Chris Knipp
10-12-2024, 10:13 PM
http://www.chrisknipp.com/images/%20gold.jpg
ARIEH WOLTHARTER INTHE GOLDMAN CASE
CÉDRIC KAHN: THE GOLDMAN CASE (2023)
TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7XhGhN9QKs)
Le procès Goldman: brilliant true seventies courtroom drama
There have been several great French courtroom dramas recently, Alice Diop's Saint Omer and Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall. Here is another one equally good that lies between the two, not quite as entertaining or as suspenseful as Fall and not quite as earnest and instructive as Omer, but a real life masterpiece of legal theater based on what has been heralded as one of the great French trials of the seventies. Essentially true, but in specific details recreated, it is set in 1976, a time of leftist activism everywhere, and Pierre Goldman, due to becoming a figure of the far-left well known through a polemical autobiography Obscure Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France written and published in prison, is getting a retrial for four armed robberies, one of which led to the death of two pharmacists. The point of the trial is to reconsider the murder charges that have gotten Goldman sentenced to life. He admits to the robberies, which it's simply said he did for money because he was penniless. He gained a retrial by proving the investigation was flawed and claiming an alibi for the date and time of the killings. This time the highly partisan courtroom audience is a constant presence, cheering and jeering, with obvious factions present. Without ever stepping outside the courtroom scene except for a lawyer-client conference, the film conveys how this trial, become a cause célèbre of the student movement, was felt throughout the country.
We're very aware of the special features of French courtroom procedure here, particularly the way all parties are allowed to participate in the questioning of witnesses. It may come to seem that the questioning is more important thn the witnesses themselves, who appear frangible creatures, unreliable to begin with and subject to manipulation. Meanwhile the prosecution lawyer can always come in and twist anything that's been painted in a favorable light.
Most remarkable is the accused, Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter, the distinctive, forceful actor winner of the year's best actor César for his performance), who for at least the first half of the action, is constantly intervening, and not only on his own behalf. He wavers between seeming a man of great principle and an unpredictable crank, and from trying to fire his attorney, also French-Polish-Jewish, Maître Kiejman (Arthur Harari, also outstanding), and then changing his mind, he drives Maître Kiejman batty by making wild statements, notably that all police are racists, that do nothing but prejudice the jury and some elements the public against him, though his boldly declared antiestablishment views are very much of the times and find great sympathy in his on-scene admirers.
When Goldman yells out things about the police and the law and the antisemitism of all and sundry, he could be getting into worse trouble. AlloCiné's synopsis (https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=299937.html) of the film calls Goldman "elusive and provocative." But that is half the fun, because French trial procedure gives him a starring role in his own trial but at least at first (he settles down later) he seems bent on bringing down his own destruction and Maître Kiejman and the other defense lawyers are seen wincing and trying to shush their client. This heedlessness also comes off as confidence as when also he scoffs at the idea of presenting character witnesses, declaring simply "I am innocent because I am innocent."
Peter Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/sep/19/the-goldman-case-review-gripping-french-courtroom-drama-with-a-chaotic-energy) in his comments on the free for all feel of this most French and volatile of French trials: "Repeatedly, Goldman interjects and mocks; court onlookers jump to their feet and demand to be heard; jurors ask questions of the defendant and Goldman’s supporters in the public gallery chant like a football crowd; all this without the president demanding for the court to be cleared." In fact one is sanctioned, and there's something wonderful about the liberal Mediterranean sense of order that enables such disorder to play out and still have a satisfying trial.
Meanwhile we are watching Kiejman painstakingly undermine the prosecution, showing how the ID-ing of Goldman was falsified by the police and witnesses deceived. And when things turn out the way we and the movie are obviously supposed to and the way they actually did, it's more like the end of a key football match than the conclusion of a trial. A great courtroom drama with a strong and uniquely French period flavor of the seventies.
The Goldman Case/Le Procès Goldman, 115 mins., debuted as the opening night film of Directors' Fortnight at Cannes May 17, 2023 and opened June 7, subsequently winning a Best Actor César for Arieh Worthalter in the lead as Pierre Goldman and seven additional nominations. The film opened in New York Sept. 6, 2024. It opens in San Francisco and San Rafael Oct. 23, 2024. The AlloCiné press rating is 4.4 (88%) based on 36 reviews. Metacritric (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-goldman-case/) rating: 82% based on 12 reviews. (I have previously reviewed Kahn's 2009 Regrets (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1435) and his 2014 The Wild Life (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2967) He is also an actor and has appeared, for example, in Joachim Fosse's 2016 After Love (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3727).)
