for
several AARP Movies for Grownups awards: Best Supporting Actor (Michael
Shannon), Best Screenplay, Best Ensemble, and Best Period Film. The movie was a
box office success, making $73 million on a budget of $7-10 million.
“What follows is based on the accounts of those who lived
through it. And those who didn’t.” It is May 7, 1945, the day Germany surrenders.
American soldiers watch a stream of refugees heading westward. One of the GIs
pisses on a swastika. They stop a fancy car and Hermann Goring is captured. He
is put in a prison with 23 other Nazi leaders. Supreme Court Justice Robert
Jackson (Shannon) is appointed Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. In
this position, he helps create an international code of laws governing war
crimes. He insists the defendants deserve a fair trial. The fair trials includes
having a psychiatrist interview the defendants to determine their mental
capacity. Dr. Kelley (Rami Malek) is brought in for this job. He develops a
relationship with Goring who he helps lose weight and kick his pervitin habit.
(Pervitin was a methamphetamine that was given to German soldiers by the
millions of pills.) Kelley enjoys verbal sparring with Goring, but he also has
plans for writing a book about what made the Nazi leadership tick. Kelley acts
a go-between for Goring and his wife and daughter, which was against the rules.
Meanwhile, Jackson and his team are planning for the trial. They use footage of
the death camps to show just how bad the “Final Solution” was. This builds to
Goring’s time on the stand which is the moment he had been waiting for,
confident that he will make fools of the prosecutors. He knows he will be found
guilty, but loves the attention. The end is a foregone conclusion. However, the
hangman is going to be disappointed.
“Nuremberg” is a movie divided between two arcs that
sometimes interconnect. The main core of the movie is the Kelley/Goring
relationship. It is not quite the cat-and-mouse repartee that you would expect
as the two men like each other and Goring is not trying to prove his innocence.
He does insist he was not responsible for the death camps. Kelley is a strange
bird as he violates orders, but sincerely cares about Goring’s wife and
daughter and has some sympathy for Hermann. And yet, he becomes a spy for
Jackson to help his prosecution efforts. There is some chemistry between Malek
and Crowe. I don’t know how much Crowe fought for the role, but Goring is a
fascinating person. Unfortunately, the film does not give him a lot of time on
the stand. In fact, his confrontation with Jackson is something of a fizzle.
The second arc is Jackson and his team preparing for the
trial and then the trial itself. The movie glosses over the debate about
whether Nazi leaders can be charged with crimes that did not exist before the
war. There is no debate over the four charges that were arrived at. “Nuremberg”
would seem to be a court room drama when it comes up short in that respect.
Only Goring’s testimony is depicted and it is brief. By focusing on Jackson
versus Goring, the film leaves the impression that Jackson wilted during the
biggest moment in the trial. That may be true, but it is a disservice to his
overall handling of the trial. There is no coverage of the defense offered for
the defendants. The exoneration of two of the Nazis would have strengthened the
theme of justice being served. And it would have been nice to know how their
lawyers kept some off the gallows.
The movie deserves credit for being mostly historically
accurate. The transcripts from the trial were used for most of the dialogue in
the trial scenes. The interactions between Kelley and Goring are accurate. And
I assume his interactions with Streicher and Ley are probably true as well. I
am confused that since there were 23 Nazis that Kelley interviewed, why were
two of the least important ones focused on?
I was disappointed in “Nuremberg”. It certainly is not in
a league with “Judgment at Nuremberg”. The acting is excellent and is the main
draw. As a behind the scenes look at the trial, it is interesting, but not
fascinating. It provides Kelley with a traditional movie redemption that was
not deserved, or true. It makes you wish that Goring versus Jackson had been
given as much coverage as Goring versus Kelley.
GRADE = C+
HISTORICAL
ACCURACY: Goring’s arrest was actually
arranged as far as the time and place. He was not trying to escape. Kelley had
worked with thousands of PTSD (called combat fatigue) during the war. (He did
dabble in magic.) His job was to determine the competence of the defendants to
stand trial. He did use Rorschach tests. He did plan on using his findings to
write a book. He worked with all the defendants, but spent more time with
Goring than any of the others. Kelley did deliver letters between the Gorings.
Emma did get arrested, but it was Bill Donovan of the OSS who got her released.
Ley did commit suicide by hanging. Howie Triest was his translator and his
back-story is accurate. He did emigrate to America in the 1930s and lost most
of his family in the Holocaust. He only worked briefly with Kelley. The scene
at the railway station where he opens up to Kelley was historical license. Dr.
Gustave Gilbert (Colin Hanks) did work with Kelley. They had an adversarial
relationship The fight did not occur, although Gilbert did have reason to be
upset as Kelley broke their deal to publish a book together. Kelley did not
work with Jackson on how to handle Goring. Kelley was not dismissed. He went
home before the trial to be with his wife and write his book. Goring cried when
he learned Kelley had left him. (Goring had wanted Kelley to raise his daughter
if something happened to Emma as well as Hermann.) Having Kelley in the
audience for the trial is necessary for plot purposes, but hard to justify
historically. Kelley’s book “22 Cells in Nuremberg” was a flop. Americans were
not interested in a theory that the Nazi leaders weren’t evil, he instead
theorized they were opportunists motivated by ambition, immorality, and
nationalism. It was Gilbert who had success with his books “Nuremberg Diary”
and “The Psychology of Dictatorship: Based on an Examination of
the Leaders of Nazi Germany”. He believed leaders like Goring suffer from
narcissistic psychopathy.
Jackson was torn a bit
on accepting the job, especially since he was opposed to the death penalty.
However, his belief in a fair trial convinced him to take on the daunting task
of not only developing the law to cover the trials, but also prosecuting the
Nazi leaders. (By the way, Elsie is his secretary, not his wife.) He believed
in justice over vengeance. His dialogue in the trial scenes is almost verbatim
from the transcripts. He gavegreat opening and closing statements, but
Goring got the better of him as shown in the film. Sir David Maxwell Fyfe
(Richard Grant) did save him. In reality, his questioning of Goring was not the
overly simplified exchange of the movie. He broke Goring down by not responding
to Goring’s baiting and he used persistent questioning to wear Goring down. It
was not just Goring admitting he would still follow Hitler. The hanging of
Streicher was accurate, as is Goring’s suicide. There is some belief that the
hangman purposely put the Streicher’s noose so that he would not die
immediately. Col. Burton Andrus (John Slattery) was a strict jailer, but the
movie does not condemn him for gross negligence for not preventing the two
suicides, especially Gorings since he clearly indicated he was not going to
allow himself to be hanged.
The “adjustments” made to the facts are acceptable for a
movie that is not meant to be a docudrama. The box office for a movie about Goring
must have him smiling in Hell, but viewers do learn a good bit about the
Nuremberg Trials. That is a good thing in today’s political landscape. Not that
the movie is clearly commenting on that. It’s probably just a coincidence.
