Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) is a serious film that enables the viewers to wrestle with the demands of justice for atrocities enabled by German jurists in NAZI Germany and the post-war emerging Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., for which the American military needed the support of the German people against the Soviet Union. The film accepts the need of such support as being vital in 1947, when the actual trial took place (the film has it as 1948). To the extent that acceptance of this assumption is deemed spurious, the viewers would likely view the tension as being between the need for justice, a virtue, and expediency, a vice. Accordingly, the pressure from an American general on the prosecutor to recommend light sentences so not to turn the German people against the Americans and thus from helping them in the Cold War can be viewed as being astute political calculation in the political realist sense of international relations, or else undue influence or even corruption of a judicial proceeding.

The prosecutor, Tad Lawson, having liberated death camps, rebuffs the General Matt Merrin’s pressure, and the four defendants get life sentences.  Whether Merrin’s claim that the U.S. needs the support of the German people in the Cold War is valid or not, pressuring a prosecutor is clearly depicted as unethical and so Lawson comes off as virtuous in resisting the exogenous pressure even though he is in the American military. It is certainly ironic that the victor army would push for lighter sentences for the vanquished; typically the question is whether a trial by the victors can be fair. Israel’s kidnapping and subsequent trial of Eichmann brought this question to the forefront. A trial in Germany would have also brought up this question. Britain would have been a good choice that would have avoided the conflict of interest.  In the film, Lawson successfully resists exploiting a conflict of interest by deciding not to curry favor with the general by urging the judges to go light in sentencing the defendants.

To be sure, chief judge Haywood has an opportunity to give a light sentence to one of the defendants. Ernst Janning, an expert jurist before the NAZI period and the Minister of Justice under Hitler, is the only one of the defendants who should have known better than knowingly convict innocent people, including Irene Hoffman for having sex with a much-older Jewish man, and sterilizing others, including Rudolph Petersen for being mentally impaired. Janning gives an impassioned speech to the court in which he admits his guilt, and that he should indeed have known better. Haywood holds Janning responsible for the latter’s use of the judicial system to send Jews and Poles to the death camps anyway; the crimes are simply too heinous for justice to be ignored. In the final scene, Haywood tells Janning that he should have known that it would come to such crimes the moment he convicted a person Janning knew was innocent. Using the gutted-out infrastructure of a judiciary to enable the state to engage in mass murder seems to particularly bother the chief judge. That is to say: a jurist who has written juridical books has no excuse in making a mockery of a judiciary.

After the last scene, the film indicates that none of the actual defendants of the American trial of jurists were still in prison as of 1961, when the film was made. Janning is loosely based on Louis Schlegelberger, who was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice. He got a life sentence for conspiracy to perpetuate war crimes and crimes against humanity. He instituted procedures for the persecution of Jews and Poles, and thus played a vital role in the mass extermination. As much as such severe harm deserves harsh justice, he was released just a few years after having been convicted for “health reasons” even though he died in 1970. Similarly, Rudolf Oeschey had his life sentence commuted to 20 years, but he was released in just 8 years. Guenther Joel, chief prosecutor of the Ministry of Justice, got a 10 year sentence but was released in 1951. The same for Ernst Lautz, the Chief Public Prosecutor of the People’s Court. Herbert Klemm, State Secretary in the Ministry, had his life sentence commuted to 20 years but was released after just 10 years. Oswald Rothaug, a senior public prosecutor in the People’s Court and Chief Justice of the Special Court, had his life sentence commuted to 20 years but was released in just 9 years. Justice was clearly not served, and the film acknowledges this frailty of justice “in the real world.” The implications are that none of the fictional defendants would actually serve a life sentence, and the American military, which had tried and failed to get its way in the sentencing, ultimately gets its way. Any relief from Lawson resisting the pressure to urge light sentences such that justice wins the day is short-lived as the viewers read the film’s caveat at the end that in the end, all of the actual defendants of the jurist Nuremberg trial were still in prison as of 1961.

