Everything about this film felt very lukewarm. First, it was unnecessarily long \u2014 the story it told could have been told in half the time, especially without the romance plot that served absolutely no purpose and was purely fictional. Second, the highly dramatized portrayal of the trial \u2014 in combination with the real graphic footage from the Holocaust, combined with copious amounts of moralizing by Justice Jackson \u2014 felt unnecessarily kitsch.
It was interesting, though, to give a face to the history I\u2019ve encountered mostly in a textual format. Since I\u2019m writing about the Nuremberg Trials for my JP, I\u2019d read through the trial transcripts and knew most of the defendants\u2019 names before watching the movie. It was difficult to visualize how exactly the trials played out in my head while sorting through pages of legal documents and statements. The movie was convenient in that way \u2014 it provided one dramatized interpretation of an event that was difficult to imagine in a textual medium. But in terms of its historical accuracy or value, I\u2019m a bit more skeptical.
While historical fiction is objectively a different field from feature journalism, the degree of dramatization in the movie made me think more critically about my role as a journalist retelling stories of trauma and pain in others. It\u2019s very easy, I think, to turn a portrayal of a graphic or traumatic event into an almost pornographic spectacle. The line between spectacle and entertainment is frequently blurred, and I think many journalists who cover traumatized migrants are guilty of turning their subjects into just that. Of course, it\u2019s a difficult endeavor that can\u2019t be fulfilled formulaically \u2014 I myself am not sure how to write as honestly and with the most integrity possible about traumas that I have never experienced nor understood. But I think it\u2019s a question more than worth asking and thinking very critically about. I also had a question on the point of spectacle: Are there moments where a more dramatized narrative form can be justified to convey the sheer weight of the story being told? Or is it a strict responsibility for a journalist to adhere only to the chronology and facts of the evidence, even if it means sacrificing the story\u2019s narrative gravitas?
This question of spectacle also reminded me of something else I\u2019d been thinking about: the relationship between journalistic integrity and anonymity. In what cases is anonymity (un)justified? Do journalists have a responsibility to quote non-anonymous sources over anonymous ones, even if the anonymous source provides marginally better information? What are some of the potential consequences of overextending anonymity to those who may not need it? How do the standards for anonymous authorship vs. Anonymous sourcing differ?<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everything about this film felt very lukewarm. First, it was unnecessarily long \u2014 the story it told could have been told in half the time, especially without the romance plot that served absolutely no purpose and was purely fictional. Second, the highly dramatized portrayal of the trial \u2014 in combination with the real graphic footage<\/p>\n