by Chloe Smith
Theatrical release poster from Wikipedia
James Vanderbilt’s new historical drama Nuremberg takes as its subject matter the trial of the Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of the Second World War. For nearly two and a half hours, the film centres on perpetrators; exploring the Nazi psyche through its portrayal of Hermann Göring and his relationship with a US military psychiatrist.
For six minutes however, this focus shifts to the victims, with the audience confronted with real footage of dead and skeletal people from various concentration camps across Europe. Momentarily, the audience are faced with the brutal reality underpinning the courtroom drama. After six minutes of atrocity images so graphic it made me close my eyes for the duration, the diversion is over; the audience are quickly ensconced back into the film, the trial is concluded, and justice is served.
I want to focus on these six minutes. The showing of the Nazi Concentration Camps film reminds the audience of the scale of the crimes tried at Nuremberg, just as its inclusion on day six of the real-life proceedings in the trial of the major war criminals at Nuremberg was intended to make real the scale and nature of the atrocities committed, as Laurence Douglas memorably pointed out. Yet the horror felt by those in the audience overpowers other grave but perhaps overlooked concerns. Some time ago, I decided to look away when faced with atrocity images, particularly from the Holocaust, not because I was afraid of my own reaction, but because the people they depict have not granted me permission. To continue to view these pictures in the present is for me a continuation of violations from the past, and the fact that consent is missing in a context merging drama and reality adds an uncomfortable layer to an already difficult watch.
Consent has become an important pre-requisite for taking photographs and dominates discussions on ethics more generally. When the person depicted is inaccessible and the end is unknown, moral concerns come to the forefront, especially when photographs dehumanise victims. The absence of consent from the victim in the frame means they also have no say in how their photograph is used, or whether and how their most vulnerable moment is displayed for future audiences to observe. This concern becomes entangled with other moral issues; by viewing photographs of individuals who have been stripped of their humanity, the modern viewer becomes complicit in continuing the dehumanisation process, a necessary component that vilified and othered Jewish victims during the Holocaust. In the present, the rights and feelings of victims are considered more than ever, so it is all the more troubling to reflect on why we do not treat past victims with the same sensitivity.
The lack of consent could be dismissed if the use of this footage aided the understanding of the viewer, but it does not. The choice to include this footage in the film is not unsurprising and is historically accurate. As already noted, atrocity footage was used in the courtrooms at Nuremberg as evidence of the crimes committed by Nazi forces. These were broadcast back to the United States and the UK, with graphic scenes of machinery pushing corpses into mass graves illustrating Richard Dimbleby’s haunting testimony on Nazi atrocity, permeating British memory of the Holocaust in particular. News outlets at the time believed that by publishing these images, populations would come to know the true cost of Nazism, with calls of ‘Never Again’ echoing from radios and television sets around the world.
The integrity of the footage and its place in the film was defended by Vanderbilt: he wanted the extras in the courtroom not to watch the footage beforehand so that he could capture candid reactions which were important for the “story.” In other words, the footage was used, consciously, to obtain a reaction from the actors. Yet, the audience makes it through a considerable chunk of the film, with plot devices designed to explain more technical aspects of the new crimes and their definitions that will be tried at Nuremberg, before facing this footage head-on. The footage lacks any context, nor does it explain who the people on screen were, or the lives they lived before their images were beamed out to millions across the world, without their consent. The film instrumentalises the victims for its own purposes. The absence of consent as moral issue surrounding the footage does not appear to have even been comprehended, let alone considered.
At the time, the consent of victims was not an issue that was widely considered regarding the use of atrocity images. However, other recent films about the Holocaust have made a purposeful decision to omit real footage of atrocity or reenactment. Nuremberg may not be a ‘Holocaust’ film per se, but the primacy of the footage and the sub-plot mean it cannot escape association with the genre entirely. This is a genre that appears to have moved from reenactment of atrocity in Schindlers List (1993) and The Pianist (2002), to more indirect depictions of atrocity in the Son of Saul (2015) and The Zone of Interest (2023). These later films use cinematic techniques including shooting out of focus and haunting but often abstract soundscapes to ensure the audience grasps the concept of evil. Jonathan Glazer, director of The Zone of Interest, reflected on his Oscar winning film’s soundscape, explaining that the pictures created in the mind are informed by what we hear in the film but also what we know to be true from images and footage we have already seen. Is The Zone of Interest powerful proof that we have seen enough, and we should instead focus on new and innovate ways creatively to portray the Holocaust? Nuremberg had its chance to follow suit after Glazer’s success but fell short with the banal use of atrocity footage that lacked any consent to be used in this way. A bolder choice would have been to focus solely on the reactions of those in the courtroom, with the cinema audience’s experience of the atrocity footage limited to the audio only. The absence of consent from the victim would be less concerning, the film would have remained true to historical events and the audience would have had a powerful experience, because they already know what the footage shows. We do not need to further violate victims by watching another six minutes of their suffering.
Chloe Smith graduated with a BA in War Studies in 2021 and an MA in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies in 2022. Chloe’s primary research interest is on representation of atrocity and conversations on consent and ethics. Chloe is currently working for a Member of Parliament in Berkshire.
Nuremberg is a 2025 film written, co-produced, and directed by James Vanderbilt, based on the 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai.