Entry 33566 (Berkeley CSUA MOTD)

Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 33566

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2025/05/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular

5/24

2004/9/16 [Reference/History/WW2/Germany] UID:33566 Activity:high

9/16    Hitler biopic stirs up controversy
        http://csua.org/u/92n (BBC)
        \_ posted before,
           http://csua.com/?entry=33390

2025/05/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular

5/24

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2012/10/4-10 [Reference/History/WW2/Germany] UID:54491 Activity:nil

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csua.org/u/92n -> news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3663044.stmPrintable version 'Human' Hitler disturbs Germans By Ray Furlong BBC Berlin correspondent Bruno Ganz as Hitler - copyright Constantin Films Adolf Hitler is played by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz Adolf Hitler shuffles around the tightly-packed briefing room, screaming at his generals that they are cowards, traitors, and scum. "You studied for years at military academy - just to learn how to hold a knife and fork!" This scene from The Downfall, the new German film on Hitler's last days in the bunker, shows Hitler as one might expect him. But the film, on show across Germany from Thursday, has sparked controversy by also presenting another view of Hitler - a human one. We see him showing tenderness to his secretary, and receiving a chocolate birthday cake from his mistress, and later wife, Eva Braun. There's an animal in all of us - that's the message of the movie Bernd Eichinger, screenplay writer "He is a human being, not a psychopath. He had his soft spots," said screenplay writer Bernd Eichinger. "This is what makes the whole thing so dangerous, because there's an animal in all of us - that's the message of the movie," he added. Unpopular It is a message that has not gone down well with some sections of the German press. The rest of the media has been eagerly discussing the same question for weeks now, long before the film was even premiered. "There is for instance one moment where we see Hitler cry, but I think if you want to have an intelligent film on his last days you shouldn't do it like that," said Cristina Nord, a culture critic for the Tageszeitung newspaper. "It's important to make films about perpetrators, to show how they think. But seeing Hitler cry doesn't make me know what was going on there in the last days of the Third Reich," she added. It juxtaposes the battle for Berlin with the claustrophobic world of the bunker. But it is the portrayal of Hitler that has received most attention. I cannot only hate this person Bruno Ganz At the press launch, Swiss actor Bruno Ganz set the tone when he said that he needed to feel some compassion for Hitler - for fractions of a second, as he put it - in order to play him. But for all the media debate - and a huge amount of hype - it is not the first time Hitler's last days have been dramatised in a German film. In 1955 Georg Wilhelm Papst's film The Last Act was based on a screenplay by Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front. Concerned about the creeping rehabilitation of Nazi functionaries in western Germany, he followed it up a year later with the essay Be Vigilant in the London Evening News. Juliane Kohler and Bruno Ganz - copyright Constantin Films Juliane Koehler played Hitler's wife Eva Braun Other films followed. A 1970s film mixed fact and drama by including recorded comments from one of Hitler's servants. But many critics argue The Downfall goes a step further in showing Hitler's private side. Film historian Gertrud Koch believes it is a logical consequence of new documentaries in recent years that used previously unseen home movies of Hitler. "There was a famous series where all these private films done by Eva Braun and the whole crew around Hitler were shown," she said. "I think this tendency to see Hitler more like a kind of private person was created through this historical footage," he said. Poisoned children One of the most harrowing scenes from The Downfall is where the wife of prominent Nazi Joseph Goebbels, Magda, poisons her own children. She is convinced there can be no future after National Socialism. she shouts, forcing her screaming child to take "medicine". The film is supposed to be as authentic as possible, and Hitler killed himself alone in his room with Eva Braun. The Downfall brings Hitler closer to us, but there are limits.

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csua.com/?entry=33390html COLOGNE, Germany (Hollywood Reporter) -- A German movie that depicts Adolf Hitler as a soft-spoken man who charms his secretary and lovingly plays with his pet Alsatian is turning into one of the country's most controversial films. "The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich," which opens locally Sept. In addition to depicting Hitler not just as a screaming demagogue, "Downfall" breaks one of the last taboos of German cinema by portraying Hitler in a central role. "It is not the first time (we've seen) Adolf Hitler on the screen, but it is certainly the first time they have tried to discover the human touch in the monster," said Rolf Giesen, head of Berlin's Film Museum. That approach has sparked fierce debate in the German press, with some critics warning the film could pander to neo-Nazis. "'Downfall' prompts the question whether one should be allowed to feel sympathy for Hitler," German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine wrote in a recent article criticizing the film. But leading German newsweekly Der Spiegel, in a cover story, praised Eichinger for giving what it called "the absurd drama" in Hitler's bunker "a real face." Director Oliver Hirschbiegel's film, which will have its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival September 14, is based on firsthand testimony and recently discovered historical documents recounting the period from April 20, Hitler's last birthday, until May 2, 1945, when the Soviet army stormed the Berlin bunker to find the Fuhrer had committed suicide. The story is told from the perspective of Traudl Junge, Hitler's last stenographer, who was the focus of the 2002 documentary "Blind Spot -- Hitler's Secretary." Producer-screenwriter Bernd Eichinger's script is based on her memoir, "Until the Final Hour," and "Inside Hitler's Bunker" by famed German historian Joachim Fest. But the focus of "Downfall," and the source of much of its controversy, is its star. Ganz isn't the first actor to portray Hitler in his final hours. Alec Guinness took on the role in the 1972 feature "The Last Ten Days," as did Anthony Hopkins in the 1981 miniseries "The Bunker." But Ganz is the first to show the dictator as the ashen-faced wreck witnesses say he was at the end, spitting out hate-filled monologs about the Jews and alleged betrayers, while commanding nonexistent troops into battle as his hands trembled with what historians believe was late-stage Parkinson's disease. Ganz also has the advantage of speaking in Hitler's distinct Austrian-accented voice. The actor based much of his performance on a recently discovered Finnish radio recording made in 1942. The tape is the only recording in existence on which the Fuhrer can be heard speaking in a normal tone of voice, not the hysterical ranting on display in his public speeches. Ganz said it was not possible to have any real sympathy for Hitler. "But I'm not ashamed of the fact that I could feel sympathy for him during fleeting seconds," the actor explained. "If the audience doesn't, at least in certain sequences, feel sympathy for the monster Hitler, then I didn't do my job as an actor." Movies dealing with the Nazi regime have had a mixed box office history in Germany and, until now, no German film has ever attempted to make Hitler a central dramatic figure. Previous features have relegated the Fuhrer to the background. Budgeted at $16 million, "Downfall" also is one of the most expensive German-language films of all time and a major financial risk for Eichinger's Constantin Film. But the company behind "The Name of the Rose" and "Das Boot" is counting on strong crossover potential for "Downfall." Constantin will release the film September 16 in Germany on 400 screens, a wide bow for a German-language production. "It's important not just to shed light on one's own history superficially, but rather to tell it from within." That's a view apparently shared by international distributors. After seeing a 15-minute show reel and an English-language translation of the script, firms in France, Japan, Italy, Russia and the Benelux countries snapped it up. "Downfall" isn't the only upcoming German production that aims to tell the Nazi story from the inside. A new three-part docudrama, "The Devil's Architect" by director Heinrich Breloer, looks at the life of Hitler's architect Albert Speer and features TV star Tobias Moretti as Hitler. Another new docudrama, "Joseph Goebbels," looks at the Nazi propaganda boss, who is also the subject of an upcoming feature-length documentary, "The Goebbels Experiment," by director Lutz Hachmeister.