TheArchive: Reviewing the Rare, Retro, and Restored

This week’s blog is spotlighting the new release, Nuremberg , while taking a closer look at how film helps audiences dissect history and understand how certain historic events continue to affect our daily lives. Alongside Nuremberg , two powerful films from our library, Face of Evil and Steel Toes , also explore themes of extremism, propaganda, moral responsibility, and justice. These films examine the social and political conditions that help evil take root.  The film Nuremberg , starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek , approaches the themes above using a psychological lens of a WWII psychiatrist tasked with evaluating Nazi leaders before the historic trials. As he attempts to understand the minds of those responsible for mass atrocities, he becomes increasingly fixated on the persona of Hermann Göring, a man whose charisma complicates the moral binaries one might prefer to draw. The film forces us to consider whether evil is a defect of the mind or an active choice justified by ...