Nuremberg

In Frederic Raphael’s book, Eyes Wide Open – on the making of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1998), which Raphael co-wrote with Kubrick – at one point, they discuss Schindler’s List. The much-revered, Oscar-sweeping 1995 film by Steven Spielberg is cut down to size by Kubrick for its triumphant, hopeful climax. Something that betrays the way Kubrick sees the Holocaust essentially as a tale of failure. Even though I don’t fully concur with the thesis, I do see where Kubrick was coming from. That the Holocaust was a singular example of systemic moral failure is something that is acutely understood by James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg – a film named after the infamous trial where the Allies prosecuted the surviving officers of the Nazi high command for crimes against humanity. What’s surprising about Vanderbilt’s film is its awareness isn’t instantly apparent. But how it reveals itself slowly.