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The struggle between justice and politics
Ethel 2021-12-30 17:21:44
Personally, this is a very serious movie with basically no background music. The court debate is the highlight of this movie, and the defendant’s performance is very good. An obvious theme in the film is whether the defendant is guilty or not. This theme is vividly expressed through the wonderful debates between the prosecution and the defense. However, the film also implies a more grand and profound theme, which is whether to uphold justice in the face of politics and rule in Hitler. During the period, it was obvious that as the defendant, the German Minister of Justice Jiang Ning, the judge who carried the hope of justice fell under the political evening dress, and the trial judge Heywood of this film also faced tremendous political pressure and public opinion pressure. In order to use Germany as a forward position against the Bolsheviks, high-level US officials hope to please the German people. The immediate way to please Germany is to acquit Jiang Ning, the attorney general who is in important position in Germany, and Judge Heywood accepts it. Under tremendous pressure, he made the most just guilty verdict. At the end of the film, in Jiang Ning’s cell, Judge Haywood received the respect and approval of Jiang Ning, who was found guilty. Jiang Ning knew how difficult it is to comply with inner justice in the face of strong political pressure, because he did not do it. Only at this point will he become a criminal with serious sins. When Jiang Ning thought that he did not know that unjust judgments would cause thousands of Jews to be cruelly deprived of their lives, Judge Haywood's answer was intriguing: "It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent"
Extended Reading
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Kraig 2022-04-20 09:01:48
Burt Lancaster is really getting older and more handsome, and his performance is good, but he thinks that Maximilian Schell, who was called the emperor of the film, is just average.
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Cleve 2022-04-22 07:01:32
The moral inclination of the audience will continue to shift with the behavior and evidence of both the prosecution and the defense, but the whole process will not produce a firm position to substitute, this is because the shaping of each character is vivid, concrete and real. The four war criminals each embody different historical cognitions and values (although the trial only revolves around one person), and the judges hold different judgments and judgments. Instability (judges represent idealized justice and play a stabilizing role) demonstrates the complexity of individual behavior in historical contexts and how easily objective justice and human rights are overlooked in nationalist thought (historical and contemporary texts argument), the significance and value of this discussion at the time was probably much greater.
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Mrs. Bertholt: I saw Mr. Perkins today. He told me they'd showed those pictures in the courtroom. Col. Lawson's favorite pictures. He drags them out at any pretext, doesn't he? Col. Lawson's private chamber of horrors. Is that what you think we are? Do you think we knew of those things? Do you think we wanted to murder women and children? Do you believe that? Do you?
Judge Dan Haywood: Mrs. Bertholt, I don't know what to believe.
Mrs. Bertholt: Good God. We're sitting here drinking. How could you think that we knew? We did not know. We did not know!
Judge Dan Haywood: As far as I can make out, no one in this country knew.
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Mrs. Bertholt: One can't live with hate, I know that. Dan, we have to forget, if we are to go on living.