The Memory of Justice

{{Short description|1976 documentary film directed by Marcel Ophuls}}

{{Infobox film

| name = The Memory of Justice

| image =

| caption =

| director = Marcel Ophuls

| producer = {{ubl|Ana Carrigan|Hamilton Fish V|Sanford Lieberson|Max Palevsky|David Puttnam}}

| writer =

| narrator =

| starring =

| music =

| cinematography = Michael J. Davis

| editing = Inge Behrens

| distributor = Paramount Pictures

| released = {{Film date|1976|10|04|df=y}}

| runtime = 278 minutes

| country = {{ubl|France|West Germany|United Kingdom|United States}}

| language = French

| budget =

}}

The Memory of Justice is a 1976 documentary film directed by Marcel Ophuls. It explores the subject of atrocities committed in wartime and features Joan Baez, Karl Dönitz, Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff, Yehudi Menuhin, Albert Speer and Telford Taylor.

The film was inspired by Telford Taylor's 1970 book Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy, and Taylor is interviewed extensively during the film. But Ophuls takes the book as a starting point for exploring the possibility of people judging one another, especially in light of their behavior in other contexts, as well as dealing with individual versus collective responsibility.Vincent Canby, "Film Fete: The Memory of Justice", The New York Times, 5 October 1976, p. 52. The film discusses the notion that any group in power is capable of committing a war atrocity.

The film had a difficult genesis. It was originally financed in the summer of 1973 by the BBC, Polytel, and a private company based in London, Visual Programme Systems (VPS), the latter of whom had wanted the film to dwell heavily on America's involvement in Vietnam and France's involvement in Algeria. The BBC and Polytel had invested on the basis of a three hour film however, after completing rough cuts, VPS was dismayed at Ophuls' work which ran to more than four hours (particularly his excessive leaning on the Nuremberg Trials and Nazi involvement) and tried to remove him as director.{{cite news|first=David|last=Denby|author-link=David Denby|title=The Sorry and the Pity of A Film About Nuremberg|newspaper=The New York Times|date=27 April 1975|page=111}}{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|date=November 12, 1975|page=31|title=Ophuls 'Justice' Docu At Issue|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1975-11-12_281_1/page/31/mode/1up?view=theater|access-date=June 26, 2022|via=Archive.org}} Hamilton Fish V organized a group of investors who were able to buy back the rights to the film from VPS and allow Ophuls to complete it.{{cite news|first=David|last=Denby|author-link=David Denby|title=Two Suppressed Documentaries: A Happy Ending|newspaper=The New York Times|date=12 October 1975|page=177}}

The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition.{{cite web |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2152/year/1976.html |title=Festival de Cannes: The Memory of Justice |accessdate=2009-05-10|work=festival-cannes.com}}

The Memory of Justice was restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.{{cite web|title=Preserved Projects|url=https://www.oscars.org/academy-film-archive/preserved-projects?title=memory+of+justice&filmmaker=&category=All&collection=All|website=Academy Film Archive}} This restored version was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015,{{cite web |url=http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/tiffcinematheque/memory-of-justice |title=TIFF.net {{!}} The Memory of Justice |website=tiff.net |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150907024445/http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/tiffcinematheque/memory-of-justice |archive-date=2015-09-07}} and at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2015.[https://web.archive.org/web/20150906190220/https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=memoryofjustice The Memory of Justice - British Film Institute]

In 2017, Ophuls referred to the film as, "The most personal and sincere work I've ever done."Mike Hale, "Marcel Ophuls’s ‘Memory of Justice,’ No Longer Just a Memory", The New York Times, 23 April 2017, p. 19.