Interestingly, Maximilian Schell, who plays Hans Rolfe, the German defense attorney who applies NAZI thunder in severely questioning Irene Hoffman—such zeal being objected to by Lawson but allowed by the chief judge—beat out Spencer Tracy, who plays the chief judge who comes down on the side of justice (and is fair in ruling on the objections during the trial) and thus resists manipulations by “friendly” former NAZI civilians and the American military and a U.S. Senator, to get the Best Actor Oscar in 1961. Spencer Tracy is so mild-mannered throughout the film that his acting was typical rather than exceptional, whereas Richard Widmark, who plays Lawson, should have been in contention with Schell for the Oscar. Both actors are impassioned and frustrated, hence they both drew on strong emotions in playing their respective roles. Perhaps both should have gotten the award. The world, however, is not so just, as the movie makes clear in the end even if justice momentarily has the upper hand.

The Screen Actors Guild Strike: American Capitalism Is Inherently Unbalanced

On July 14, 2023, Hollywood actors joined the writers in going on strike against the studios, which had changed the business model in ways, according to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), that were leaving the vast majority of actors out financially. At the time, AI (artificial intelligence) was the red-hot buzzword, promising unheard of advances but also baleful clouds on the horizon. The president of SAG sounded the alarm on not only the threat of AI given the studios' new business models predicated on ubiquitous streaming and digital technology, but also the more long-standing and ingrained American corporate system of Capitalism wherein upper managements get away with not sharing the surplus of corporate wealth due to an inherent or institutional conflict of interest. Indeed, Fran Drescher, the president of SAG, was not far from calling into question the taken-for-granted assumption in Capitalism that residual profits should go to stockholders exclusive. Questioning that default (as well as claiming that CEOs get to set their own compensation by controlling their respective boards of directors) would have made Drescher's announcement of a strike truly revolutionary. She was so close. 

The full essay is at "SAG Strike."

Major Barbara

In the film, Major Barbara (1941), Barbara, a Major in the Salvation Army, has been raised with her sister and brother by their mother. She is legally separated or divorced from the father, Andrew Undershaft, who nonetheless finances the lavish lifestyle of his family. Even Barbara, the idealist Christian evangelical, lives on her father’s armaments wealth. Yet when she meets him after several years, she leaves the Salvation Army after Andrew and an alcohol producer donate large sums. Although Barbara recognizes that the Army in London needs the money, she believes that the Army has sold out because providing weapons of death and alcohol are sinful. “What price salvation, now?” a customer at the Army’s soup kitchen asks Barbara after she had taken off her Army pin and given it to her father. Barbara is not willing to continue with the Christian organization because in her mind it has sold out even though it admittedly needs the donations to survive. But has the Army sold out? Furthermore, does Barbara sold out in using her father's business to convert workers. Ironically, that may be more ethical than the Army's approach to saving souls.

Andrew points out that he is giving the donation against his company’s financial interest because he is doing so anonymously and the Salvation Army preaches world peace rather than war. The maker of canons and explosives would not fare well financially were the Army to win the day. Similarly, the alcohol producer made his donation to an organization that keeps the poor fed and thus in less need of alcohol (excluding alcoholics).

From the standpoint of the modern business field of corporate social responsibility, wherein donations are typically strategically given so as to further the business interest, the film illustrates that self-sacrifice can indeed apply to company interests. The illustration may be idyllic, however, because businesses are set up and run to make as much profit as possible. If Barbara’s father runs a public company, then perhaps the other stockholders may object to the CEO giving away a substantial sum to an organization working at cross-purposes with the company’s financial interest. Andrew’s motive is likely to sway Barbara and her fiancée, Adolphus, in favor of the company so the latter may agree to be the next CEO without Barbara holding onto her scruples. Unless the company is privately held by Andrew, other investors and even creditors could reasonably object that the CEO’s personal life is interfering with his job.

Fortunately, Barbara has come to view the Salvation Army as not only selling out to unethical industrialist donors, but also as “bribing with bread.” Indicted are all religious organizations that tacitly bribe potential souls with earthly benefits. Come to our church for a free dinner! The hidden motive is likely to convert the hungry. 

