jakebe | Entries tagged with wwii movies

Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)
Starring Spencer Tracy, Maximillian Schell, Burt Lancaster and Marlene Dietrich
Directed by Stanley Kramer
Written by Abby Mann

A few years after the end of World War II, a battered Europe is beyond ready to move on. Germany, now that the atrocities of the concentration camps are out in the open, is in a state of shock as a country. Its people struggle to deal with the reality of what it's done, wondering how it could have allowed the systematic eradication of its Jewish population, undesirable elements and political enemies. The United States is already moving on to its next conflict, setting the pieces in place to fight a cold war with the growing communist threat of the Soviet Union.

But before we can put the war to rest, there's this small matter of deciding what to do about the judges, military officers and others who solidified Nazi policies into the law of the land. When these orders came from the top down, how much responsibility do the people in charge of putting them into motion carry with them? Should they be prosecuted for the horrific effects of these policies? Or is their duty to carrying out the will of their state -- right or wrong -- of greater importance than a more universal set of morality? How do we decide to treat war criminals when they had only limited power with which to resist committing these crimes?

Judgement at Nuremberg is about the trial of 98 civil servants in post-war Germany, mainly boiled down to the question of what to do about five judges who presided over the courts and passed rulings that lead to the sterilization of some, the death or imprisonment of others, the horrors of the concentration camps to too many. The crux of the trial is that very question -- how much responsibility do we give to actors of the state when the country has essentially legalized war crimes? Does personal and/or social survival form an effective excuse for a complete lapse in moral judgement? Or should we expect people to abandon their duty to their country if a more fundamental set of beliefs are violated?

Spencer Tracy stars as Presiding Judge Dan Haywood, a former district court judge from Maine who is called upon to determine what happens to these men. Judge Haywood must not only decide the considerable issue in front of him, but he must also attempt to understand how an entire country could fall in line with these terrible ideals and resist the political pressure of his own country's military as they prepare for a Cold -- and possibly real -- war with the Soviet Union.

I'll jump right in and say this: Judgement at Nuremberg is an excellent movie that everyone in this country should see. The acting is genuinely great all around, lead by elder statesman Tracy as he guides a parade of stars through the proceedings. The cinematography is amazing, focusing on the people who are grappling with the consequences of their actions but pulling back just enough for you to understand the context and society in which they're doing so. The direction is tight and crisp; even though this is a beast of a movie at 179 minutes, it really doesn't feel like there's any wasted time. Every scene is necessary to understand a facet of the issue, or the motivations of the characters dealing with them.

Director Stanley Kramer does a wonderful job exploring the full texture of Abby Mann's Oscar-winning Adapted Screenplay. There are so many interesting ideas at work here -- watching Germany wake up from its National Socialist nightmare with bewilderment and guilt and a desperate desire to reaffirm its own morality makes many of the "ordinary" Germans Haywood meet sympathetic but also infuriating. "We had no idea" is a common refrain for so many of them, but how could they not understand what was happening in their own country? How much of that ignorance was intentional -- faced with the choice of confronting the knowledge of wrong-doing and being forced to act on it, or keeping your head down to attract as little attention from a brutal power structure as possible, what would you do? It's hard to imagine myself in that position and not thinking I would be just like them -- especially if I had a family or children to think about.

Beyond that, the movie posits that it wasn't just Germany's responsibility to stop Adolf Hitler before he attained a stranglehold on power; the world at large sat by and watched it happen -- so if Germany's judges and prosecutors are on trial then the governments of Europe should be too. Many of them also "had no idea" how far Hitler would go before he did, but how much of that ignorance was intentional? If we hold those in the judicial system responsible, why not the executives of other countries, or the diplomats, or the militaries? Where do we stop assigning the blame?

Judgement at Nuremberg also draws very interesting parallels between the Germany of the 1930s and the United States of the 1950s. Judge Haywood is told that political considerations must be factored into his decision, and that in order to successfully repel the threat of Communist Soviets America must have Germany on its side. Early in the proceedings of the trial, it's accepted as fact that the National Socialist rose to power on the promise of stopping the Communist threat. It's a slippery slope argument, true, but the idea that Haywood is asked to repeat the shading of the law here at the same time he's supposed to condemn that very thing is unsettling -- and likely true.

