Nuremberg, the movie: Get beat over the head with YOUR complicity with fascism.

[NNadir]

Yesterday, I went, by myself, to see the movie Nuremberg starring Russell Crowe as Herman Goering. (My wife is not interested in this kind of movie, but she suggested I go myself.)

The movie covers the psychiatric evaluation of the Nazi war criminals leading up to the Nuremberg trials of the surviving Nazis after the 2nd World War, noting that the precedent - which I think was appropriate - was somewhat contrived in a legal sense. It is basically a fictionalized true story involving the real life psychiatrist Douglas Kelly who evaluated all of the Nuremberg defendants to evaluate their sanity to assure competency to stand trial.

(None of the defendants was able to plead insanity in the real event; none tried.)

As a movie, it was just OK, with a more than a little wooden script, and so so acting.

The history was a little weak, since there was no mention of the Soviet presence at the trial, nor, really, the French (who were in an ambiguous position.) It's portrayed as an almost wholly American affair, with a little bit of Brit thrown in as a sop.

There was actually a zero probability of people like Goering getting off the hook, although certainly there were dubious cases where the death penalty was not enacted and guilty parties ended up getting out of prison during the cold war, notably the case with Doenitz and Speer. (Speer actually became rather famous post war, although his guilt in the genocide was in fact enormous.)

The only thing that was notable was the movies ending, wherein the actor playing Dr. Kelley who has slipped into alcoholism, wherein he is depicted on a radio show, telling the unbelieving hosts of the show that all human beings, including Americans, have the capability of becoming Nazis.

He is told, before being asked to leave the show, that criticizing his country is not a good idea, the criticism that a drunken Kelley makes while being interviewed that Americans can slip into similar behavior as was portrayed by the Nazis, right down to genocide.

I get the point; really I do. It was a little heavy handed, hammered in fact, but I get the point.

I can't say I recommend the movie, but I get the point.