In contrast, if Adolphus takes the helm of Andrew's armaments company, Barbara could work on the souls of workers who have full bellies and thus would approach salvation for its own sake. Ironically, Barbara finds a company that makes weapons—fire and blood—to be a better standpoint on which to utilize her idealism. Religious organizations bribe, whereas a business focuses on material things and leaves religion alone, hence giving Barbara an open birth to convert the willing. To be sure, converting the unwilling workers at a company would be quite unethical. Workers don’t sign up for that in taking a job, and they should not feel pressure from the CEO's wife to convert to the couple's religion. This point is particularly important because Adolphus and Barbara intend to live among the workers on company grounds. Barbara sees in this an opportunity to receive willing people who want God’s love for itself. Starting a Christian organization at the company without any pressure on employees to join could skirt the ethical problems, even as the Salvation Army is ethically challenged by bribing with bread. Also, the Army lives on, thanks to the large donations stained by the sins of alcohol and weapons geared to kill people. Perhaps the lesson is that religious organizations are not as pure as we might think, whereas businesses can allow for more than earthly pursuits.  

RBG

By chance, I watched RBG (2018), a documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, on the day she died in 2020. Being just a month and a half before the U.S. presidential election, the sudden opening immediately became political. This is of course to be expected, given that the sitting U.S. president nominates candidates and the U.S. Senate confirms them. The role of political ideology on the bench and thus in court decisions, however, is considerably more controversial because the justices are tasked with interpreting the law rather than stitching their own ideologies into law as a means of changing society. The documentary demonstrates that changing society through law was precisely Ginsberg’s objective.

As a lawyer in the 1970s, Ginsberg carefully selected cases that could incrementally change how the law discriminated against women. She understood that political change occurs only incrementally in the American system wherein the status quo has incredible inertia. Put another way, powerful interests benefitting from the status quo have considerable influence in American government. So her approach was to change the law bit by bit. Sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, she was able even in her dissents to effect or influence the making of law in the direction of her objective of changing society. For example, her dissent on a case involving discrimination of job benefits led to the passage of a law to stop the discrimination.

It is one thing, however, to choose cases as a lawyer to effect a societal change through law, and decide cases by interpreting law. In cases before the U.S. Supreme Court involving possible discrimination against women, Ginsberg’s mission to change society conflicted with her judicial duty to interpret the law as objectively as possible. In other words, Ginsberg could be criticized for putting her ideological mission above interpreting the law fairly.
The documentary makes clear that her objective to change society flowed through her career in law, yet no one is interviewed to present a counter-argument. Societal change as an objective of judicial decisions is taken for granted. In this way, the film is biased in favor of Ginsberg. Yet this bias is hidden from the viewers because the judicial objective is presented as a given. The documentary, like its subject, works in effect for a specific societal change. I am not suggesting that law should protect rather than prohibit the discrimination of women; rather, I contend that both the documentary and Ginsberg could have subjected the assumed validity (and laudability) of deciding cases to effect societal change through law to critique and thus been more balanced, and thus fuller and broader.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) is known for being the first Hollywood movie in which the face of Jesus is shown. From the standpoint of the next century, the scandal in showing Jesus could only seem antiquated, if not outright silly. Rarely can such perspective on a scandal exist as it is occurring. In its own time, a scandal seems all-important and critically in need of being addressed lest life as we know it would otherwise come to an end. Ten years earlier, Nikos Kazantzakis' novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, had also been controversial, as was the 1988 film of the same name (and based on the novel) because Jesus imagines himself in the sexual act and he may struggle with mental illness. This scandal was more serious than was that which greeted The Greatest Story Ever Told even though the Jesus of Last Temptation ends up rejecting the temptation to avoid the cross and is thus faithful to his Father in the end. The viewer is left, however, without a decisive answer as to whether the film's Jesus suffers from mental fits because the film ends with Jesus dying on the cross. The theological validation of Jesus is made in Greatest Story, though curiously not chiefly in the usual way this is done in narratives about him. I submit that this deviation makes the film highly significant in that it emphasizes religious experience as a reaction.

The two parts of The Greatest Story are separated by an intermission. The climax before it outdoes the one that comes at the end of the film. Ironically, the focus in the first climax is on the disciples' reactions rather than Jesus' face. Jesus walks up a hill to Lazarus' tomb to bring him back to life. Although we briefly see Jesus' face as he looks into the tomb, the chief shot is from the perspectives of the disciples downhill looking up. In fact, we only know that Jesus has succeeded by the reactions of the people watching the event from afar. We never see Lazarus. Seeing the reactions--verbal and nonverbal--is a more powerful way of conveying the significance of the event in religious terms. The astonishment and urgency to tell others we see suggests that the event was not just unusual, but more crucially supernatural and thus sourced in divine power intervening through Jesus. The reaction of the disciples to Jesus' resurrection at the end of the film is muted in relative terms. For viewers who are very familiar with the Passion Story of Jesus, the emotional reaction at the end of the film may also be muted.

