The Goldman Case
Cédric Kahn’s intelligent and demanding recreation of a 1970s court hearing remains all too relevant today.
Image courtesy of Metfilm Distribution.
I regard this new film from Cédric Kahn as a brave work. That's a description which might surprise some because it more usually fits when applied to something that is either controversial in character or inventively new in technique. This film is a world away from that as it sets up a drama centred on a real-life trial that occurred in Amiens in the spring of 1976. However, Kahn’s courageously austere approach dares to go against all the eye-grabbing techniques that are so much in vogue today. Indeed, although there is a preface that takes place in an attorney's chambers, virtually the whole of what follows is set inside the courtroom itself and flashbacks are totally off limits.
However well known the Goldman case remains in France, many viewers will come to this film unaware of Goldman, of this hearing and of the way in which it totally divided opinion. Kahn doubtless considered it a fruitful project all these years later both because Pierre Goldman himself is such a fascinating character and because many of the issues that came up in the trial – not least key questions about anti-Semitism and colour prejudice in France – are still disturbingly relevant. These issues come fully into focus in the trial itself and Kahn has opted to concentrate on the hearing recognising that the proceedings themselves reveal much about Goldman and his history. Nevertheless, in order to provide a context, there are written statements at the outset that are informative about the accused’s criminal history. We learn that he was condemned to life imprisonment in 1974 in connection with four armed robberies but this was set aside in November 1975 for the case to be reconsidered in the Amiens Criminal Court. This was the opportunity taken by Goldman to admit to robberies but to deny the major related crimes of which he had been accused, namely that he had killed two pharmacists during a 1966 robbery.
Kahn’s bold film is only four minutes short of two hours and, whilst some dramatisation is acknowledged, it was prepared after much detailed research even though he was denied access to the actual transcripts of the hearing. The style adopted is one in which the proceedings are presented with a strong sense of documentary naturalism. The view that we get of the prosecutor (Nicolas Briançon) and of the defence attorney (the director Arthur Harari) as they make their speeches is always in this mould, while the witnesses called all face the camera direct. In every instance the casting is such that nobody looks like an actor and, although the court can become more rowdy than one in Britain, there is a sense of the real thing, a total avoidance of artifice. With this goes dialogue that demands the attention of the audience and, if what is said dominates over action and might theoretically seem better suited to a radio play, the well-chosen faces add so much that The Goldman Case does indeed play as effective cinema.
If the casting includes no weak spots, it is nevertheless the case that the choice of Arieh Worthalter as Pierre Goldman is crucial because the man's impact in the dock and his extraordinary attitude to the hearing contribute so much to the interest of the case. That Worthalter pulls off the role brilliantly is confirmed by his winning the 2024 César for Best Actor. As for the man himself, Goldman was a Polish Jew, a radical leftist and a guerrilla who was in awe of his father's reputation for his part in the French resistance during the Second World War and that made him determined to take his own firm stand politically. Convinced that the authorities including the police were racist and that the system was against him, he refused to allow his attorney to call witnesses as to his character claiming that that was irrelevant because “I'm innocent because I'm innocent". Far from doing everything to win over the court, he criticised the police in the broadest possible terms. His bearing in court made this an extraordinary case and the film is content to present the proceedings as they happened without further interpretation. The viewer may hope for a clearer insight into what kind of a man Pierre Goldman really was but The Goldman Case is totally persuasive as a recreation of the criminal court proceedings against him in 1976.
For all its merits Kahn’s film does seem on the long side and that is probably due to the intensive concentration that the audience has to pay to what is being said throughout. This could mean that not all viewers will take to the film, but its length is probably necessary and Kahn is in any event to be congratulated for keeping so consistently to his own vision for the film.
Original title: Le procés Goldman.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Arieh Worthalter, Arthur Harari, Nicolas Briançon, Stéphan Guérin-Tillié, Aurélien Chaussade, Jeremy Lewin, Christian Mazzuchini, Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, Chloé Lecerf, Laetitia Masson, Paul Jeanson, Lucas Olmedo, François Favrat, Priscilla Lopes, Romain Parent, Maxime Tshibangu, Priscilla Martin, Didier Borga, Xavier Aubert.
Dir Cédric Kahn, Pro Benjamin Elalouf, Screenplay Cédric Kahn and Nathalie Hertzberg, Ph Patrick Ghiringhelli, Pro Des Guillaume Deviercy, Ed Yann Dedet, Costumes Alice Cambournac.
Moonshaker/Tropdebonheur Productions/Ad Vitam/Canal+/Ciné+/Cinémage17-Metfilm Distribution.
116 mins. France. 2023. UK Rel: 20 September 2024. Cert. 12A.