Nuremberg (2000) (TV)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Yves Simoneau

Writers (WGA):

Joseph E. Persico (book)
David W. Rintels (teleplay)

Release Date:

16 July 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History

Plot:

The dramatized account of the war crime trials following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Plot Keywords:

Nazi | Courtroom | War Crime | Execution | WWII

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Another 9 wins & 18 nominations

Cast

Alec Baldwin	...	Justice Robert H. Jackson
Brian Cox	...	Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring
Christopher Plummer	...	Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe
Jill Hennessy	...	Elsie Douglas
Christopher Heyerdahl	...	Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Roger Dunn	...	Col. Robert Storey
David McIlwraith	...	Col. John Harlan Amen
Christopher Shyer	...	Gen. Telford Taylor
Hrothgar Mathews	...	Thomas J. Dodd
Herbert Knaup	...	Albert Speer
Frank Moore	...	Hans Frank
Frank Fontaine	...	Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel
Raymond Cloutier	...	Großadmiral Karl Dönitz
Bill Corday	...	Generaloberst Alfred Jodl
Ken Kramer	...	Fritz Sauckel

Runtime:

180 min | Canada:140 min

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Iceland:12 | South Korea:15 | Argentina:Atp | Germany:12 | Spain:13 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Montréal, Québec, Canada

Company:

Alliance Atlantis Communications

Trivia:

In reality Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe was, at 46, a few years younger than Robert Jackson (53), rather than as seen here, a considerably older mentor figure.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Many of the military courtroom guards are members of the U.S. First Infantry Division, as shown by their shoulder patches. They wear solid red shoulder cords (called fourrageres), which are apparently supposed to represent the French Croix-de-Guerre award won by the division during World War II. However, the actual Croix-de-Guerre fourragere consists of interwoven cords of both red and green.

Quotes:

Ernst Kaltenbrunner: They have very little evidence against us, hmmm?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Scene Smoking: Cigarettes, Cinema & the Myth of Cool (2001)

Soundtrack:

Das Ist Berlin

It's compelling, but maybe not the way it was intended.

Hidden inside this purported battle between surviving top Nazi Hermann Goering and American prosecutor Bob Jackson is, I think, the adaptation the writer probably wanted to do - the story of psychologist E.M. Gilbert and his backstage verbal tusslings with men who either refused to acknowledge any guilt (Goering, Streicher) or conversely were overflowing with it (Frank, Speer).

When you see Baldwin's name as Executive Producer, you feel that Nuremberg was probably conceived as a vanity project for him. Fortunately it is quite easy to let the Baldwin/Jackson scenes wash over you, and of course Jill Hennessey is always easy on the eyes. Everything involving Jackson (the nominal star of the show) is more or less soap opera. He has to persuade Judge Biddle to go to Nuremberg, then to relinquish the Presidency of the court. The bantering relationship with his secretary apparently serves as a prelude to their being lovers.

Then Brian Cox appears, totally dominating the trial and totally dominating this mini-series, and your attention is grasped and held. He wipes Baldwin off the screen. Unfortunately it's very hard not to gain a great deal of sympathy for Goering, particularly when he is with his family, or in the heart-to-heart chats with his G.I., "Tex". We see Goering as he undoubtedly saw himself, but in reality he wasn't like that at all. The Nuremberg trial and the general travails of imprisonment were an excellent opportunity to smarten himself up: prior to his arrest he was a dissolute, overweight drug addict. Unfortunately no sign of this weakness of character was carried over into the script of this series, leaving an impression of Goering as a noble, principled man - regardless of whether you agreed with his principles.

Also very watchable was Matt Craven in the role of the psychologist, Gilbert, and Christopher Plummer as British prosecutor David Maxwell-Fyfe. Particularly gratifying is the scene in which Plummer tells Baldwin that his "documentary approach" is "legally impeccable - but as drama it's absolutely stultifying" -not a bad description of Baldwin's participation, I'm afraid.

A last little curiosity, and not to make any personal remarks about Herbert Knaup, but I did find it strange that they cast Knaup, a slightly odd-looking actor with a strange-shaped face to play Albert Speer, who was by common consent the most handsome, charismatic and photogenic of all the Nazi leaders, particularly as Speer was portrayed in a sympathetic light. Apart from Knaup, many of the other actors were very close in looks to their real-life counterparts, most notably Roc LaFortune as Rudolf Hess, a French-Canadian actor who was consequently not given more than one or two words to say.