In retrospect, some viewers may notice that the reactions of the disciples (and others) at Lazarus coming back to life (as distinct from being resurrected) are not the reactions that are typically seen in Churches during worship. Although in John (20:29) it is written, "Blessed are those who have not seen [me] and yet believe," it is also true that human reactions from witnessing a miracle of the significance of Lazarus would naturally be more intense than from hearing about miracles from the lectern in a church. Indeed, because Christians down through the centuries have not witnessed any such miracles of that magnitude personally, but only through a book, muted reactions have been the norm.  That is to say, relative to the reactions of the disciples and others in the film during the first climax, the intensity of Christians has been less in merely hearing about the miracle. Christians may notice that the miracles that evince a supernatural aspect are believed only in the narrative. This is not to say that the miracles were not empirical (i.e., historical) events; rather, my point is that Christians through the centuries have as their source the Bible, whose inerrancy pertains to belief rather than knowledge. Empirical facts, as from historical accounts written by historians, count as knowledge; belief does not. For such Christians, a miracle can be a literary device because the belief must come out of a book. The device, I submit, lends authenticity to the principles that a religious narrative conveys, rather proffers proof of an empirical event in the past. In short, Christians since the eye-witnesses such as those depicted in the first climax of the film have been dependent on the Bible sans direct experience.

I do not mean to suggest that religious experience from a miracle depends on being an eye-witness. This is where the film has particular value. The narrative device can trigger a distinctly religious reaction (i.e., experience). Watching the reactions from the Lazarus event, which itself was largely hidden from the viewer, the viewer may have a reaction that transcends emotions. Such a distinctively religious reaction, as for instance from feeling the hair raise on one's arms, is itself a religious phenomenon that exists even if miracles are only a literary device without having happened historically. None of us can know whether or not they did.  It is amazing that a mere literary device can trigger such a distinctive spiritual (rather than emotional) reaction. Generally, symbols, myths and rituals can trigger religious reactions. The reaction to a significance of a type that transcends our realm is distinctly religious or spiritual, and thus part of the human experience even if miracles are not. 

In short, the film's visual point-of-view assumes an unusual vantage point as Jesus is performing the miracle on Lazarus by focusing on the onlookers and thus their respective reactions. In contrast, a traditional vantage-point is assumed as viewers look at the raised Jesus talking with his disciples. Containing these two different perspectives in the two climaxes of the film, it points greater attention on the Lazarus miracle than that of Jesus' resurrection. The greater attention is itself distinct because the reactions that people would have to witnessing a significant, empirical miracle are highlighted. As a result, some viewers in turn may have a novel reaction that is distinctly religious and yet does not require that miracles occur outside of being a literary device. The reaction itself may point to the human propensity to transcend the limits of perception, cognition, and even emotions and thus to have a distinctively religious or spiritual experience. Such an experience, rather than major figures, may be the point that religions try to convey.  

The Ninth Gate

Released in the last year of the twentieth century, The Ninth Gate is a film about the use of a book to conjure up Satan. The book's title is The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows. Between three copies exist nine engravings appropriated from a book written by Lucifer. The person who gets all of those engravings can conjure up the devil. The Kingdom of Shadows presumably refers to Satan's kingdom. At the end of the film, Dean Corvo, a dishonest book dealer, rather than his client, Boris Balkan, is welcomed into a castle in which Satan is located. As the castle's main doors open, a blinding light shines outward into the night. Although Thomas Hobbes castigates the Roman Catholic Church as the kingdom of darkness in his text, Leviathan, Satan's realm has typically been depicted as dark in Christian art. Indeed, the film's own reference to Lucifer's kingdom as that of shadows follows this motif. Yet how can we account for the white light inside the castle? 

Some commentators of the film have suggested that the light casts shadows in our earthly realm, but this does not answer why Satan is surrounded by light, especially as the devil is associated with lies, which do not thrive in the translucent disinfectant of light. Furthermore, Leibniz's notion of God as perfect being implies that the darkness of nonexistence is furthest from God. In the Gospel of John (1:4) is written, "In Him was life, and the life is the light of men." Furthermore, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome" (1:5). Finally, Jesus says, "I am the light of the world (8:12). Seeing Dean Corvo enveloped in bright light as he enters the castle in which Satan has been conjured up does not make sense; the devil is not the light.

