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Thursday, January 20, 2011

Downfall (film)

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Downfall (German: Der Untergang) is a 2004 German/Italian/Austrian epic drama film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler's life in his Berlin bunker andNazi Germany in 1945.
The film was written by Bernd Eichinger, and based upon the books Inside Hitler's Bunker, by historian Joachim Fest; Until the Final Hour, the memoirs of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler's secretaries; portions of Albert Speer's memoirs Inside the Third Reich; Hitler's Last Days: An Eye–Witness Account, by Gerhardt Boldt; Das Notlazarett Unter Der Reichskanzlei: Ein Arzt Erlebt Hitlers Ende in Berlin (memoirs) by Doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck; and Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936–1949 (memoirs) by Siegfried Knappe.
The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Plot

In 1942, a group of German secretaries are escorted to Adolf Hitler's (Bruno Ganz) compound at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia. After dictating to her in an indulgent, paternal manner, Hitler selects Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) to be one of his personal secretaries.
The scene shifts to Hitler's 56th birthday on April 20, 1945. Secretary Traudl Junge is awakened in the Führerbunker by the sound of Soviet artillery. Later, Generals Wilhelm Burgdorf and Karl Koller confirm to a surprised Hitler that the Red Army is just 12 kilometres from the city centre. Later, at his birthday reception, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (Ulrich Noethen) and his SS adjutant Hermann Fegelein (Thomas Kretschmann) plead with Hitler to allow himself to be evacuated from the city. Instead, Hitler declares, "I will defeat them in Berlin, or face my downfall." Himmler leaves Berlin with the intention of negotiating surrender terms with the Western Allies behind Hitler's back.
Meanwhile, SS Dr. Ernst-Gunther Schenck (Christian Berkel) is ordered by the high command to evacuate Berlin, as part of "Operation Clausewitz". Schenck pleads with an SS general to be permitted to remain in order to look after the wounded and starving. The general grudgingly agrees to permit this. Schenck is requested by Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke (André Hennicke) to bring all the medical supplies he can obtain to the Reich Chancellery. While doing this, Schenck and his adjutant go to a hospital in search of medical supplies. They approach a tank position where a panzer commander informs them that everyone has left the hospital, and to be careful of the Russian troops in the area. Inside the hospital, Schenck finds the basement filled with elderly and infirm patients. After retrieving what medical supplies are available, Schenck and his adjutant try without success to prevent the summary execution of two old men by Feldgendarmerie.
In another part of the city, a group of Hitler Youth members continue a hopeless battle against Soviet tanks. Peter, a boy in the group, is vainly urged by his father to desert and flee the city. Later, Peter's unit is part of a group which is awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler.
In the bunker, Hitler discusses his new scorched earth policy with his favourite architect and trusted friend, Albert Speer. The latter pleads for mercy for the German people, saying that Hitler's plans will return them to the Middle Ages. Unmoved, Hitler retorts that the German people have shown themselves weak and therefore do not deserve to survive. Speer confesses to Hitler that he has sometimes disobeyed orders but is nonetheless allowed to leave the city. Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler) ignores Fegelein's pleas to leave Berlin and holds a party for the bunker inhabitants up in the Reich Chancellery, but Soviet artillery shells ends the party early.
The next day, General Helmuth Weidling is mistakenly thought to have ordered a retreat to the West and ordered to the bunker. Believing he is about to be executed Weidling explains himself to Burgdorf and Hans Krebs, only to find himself appointed commander of the Berlin Defense Area, much to his dismay. In the briefing room at the bunker, Hitler is informed about the disintegrating defenses of Berlin. Unmoved, he announces that Waffen SS General Felix Steiner will soon arrive and drive the Red Army out of the city. However, he is then informed that Steiner couldn't mobilize enough men. Visibly shaken, Hitler dismisses all except Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann and Generals Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Krebs, and Burgdorf.
Throwing a massive tantrum, that is heard clearly by those outside the room, Hitler furiously accuses the Wehrmacht of sabotaging him from day one. He screams that the soldiers are all cowards and traitors, despite a rebuke of that position by Burgdorf, and that the generals are "the scum of the German people." He expresses regret at not executing the entire officer corps, like Joseph Stalin did during the Great Purge. At last, however, Hitler sinks into his chair and acknowledges that the war is lost. "If you think that this means I'll be abandoning Berlin", he snarls, "I'd rather shoot a bullet through my head."
Meanwhile, Brigadeführer Mohnke is fighting on the front lines with his troops when he observes a group of civilian volunteers running to their deaths in the streets. Mohnke asks one of his adjutants for a situation report. The officer informs him that the civilians are members of theVolkssturm, and they are under Goebbels' direct command. Disgusted, Mohnke orders the officer to get the Volkssturm out of the line of fire, and states he will take responsibility for doing so.
Mohnke makes his way back to the Reich Chancellery to confront Goebbels about the Volkssturm. Goebbels is in the bunker communications room talking to his wife Magda. Goebbels tells her to bring the children to the bunker and not to bring many toys or nightwear, which are no longer necessary. Thereafter, Mohnke tells Goebbels that the Volkssturm are nothing but cannon fodder for the Russians. In response, Goebbels bristles and informs Mohnke that their belief in "final victory" makes up for their lack of weapons and combat experience. Mohnke tells Goebbels that if these men do not have weapons their deaths are pointless. Goebbels informs Mohnke that he has no pity for them, adding, "The German people chose their fate and now their little throats are being cut."
