Judge Dan Haywood In Judgment at Nuremberg | Actor's Eye

Saw an awesome court room drama recently, “Judgment at Nuremberg”. Crisp script, nice characterization and some wonderful acting clubbed along with some hidden aural and visual hints made it a memorable experience. The story is about trial of four Nazi judges, for war crimes, by an Allies court lead by Americans.

 

Unlike many of the court room dramas I have seen till date, especially the ones from Bollywood which have either the prosecutor or the defense or the victims or some witness in the lead, this one has something new to offer where it deals with the turmoil and confusion of “Your Honour” during a trial.

 

Played by Spencer Tracy, the character, Chief Judge Dan Haywood, visits Germany for the first time and gets to learn about the culture, the people, the circumstances and about “The Germany” before, during and after the “Hitler” era. How Judge Haywood is influenced, is in turmoil and at times confused by the proceedings but yet remains truthful to the call of duty and gives a judgment based on the ultimate truth is what the script deals in. The character is soft at heart , who receives and gets love and respect in the course of time, when he is outside the court and at the same time he is also a person with strong will power and one who is firm about and stands for his decisions whether they please people around him or not. He is humble, he is down to earth and he is polite with ladies and he is also one who knows how to get the “order” right inside the court.

 

Judge Haywood in short has been shown to be the epitome of justice and Spencer Tracy, as usual, has done proper justice with the judge. The elegance through body language, the pride and authority through voice and the confusion through expressions he has depicted all and depicted all very well.  All in all a good character and a good performance in a well scripted and well directed movie makes it a pleasure to watch.

 

Written By: Gaurav Karmakar