Some commentators of the film have argued that the light represents Dean Corvo's enlightenment. After all, he is the one who gets to see Satan. This raises the question of whether knowledge of evil can constitute enlightenment. The Gnostic Gospels refer to Christ as enlightening. From The Gospel of Truth (18:12-14) is written, "Through the hidden mystery Jesus Christ enlightened those who were in darkness because of forgetfulness. He enlightened them and show the way, and that way is the truth he taught them." Being enlightened thus brings a person out of darkness. Truth and darkness are mutually exclusive. So even though Dean Corso comes to know more about Satan, this cannot mean that he is enlightened. We are here at the point of a paradox in which Corso comes to know more about ignorance (of truth). To be sure, seeing a supranatural religious entity would be stunning; such a person would know that such entities really do exist even if the entity seen is the master perpetrator of lies, ignorance, and forgetfulness of God.  

Perhaps the blinding light illustrates just how qualitatively different the supranatural religious realm is from our own. It could even be that when the two realms come in contact, a clash-point exists such that high intensity energy is released in the form of light. The bright light may be indicative of such an interface, and thus point to the qualitative difference between the realms of the religious supranatural and our own natural world. In the film, Dean Corso wins the contest in being able to see the devil. What he has access to (i.e., the supranatural) is distinct and rare in even the film's story world. 

Going outside that world, to the authorial intent, Roman Polanski says in his commentary to the film (on the dvd) that he was making fun of the supernatural in films, such as in leaving it unclear to the viewer whether "Green Eyes" has supernatural powers such as flight. Polanski's ironically "dark humor" includes Boris Balkan's expressionistic facial expression while he strangles Liana Telfer in the film. Not every viewer catches that kind of humor, Polanski admits. His choice of piercingly bright light as the door to the devil opens could thus be a deliberate use of a motif that is generally related to God rather than the devil. If so, my musings about on why light rather than darkness could be associated with the devil are for naught; they are eclipsed, or overridden. 

Similarly in the case of the Bible, authorial intent can eclipse the story world. For instance, the latter may portray some features as historical facts. If the authorial intent is to make religious points rather than provide a historical record, the veracity of the "facts" in the story world should be subordinated to religious appropriation (and misappropriation) of said empirical facts. If two Gospels differ, for example, on when, relative to Passover, the Last Supper takes place, the supposedly historical disagreement is really, given authorial intent, the authors making different theological points. In short, the depiction of events as historical happenings serves theological points so such depictions can legitimately be fabricated. This is not to say that a theological point cannot make use of historical events, but even here, an independent historical account is necessary to verify that the events really did occur as depicted. 

Breaking the Waves

In what begins as a story about Bess, a mentally-ill (or cognitively challenged) woman who marries Jan, an oilman, Breaking the Waves (1996) is a film that ends on a distinctively religious note that is nothing short of miraculous. The viewer is meant to be skeptical concerning the authenticity of Bess's spirituality, especially as seems delusional in having two-way conversations with God. Even as one of her prayerful petitions seems perhaps of having been granted when Jan returns from the oil rig to Bess, albeit with Jan paralyzed from an accident, the overwhelming view of the characters in the story, including Jan, is that, as Bess's physician asks Bess, "Do you really think you have so much power?" Bess is blaming herself for Jan's serious medical condition. She could reply, "It's God's power, not mine," but she is slow. Yet she can love, unconditionally. When Jan urges Bess to sleep with other men then tell him about the experiences so he will have the will to live, Bess complies and is summarily kicked out of her church. Even Bess's mother, with whom Bess lives, locks the door. The church elders and the minister are judgmental hypocrites who presume that they can consign a person to hell. Even so, Bess's trust in God as a matter of faith continues, and she sacrifices her life by willingly submitting herself to a sadistic sailor so that God might then heal Jan. Meanwhile, the unbelievers are trying to get Bess to a mental hospital, given her "delusion." On the morning after Jan and his friends on the rig drop Bess's body into the sea, one of the friends wakes Jan to come outside and hear bells ringing even as radar shows nothing out there. The viewer now knows not only that God performed a miracle on Jan, for he is walking around and even back on the rig, but also that Bess's faith is vindicated as heaven's bells miraculously are chiming. The burial followed by bells ringing at sunrise reflects the story of Jesus' passion. The overall message seems to be that we mortals don't know as much as we think we do about God's ways, even if we do happen to have power in the governance of a church.