And that's what makes this movie so vital for us today. It's rare that you see entire nations reflect in on themselves about what it means to be American, or German, or British -- and what, precisely, is the individual's duty to the state. Judgement at Nuremberg reminds us that Nazi Germany put monsters in charge but was also populated by people just like you and me who thought being patriotic meant enacting the law of your country even when you disagreed with it, knew in your heart that it was unjust. Their reasons -- and they all had their reasons -- ranged from "what could we do about it even if we disagreed?" to "my country, right or wrong". If we put ourselves in their positions -- a married set of servants, or a wealthy socialite, or an intellectual interested in the rule of law -- and we had to deal with our government systematically strip the rights of its minorities or political dissidents, what would we do? Honestly.

The political environment of Germany in the early 1930s has startling similarities to the political environment of our country in the 2010s. We're willing to do anything, sacrifice anything in order to give ourselves the illusion of safety and control. We want to blame the foreign elements in our midst for our problems; we see a vague and shadowy threat to our very existence and want to attack anything that we know might upset the status quo. We are a deeply divided nation. And we have individuals running for office who claim to know just how we can restore our country to greatness -- by tolerating no dissent, refusing any attempt at discourse, at identifying and removing anything that could even vaguely be a threat to our national security.

I wish I was being hyperbolic or alarmist by saying this, but I'm not. But we do have a choice, each and every one of us, about how we deal with what's happening. Does history repeat itself? Or do we learn the hard lessons that were taught in our past?

In order to have a hope of answering these questions, we have to understand how it could have happened in the first place. What lead an entire nation of moral, upright people to install one of the most terribly brutal regimes in human history? What justifications did they use? How can we make sure we don't fall prey to those same justifications?

I won't claim that Judgement at Nuremberg offers complete answers to these questions, but watching this movie is an excellent start at wrapping your head around them.

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Starring Frederic March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell and Teresa Wright
Written by Robert E. Sherwood (screenplay) and MacKinlay Kantor (novel)
Directed by William Wyler

This is a great surprise for a number of reasons. Unlike most of the other films on the Top 100 list, I had never heard of this one before. It's odd to be this far into it and stumble across a movie you're not at least passingly familiar with. Just on the title alone, I thought it would be some kind of domestic melodrama that served as the pinnacle of that sort of movie in its day. I wasn't that excited to see it. I was quite wrong, and I'm very glad to be so.

The Best Years of Our Lives follows three military servicemen after coming home from World War II. Al Stephenson (March) is a banker and family man, with a quiet and successful domestic life waiting for him. Fred Derry (Andrews) was a soda jerk before he became a Captain in the Air Force, and he'll be reuniting with a wife he barely got to know before he left. Homer Parrish (Russell) was a Navy seaman who was injured in the line of duty, losing both of his hands in an explosion. While he's gotten used to the hooks that have replaced his hands, he's not quite used to how civilians look at them.

There are so many extraordinary things about this movie I almost don't know where to begin. I guess we'll start with the top. Director William Wyler served in the war as well, and strived for authenticity whenever possible. He stuffed the ranks of the crew with actual WWII veterans, and drew on his own experiences in combat to fill out details about his main characters. Al's reunion with his wife was patterned on his own, and it's one of those scenes that really win you over. It's really hard not to get sniffly.

In order to preserve a sense of realism, Wyler reportedly had all of his actors buy their own clothes off the rack and ordered sets to be built closer to life-size so they didn't look like movie sets. You don't notice it while you're watching, but it really lends a close, lived-in feel to the entire movie; shots are crowded with people, so you actually get the sense of intimacy in their conversations. Director of Photography Gregg Toland uses deep-focus camera-work (I admit, that meant nothing to me either until I read something that explained it) to make sure you can see what's going on in the background and foreground at the same time. This leads to wonderfully complicated scenes, where stories intersect in the same space for a moment or two before you follow one or the other out of the door.

The movie navigates three parallel stories that offer a different perspective of post-war life. Al Stephenson probably has it the easiest; he has a loving wife and daughter, a boss who thinks the world of him, and enough money to live comfortably despite serving in the military for a number of years. Still, not everything is perfect. He finds himself distant from a son who doesn't seem to appreciate his experiences; his job at the bank is unfulfilling next to the work he did with the military; and his neat, orderly life makes him bored and nervous. He's also a little overly-fond of alcohol.

Derry is in a worse predicament. He doesn't want to go from being an officer in the Air Force to being a soda jerk again, but being a bombadier doesn't offer a whole lot of opportunity in peace time. His wife is accustomed to a certain standard of living and once that starts to slip they run into pretty tough marital problems. It seems like he typified the veterans' experience post-war -- going from an environment where his particular skill set is appreciated, even depended on to a society that has no use for him now that he's back. It must be frustrating to make that adjustment, to finding your niche in a radically different world.

Homer has the most difficult time adjusting to post-war life. As a wounded veteran, he's taken care of by Uncle Sam, but it's hard for him to know what to do with the looks of his family and friends regarding his injury. His introduction is telling: when we first meet him, he's using his hooks to take a match out of a matchbook and light a cigarette. It's...actually impressive, and Fred and Al watch as he does it. Once he's proven what he can do, they both accept that he's fine with his injury and treat him as one of the gang. Later, when Al introduces Homer to his family, he says "This is Homer, he was injured in the war. But it doesn't bother him, so it shouldn't bother you." And that's that.

Around his family, though, it's a different story. His parents respond with the shock and grief that Homer has already worked his way through. They try to tiptoe around the subject as much as possible and when they can't they treat him with the utmost gentleness. It's a natural reaction, but for Homer it's emasculating. Their compassionate response -- drawn from the best of intentions -- actually makes it more difficult for him to feel like a useful, complete human being. It's a tough situation that generates sympathy for both sides, and even though Homer saddens and sometimes frightens his friends and family with his anger you really feel for him.

The America portrayed in the movie is a far cry from the whitewashed image of perfection and prosperity you see in the 50s. There are a number of things society is trying to work out, and there's an uneasiness that's surprising but sensible. With veterans returning to flood the job market and production slowing down significantly, people were convinced that they were facing a return to the depression of the Thirties. Most surprisingly, people were already talking about the atom bomb and what it would do to change warfare; more than once, a character says that if there's another World War we'd face extinction as a species.

The Best Years of Our Lives is at its best when it explores the personal costs of war, the uneasiness surrounding the returning veterans, and an America that was sputtering back to normalcy after five years of wartime. Al's moral struggle as the new Vice-President of Small Loans is gripping; you want to see him go right by the veterans who come in asking for help to get their lives started again. Fred's night terrors about a particularly hairy mission he lived through is something that I've never heard of in any other movie from the time, when there were fairly strong ideas about what soldiers were supposed to look like on screen. And Homer's struggle to find his place with his disability is utterly engrossing, so much so that you don't mind it when the film turns into a romantic melodrama for much of its third hour. He's earned his happy ending, after all.

Every character is complete and charismatic, and that makes their conversations grounded, funny and human. There are still the classic movie touches -- the swell of music during emotional moments, the shorthand common to the time that might not translate as well today -- but for the most part everything ages well. There's no doubt that the veterans coming home are from the Second World War, but the struggles they faced then are the same struggles our veterans face now. By painting those veterans as people trying to reintegrate into their lives, we're stripped of the political context of what they've done so we can focus on their humanity.

I highly recommend tracking down this forgotten gem. It has a strong moral backbone, but it puts itself across amiably, without preachiness or treacle. Every performance is strong, the director has a sure hand on what he wants, and he keeps everything purring along smoothly. Even though the end of the movie can't quite match what's come before it, The Best Years of Our Lives is definitely worth three hours of your time.

Rating: 8/10.