The Eichmann Show (2015)

Dramatisation of the team hoping to televise the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an infamous Nazi responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews. It focuses on Leo Hurwitz, a documentary film-maker and Milton Fruchtman, a producer.

Director:

Paul Andrew Williams

Writer:

Simon Block

Stars:

Martin Freeman, Anthony LaPaglia, Rebecca Front

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Martin Freeman	...	Milton Fruchtman
Anthony LaPaglia	...	Leo Hurwitz
Rebecca Front	...	Mrs. Landau
Andy Nyman	...	David Landor
Nicholas Woodeson	...	Yaakov Jonilowicz
Ben Addis	...	Ron Huntsman
Caroline Bartleet	...	Judy Gold
Ed Birch	...	Millek Knebel
Dylan Edwards	...	Roy Sedwell
Nathaniel Gleed	...	Tommy Hurwitz
Ben Lloyd-Hughes	...	Alan Rosenthal
Vaidotas Martinaitis	...	Adolf Eichmann
Zora Bishop	...	Eva Fruchtman
Nell Mooney	...	Female Journalist
Solomon Mousley	...	Perry Rudolph

Storyline

In 1961 former Nazi Adolf Eichmann is captured by Jewish agents and put on trial. American television producer Milton Fruchtman fervently believes that the trial with its witness accounts of Nazi atrocities should be televised to show the world the evils of the Holocaust and to combat any resurgence of Nazism and joins forces with black-listed director Leo Hurwitz. Despite death threats, reluctance to cooperate from several networks and even resistance from the Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion, who fears a 'show trial', the pair persist and move their cameras into the court-room. Edited daily and shown in some three dozen countries the 'Eichmann Show' becomes the first ever global television documentary.

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Plot Keywords:

trial | adolf eichmann | court room | genocide | israel | 

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Taglines:

The Nazi Trial of the Century

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Genres:

Drama | History

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Did You Know?

Trivia

In this film, Nicholas Woodeson plays one of the Israeli camera operators in charge of filming the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews. In Conspiracy (2001), Woodeson played SS Lt.Gen. Otto Hofmann, one of the individuals who planned the Final Solution to the Jewish Question during WWII. That was the plan that exterminated the Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe.

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Goofs

(at around 1h) An ambulance is visible with the Hebrew writing upside down.

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Quotes

Leo Hurwitz: I don't believe in monsters. But I do believe that men are responsible for monstrous deeds.

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Connections

Features Eichmann Trial (1961)

User Reviews

Powerful Yet Slightly Problematic Historical Drama

What to make of THE EICHMANN SHOW? It is necessary to detach fiction from fact. Paul Andrew Williams's production includes large slices of archive footage of the trial, showing the impassive features of Adolf Eichmann as he listened to the testimonies of several witnesses (victims?) of the atrocities he condoned. There are also newsreel records of the concentration camps and their victims, who if they were not already piled up into heaps of dead naked bodies, were left emaciated, mere shadows of what was once live humanity. These sequences are difficult to stomach, even at seventy years' remove; we still wonder how people could behave in such a bestial manner.

The dramatized parts are less effective, to be honest. The action is structured around a conflict between television producer Milton Fruchtman (Martin Freeman) and his director Leo Hurwitz (Anthony LaPaglia). Fruchtman has rescued Hurwitz from a ten-year exile on the Un-American Activities Committee blacklist, but finds him difficult to work with, as Hurwitz seems obsessed with focusing his cameras on Eichmann's face, to the detriment of other events during the lengthy trial. At one point Hurwitz misses a dramatic moment when one witness faints as he tries to recall his harrowing experiences in the death camps. Yet sometimes the conflict between producer and director distracts our attention away from the events at hand, almost as if director Williams were trying in some way to soften the dramatic impact of his piece. Matters are not helped by the regular use of reaction shots on Freeman's and LaPaglia's faces as they respond to one another.

On the other hand Williams does question Fruchtman's morality, as he seems more obsessed with maintaining global ratings rather than broadcasting the material. We are into areas explored in Sidney Lumet's NETWORK (1976) here: are television companies really undertaking public service responsibilities, or are they simply trying to render all events as entertainment to attract high viewing figures? Hurwitz understands the significance of what he directs, but Fruchtman appears not to.

THE EICHMANN SHOW is certainly a powerful piece that needs to be watched, but perhaps the reconstructed material could have been more slickly handled.

Details

Official Sites:

BBC Listing Official site [Japan]

Country:

UK Lithuania

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 January 2015 (UK)

Also Known As:

The Eichmann Show

Filming Locations:

Lithuania

Company Credits

Production Co:

Feelgood Fiction, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Vistaar Religare Film Fund

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

16:9 HD