Reichsphysician SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz, whose earlier request to leave Berlin had been denied, returns to his apartment and kills himself and his family with grenades. Later Hitler, Eva, Traudl Junge, and Gerda discuss various means of suicide whilst (in another area of the bunker) Krebs, Burgdorf and other military staff sit around getting drunk. Hitler proposes shooting through the mouth, while Braun mentions taking cyanide. Hitler gives Gerda and Traudl one cyanide capsule each. Eva Braun and Magda Goebbels type goodbye letters. Eva to her sister Gretl Braun and Goebbels to her adult son (from her former marriage) Harald Quandt. The child soldiers fight in the streets of Berlin, but to no avail. Peter witnesses the death of all his squad mates and flees home to his parents, only to find that they have been murdered bydeath squads carrying out reprisals.
Hitler has meahwhile lost his sense of reality. Field Marshal Keitel is ordered to find Admiral Karl Dönitz, who Hitler believes is gathering troops in the north, and help him plan an offensive to recover the Romanian oilfields. Oberscharführer Rochus Misch, Hitler's radio operator, receives a telegram from Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe and Hitler's designated successor. Bormann reads the telegram to Hitler, in which Göring asks permission to assume command of the Reich and asks for acknowledgment by 10:00 PM, at which time he will assume authority in the absence of a response. Walther Hewel tries to justify his actions but Bormann and Goebbels declare Göring's actions to behigh treason; Hitler orders Göring's arrest and removal from office.
Hitler summons General Robert Ritter von Greim (Dietrich Hollinderbäumer) and his mistress, ace pilot Hanna Reitsch, to the bunker. He appoints von Greim to be Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, ordering him to rebuild it. During dinner, Hitler receives a report informing him that Himmler has just attempted to negotiate a peace settlement with the Western Allies. Betrayed by the one man he trusted, Hitler explodes in another tearful outburst. He then orders von Greim and Reitsch to leave Berlin, rendezvous with Dönitz, who he is convinced is rallying troops and preparing a massive pincer strike alongside Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, and ensure that Himmler is dealt with.
Hitler wishes to speak to Fegelein with regards to Himmler's treachery but Fegelein has deserted the bunker and plans to flee the country. He is tracked down to his apartment by SS troops and arrested. Despite a tearful plea from Eva Braun to spare her brother-in-law's life, Hitler is unmoved and denounces him as a traitor. Fegelein is promptly executed by a firing squad.
General Weidling reports that the Russians have broken through everywhere. There are no reserves and air support has ceased. Mohnke reports that the Red Army is only 300 to 400 meters from the Reich Chancellery and that defending forces can hold out for a day or two at most. Before leaving, Hitler reassures the officers that General Walther Wenck will save them all. After he leaves the conference room, Weidling asks the other generals if it is truly possible for Wenck to attack; they all agree it is unlikely, even impossible, that Wenck will succeed, but do not wish to surrender.
The following day, Hitler dictates his personal statement to Traudl Junge before marrying Eva Braun. Hitler has ordered Joseph Goebbels to leave Berlin, but Goebbels intends to ignore the order. When Hitler's adjutant Otto Günsche later brings a reply from Keitel that Wenck's army is encircled or cannot continue its assault on Berlin, Hitler states that he will never surrender. He also forbids all officers to surrender on pain of summary execution. Upon leaving the conference room Hitler gives Günsche the order to cremate his body and that of Eva Braun.
Eva affectionately gives Traudl one of her best coats and makes her promise to flee the Bunker. Hitler eats his final meal in silence withConstanze Manziarly and his secretaries. He bids farewell to the bunker staff, gives Magda his Golden Party Badge (marking original members of the NSDAP from February 27, 1925 to November 9, 1933, with numbers 1 to 100,000), and retires to his room with Eva. Although Magda pleads with him to change his mind, Hitler states, "Tomorrow, millions of people will curse me, but fate has taken its course."
Hitler and Eva retreat into their rooms and commit suicide. The bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun are carried up the stairs to ground level and through the bunker's emergency exit, doused in petrol and set alight in the Reich Chancellery garden outside the bunker. From the bunker entrance, surrounding officers give one final Nazi salute over the flames. General Krebs leads a small delegation through the Russian lines and tries to negotiate peace terms with General Vasily Chuikov. Chuikov says that the Soviets will only accept unconditional surrender but Krebs does not have the authority to grant this so he returns to the bunker empty-handed. Unable to comprehend a world without National Socialism, Joseph and Magda Goebbels poison their six children and leave the bunker. Goebbels shoots his wife before shooting himself.
The people remaining in the bunker agree that they must try to break out of the Soviet encirclement. Krebs and Burgdorf commit suicide as the rest begin to evacuate. Most of the bunker survivors attempt to escape, but die at the hands of Red Army infantrymen. Weidling then goes out and broadcasts to the soldiers and civilians in Berlin that the Führer is dead. He has called for a ceasefire with Lieutenant-General Vasily Chuikov as every further hour of battle will merely postpone the inevitable.
Meanwhile, Schenck and Hewel stay with Mohnke and his remaining SS troops, who debate on what to do once the Soviet troops arrive. Schenck tries to talk sense into Hewel, who promised Hitler that he would kill himself. When news reaches the officers that Berlin has been surrendered, Hewel and several of the SS officers promptly shoot themselves, as they had promised, to Schenck's dismay.
In the chaos of the city's fall, Traudl Junge is able to make her way through the Russian lines, escaping from Berlin by bicycle along with the child soldier Peter. The subsequent fates of the surviving characters are superimposed and the credits roll.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Reception

