Best Robert Shaw performance

A challenging movie
kijii4 November 2016
The Man in the Glass Booth is a challenging movie. One finds it difficult to understand completely.

First—Some observations:

---The original novel and play of this story were written by actor Robert Shaw, whose inspiration seemed to come from the 1960 abduction of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, transferred to Israel, tried there, found guilty of war crimes, and hanged in 1962.

---For some unknown reason, Shaw did not want to have his name credited in the movie.

---Maximilian Schell was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this movie, filmed by The American Film Theatre.

---It seems to have been hard to find this movie for some time, either on VHS or DVD, but is now available through Amazon Prime streaming (with no extra cost). Personally, I am happy for this since, in my opinion, its dialogue is rich and dense, and several viewings may be necessary-- for me at least--to understand it. Due to another user's comment, I am not alone: ..this film deserves, even demands repeated viewing due to its complex and difficult to understand plot.---Schell presents an over-the-top performance, here, in which he completely dominates all the other actors.

---The play seems to touch on many topics: Religion, Ethics, Morality, and Law (both national and international),

---Finally, the very issue of what sanity and insanity is is explored if it is measured in terms of one's relationship to ones' culture and surroundings.

=========================================

Arthur Goldman (Maximilian Schell) is a VERY rich Jewish industrialist who lives in a Manhattan high-rise overlooking his "children"—the many buildings of his empire. His young assistant is Charlie Cohn (Lawrence Pressman) who carries out his orders and listens to his endless ramblings about Christianity, Judaism, sports, and his life in general. While Charlie is looking through Goldman's papers, he is shocked to see a newspaper from November 20, 1964 that is enfolding 2 million dollars in baggies. Why so much cash on hand?!!

The "why" of the cash is not as interesting to Goldman as what the old New York Herald Tribune had reported: The Pope had just forgiven the Jews for Christ's killing and should be held absolved of any such crimes.

Charlie puts up with a lot of Goldman's ramblings, which often seem to verge on paranoid schizophrenia. Goldman sees people in the street that are not there and imagines that a Mercedes is following his every move. He sees his father in the street pushing a pretzel cart (even though his father had been killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1943 at the age of 70). Through his top-floor telescope, Goldman also sees, men in Nazi uniforms which sends him into a fit—"Why do I live," he says.

However, when Goldman receives a phone call from a wrong number, he goes into action as if he were in danger and needed to prepare for it. He prepares for it as if his own passion play were about to begin. He burns the under surface of his left arm with a candle of his menorah and prepares for the abduction he knows is to come, but why does he do that?

His abduction does come when several men--Israeli secret agents (Mossad)--break into his apartment. They search him from head to toe and even throughout his body cavities. Then they take him to Israel for trial on charges of being a Nazi war criminal—Col Dorff.

During the trial, he demands the right to argue in his own defense and wear his German uniform.

He is placed in a bulletproof glass booth so that no one can harm him during the trial. During the trial, he takes on the personality and arguments as if he were Dorff.

He asks probing questions of his accusers as they present experiences of their time in the concentration camp of Dorff.

But, what gives them the right to judge him guilty anymore than Christ was judged guilty by a system without any clear-cut legal authority? Where did THEY get their authority?

In the end, how can they even prove that he is Dorff?

Note: There are many interpretations of this play. If you don't believe me, read the user reviews. I have my theory. What's yours?