Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
A provincial American judge, Heywood (Spencer Tracey), presides over a fictionalised war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg; the accused are four members of the German judiciary, most notably renowned jurist Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster).
Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland put in moving performances as victims of the Nazi regime, while Maximilian Schell, who won an Oscar for his role as defense counsel, sees German identity and self-respect on the line. The heart of the matter is ultimately the notion, skewered, that ordinary Germans did not know what was happening.
It's a superb portrait of moral corrosion under pressure, and the resulting messy tangle of culpability. Most troubling for me was the self-righteous indignation of the Americans, particularly Heywood: all too eager to judge those on trial without any apparent reflection that there but for the grace of God go I....