It is ironic that people so outwardly engaged in the religious domain can actually be so far from it and even, pathetically without realizing, attack the people who are religious. To put in Christian terms, as Christianity is the religion in the film, a person with power in a church can be oblivious to the fact that he or she is acting like the people who Jesus castigates in the Gospels. Astonishingly, an avowed Christian involved in the governance of a church can be oblivious to the fact that he or she is violating Jesus' preaching on neighbor-love, for example. To count oneself as part of the elect (i.e., predestined to be saved) does not give a "Christian" license to act contrary to Jesus' words and example. 

In the film, for example, the minister walks away from Bess when she is collapsed and unconscious in front of the church. Although he has stopped boys from pelting Bess with pebbles, the minister who excommunicated Bess then looks around to be sure he is not being seen as he walks away from her. He is the opposite of the proverbial good Samaritan, based in part on his presumed infallibility in excommunicating Bess from the church and community. At the end of the film, his arrogance is on full display as he consigns her to hell at her burial even though she has voluntarily sacrificed her life so her ill husband would receive a miraculous recovery rather than die. Her vindication comes in the form of another miracle on the early morning after her burial. Sound familiar? Not to the minister or the church elders. Their lack of compassion for Bess is all the more pathetic because at her wedding they recognized her for her faith as well as the many times she had cleaned the church. 

It is all too easy for the hypocrites in charge to view Bess as "slow" or mentally ill, and thus as delusional in prayer when she talks to God. Is not a Christian in prayer to listen for God's thoughts? Surely this form of prayer is superior to asking God for favors. To be sure, Bess is not perfect; she asks God to return Jan to her from the oil rig. This petition is answered, but not in the way Bess assumed. Also, she sins in going along with Jan's sexual fetish that she sleep with other men and tell him about the sex. The excommunicators, however, missed the fact that she complied out of love for her suffering paralyzed husband. 

When Bess willingly goes back to a sadistic sailor in hopes that God would miraculously heal Jan because of her sacrifice of her life, she wonders aloud at a hospital whether she is wrong because Jan has not improved. Her fallibility and humility amid sacrificial love is in contrast to the stern minister and church elders. It isn't until the miraculous sounds of bells at sunrise on the day after Bess has been buried that the viewer knows for sure that the minister and elders are actually anti-Christians and that Bess has indeed been talking with God in prayer, although it is possible that she has been delusional in what she said God was telling her in prayer and yet her sacrifice has prompted God to heal her husband, Jan. Surely the minister and elders would be appalled to learn that a retarded or mentally ill woman whom they expelled is in heaven whereas they are bound for hell. The lesson is that we mere mortals are not able to consign people to heaven or hell, especially in the case of a religion that privileges matters of the heart. That the minister and elders even miss Bess's fruits of the Spirit tells us that even people governing a congregation or serving as its clergy can be wrong rather than presumptuously infallible. 

We too, even as viewers of the film, can unwittingly accept the perspective of the minister and elders, and indeed Bess's own mother. This says something about us. The fact that the supranatural sound of bells does reveal the validity of Bess's relationship with God until the end of the film keeps the viewer in the wrong camp long enough for the bells to be a shock. "I sure got that wrong," I said to myself (perhaps God replied, "Yes, you certainly did). It was not that I agreed with the way in which the minister and elders treat Bess in the film; rather, I shared their assumption that Bess is crazy and so cannot possibly right about her relationship with God.  

At one point in the film, Bess addresses the men meeting in the church after someone emphasizes the need to keep the law. Bess is dismissed and excommunicated after she objects that words cannot be loved; only people can be. In reforming Judaism, Jesus says the same thing to the Pharisees. Loving even strangers trumps observing the strict Jewish law. The minister and elders are Pharisees who conceive of God as angry and judgmental at the expense of compassion, love, and forgiveness. The minister, elders, and even Bess's own mother have missed this fundamental point about Jesus and they stupidly and arrogantly presume themselves to be members of the elect. For all the importance they give to their religious identities, the hypocrites in the film do not internalize Christ's message of the humble love of self-sacrifice even for sinners.