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ETHICAL CATASTROPHE IN THE MORGUE OF RATIONALITY: THE BANALITY OF EVIL
Nuremberg (2025), which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2025, received one of the longest standing ovations in TIFF history. Adapted by James Vanderbilt from Jack El-Hai's book, the film draws attention with Russell Crowe's towering performance as Hermann Göring.
The movie brings Hannah Arendt's concept of "The Banality of Evil" to the screen, examining the bureaucratic horror and ethical collapse behind the grand narratives through the eyes of U.S. Army psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek). The courtroom, a symbol of the rational legal system, constantly clashes with the psychological tension in Kelley's one-on-one sessions. Vanderbilt portrays Nuremberg not just as a legal victory, but as a catastrophe of modern man's capacity for thought.
COGNITIVE COLLAPSE: KELLEY AND THE EXCESSIVE ENERGY
Kelley’s obsession with understanding Göring is intertwined with his attempt to satisfy his career ambition. This runs parallel to Heidegger's concept of "inauthentic Dasein": an existence pursuing societal acceptance and professional success instead of seeking authentic truth.
Kelley confronts not only a criminal but also the forbidden and consumable energy defined in Georges Bataille's The Accursed Share. Russell Crowe's Göring performance embodies this "excessive" energy that strains the limits of the rational system.
The actions of Nazism are in stark contradiction to Kant's ethical principles: the victims are seen merely as means, and humanity is never treated as an end. The conflict in Kelley's mind makes the ethical collapse tangibly felt.
THE SHADOW'S VENGEANCE AND THE ESCAPE FROM ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY
According to Jung's analytical psychology, the evil Kelley encounters resonates with his own suppressed Shadow archetype. While initially believing Göring to be an archetypal monster, he realizes he is a product of a bureaucratic mind nurtured by the collapse of Kantian morality.
Rami Malek’s performance in the tight, claustrophobic cell scenes dramatically conveys Kelley's cognitive breakdown. Ultimately, his imitation of Göring's cyanide suicide demonstrates the influence of Schopenhauer's blind and destructive "Will" upon him; the flight from ethical responsibility in the face of Nietzsche's Will to Power leads Kelley to a tragic defeat.
THE LEGACY OF ETHICAL DECAY
While Nuremberg (2025) offers intellectual depth with Crowe's striking portrait of Göring, the true tragedy lies in Kelley's collapse. In his subconscious journey to understand evil, Kelley is not healed but corrupted, crushed under the ethical burden carried by the banality of evil.
His post-trial police profile analyses suggest that evil is a universal archetype that can take root in modern society. The film is not just a legal triumph; it is a deep and unsettling cinematic experience that whispers of the collapse of the capacity for ethical thought in the Arendtian sense, and how difficult, perhaps even impossible, it is to break this cycle. Nuremberg stands out as one of the festival season's most notable productions.
EFE TEKSOY
References
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Penguin Classics, 2006.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Vintage, 1968.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Dover Publications, 1969.
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative, Volume 1: Time and the Story. University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Psychology and Sociology
Jung, Carl Gustav. Four Archetypes. Princeton University Press, 1970.
Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share. Zone Books, 1991.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage, 1995.
Narrative and Mythological Structure
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 2008.
Dumézil, Georges. Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty. Zone Books, 1988.
Film
Vanderbilt, James. Nuremberg (Film, 2025).