ARIEH WOLTHARTER INTHE GOLDMAN CASE
CÉDRIC KAHN: THE GOLDMAN CASE (2023)
TRAILER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7XhGhN9QKs)
Le procès Goldman: brilliant true seventies courtroom drama
There have been several great French courtroom dramas recently, Alice Diop's Saint Omer and Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall. Here is another one equally good that lies between the two, not quite as entertaining or as suspenseful as Fall and not quite as earnest and instructive as Omer, but a real life masterpiece of legal theater based on what has been heralded as one of the great French trials of the seventies. Essentially true, but in specific details recreated, it is set in 1976, a time of leftist activism everywhere, and Pierre Goldman, due to becoming a figure of the far-left well known through a polemical autobiography Obscure Memories of a Polish Jew Born in France written and published in prison, is getting a retrial for four armed robberies, one of which led to the death of two pharmacists. The point of the trial is to reconsider the murder charges that have gotten Goldman sentenced to life. He admits to the robberies, which it's simply said he did for money because he was penniless. He gained a retrial by proving the investigation was flawed and claiming an alibi for the date and time of the killings. This time the highly partisan courtroom audience is a constant presence, cheering and jeering, with obvious factions present. Without ever stepping outside the courtroom scene except for a lawyer-client conference, the film conveys how this trial, become a cause célèbre of the student movement, was felt throughout the country.
We're very aware of the special features of French courtroom procedure here, particularly the way all parties are allowed to participate in the questioning of witnesses. It may come to seem that the questioning is more important thn the witnesses themselves, who appear frangible creatures, unreliable to begin with and subject to manipulation. Meanwhile the prosecution lawyer can always come in and twist anything that's been painted in a favorable light.
Most remarkable is the accused, Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter, the distinctive, forceful actor winner of the year's best actor César for his performance), who for at least the first half of the action, is constantly intervening, and not only on his own behalf. He wavers between seeming a man of great principle and an unpredictable crank, and from trying to fire his attorney, also French-Polish-Jewish, Maître Kiejman (Arthur Harari, also outstanding), and then changing his mind, he drives Maître Kiejman batty by making wild statements, notably that all police are racists, that do nothing but prejudice the jury and some elements the public against him, though his boldly declared antiestablishment views are very much of the times and find great sympathy in his on-scene admirers.
When Goldman yells out things about the police and the law and the antisemitism of all and sundry, he could be getting into worse trouble. AlloCiné's synopsis (https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=299937.html) of the film calls Goldman "elusive and provocative." But that is half the fun, because French trial procedure gives him a starring role in his own trial but at least at first (he settles down later) he seems bent on bringing down his own destruction and Maître Kiejman and the other defense lawyers are seen wincing and trying to shush their client. This heedlessness also comes off as confidence as when also he scoffs at the idea of presenting character witnesses, declaring simply "I am innocent because I am innocent."
Peter Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/sep/19/the-goldman-case-review-gripping-french-courtroom-drama-with-a-chaotic-energy) in his comments on the free for all feel of this most French and volatile of French trials: "Repeatedly, Goldman interjects and mocks; court onlookers jump to their feet and demand to be heard; jurors ask questions of the defendant and Goldman’s supporters in the public gallery chant like a football crowd; all this without the president demanding for the court to be cleared." In fact one is sanctioned, and there's something wonderful about the liberal Mediterranean sense of order that enables such disorder to play out and still have a satisfying trial.
Meanwhile we are watching Kiejman painstakingly undermine the prosecution, showing how the ID-ing of Goldman was falsified by the police and witnesses deceived. And when things turn out the way we and the movie are obviously supposed to and the way they actually did, it's more like the end of a key football match than the conclusion of a trial. A great courtroom drama with a strong and uniquely French period flavor of the seventies.
The Goldman Case/Le Procès Goldman, 115 mins., debuted as the opening night film of Directors' Fortnight at Cannes May 17, 2023 and opened June 7, subsequently winning a Best Actor César for Arieh Worthalter in the lead as Pierre Goldman and seven additional nominations. The film opened in New York Sept. 6, 2024. It opens in San Francisco and San Rafael Oct. 23, 2024. The AlloCiné press rating is 4.4 (88%) based on 36 reviews. Metacritric (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-goldman-case/) rating: 82% based on 12 reviews. (I have previously reviewed Kahn's 2009 Regrets (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1435) and his 2014 The Wild Life (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2967) He is also an actor and has appeared, for example, in Joachim Fosse's 2016 After Love (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3727).)