While treatment of the Third Reich is still a sensitive subject among many Germans even 65 years after World War II, the film broke one of the last remaining taboos by its depiction of Adolf Hitler in a central role by a German speaking actor (as opposed to using actual film footage of Hitler). Ganz did four months of research to prepare for the role, studying a recording of Hitler in private conversation with Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim, in order to properly mimic Hitler's conversational voice, and distinct Austrian accent.[2]
The film's impending release in 2004 provoked a debate in German film magazines and newspapers. The tabloid Bild asked "Are we allowed to show the monster as a human being?"
Concern about the film's depiction of Hitler led New Yorker film critic David Denby to note:[3]
As a piece of acting, Ganz's work is not just astounding, it's actually rather moving. But I have doubts about the way his virtuosity has been put to use. By emphasizing the painfulness of Hitler's defeat Ganz has [...] made the dictator into a plausible human being. Considered as biography, the achievement (if that's the right word) [...] is to insist that the monster was not invariably monstrous — that he was kind to his cook and his young female secretaries, loved his German shepherd, Blondi, and was surrounded by loyal subordinates. We get the point: Hitler was not a supernatural being; he was common clay raised to power by the desire of his followers. But is this observation a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did?
With respect to German uneasiness about "humanizing" Hitler, Denby said:[3]
A few journalists in [Germany] wondered aloud whether the "human" treatment of Hitler might not inadvertently aid the neo-Nazimovement. But in his many rants in [the film] Hitler says that the German people do not deserve to survive, that they have failed him by losing the war and must perish — not exactly the sentiments […] that would spark a recruitment drive. This Hitler may be human, but he's as utterly degraded a human being as has ever been shown on the screen, a man whose every impulse leads to annihilation.
After previewing the film, Hitler biographer Sir Ian Kershaw wrote in The Guardian:[4]
Knowing what I did of the bunker story, I found it hard to imagine that anyone (other than the usual neo-Nazi fringe) could possibly find Hitler a sympathetic figure during his bizarre last days. And to presume that it might be somehow dangerous to see him as a human being — well, what does that thought imply about the self-confidence of a stable, liberal democracy? Hitler was, after all, a human being, even if an especially obnoxious, detestable specimen. We well know that he could be kind and considerate to his secretaries, and with the next breath show cold ruthlessness, dispassionate brutality, in determining the deaths of millions.
Of all the screen depictions of the Führer, even by famous actors, such as Alec Guinness or Anthony Hopkins, this is the only one which to me is compelling. Part of this is the voice. Ganz has Hitler's voice to near perfection. It is chillingly authentic.
Addressing other critics like Denby, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert wrote:[5]
Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed. I do not feel the film provides 'a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did, because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient. As we regard this broken and pathetic Hitler, we realize that he did not alone create the Third Reich, but was the focus for a spontaneous uprising by many of the German people, fueled by racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear. He was skilled in the ways he exploited that feeling, and surrounded himself by gifted strategists and propagandists, but he was not a great man, simply one armed by fate to unleash unimaginable evil. It is useful to reflect that racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear are still with us, and the defeat of one of their manifestations does not inoculate us against others.
Hirschbiegel confirmed that the film's makers sought to give Hitler a three-dimensional personality.[6]
We know from all accounts that he was a very charming man — a man who managed to seduce a whole people into barbarism.
The film was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the 77th Academy Awards. The film also won the 2005 BBC Four World Cinema competition.[7]
The film is set mostly in and around the Führerbunker. Hirschbiegel made an effort to accurately reconstruct the look and atmosphere of the bunker through eyewitness accounts, survivors' memoirs and other historical sources. According to his commentary on the DVD, Der Untergang was filmed in Berlin, Munich, and in a district of Saint Petersburg, Russia, which, with its many buildings designed by German architects, was said to resemble many parts of 1940s Berlin. The film was ranked number 48 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[8] As of October 2010, Rotten Tomatoes reports that 91% of critics have given the film a positive review, with an average score of 8 out of 10. The site's consenus is: "Downfall is an illuminating, thoughtful and detailed account of Hitler's last days".

[edit]Criticism

The author Giles MacDonogh criticized the film for sympathetic portrayals of Wilhelm Mohnke and Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck. Mohnke was rumored, but never proven, to have ordered the execution of a group of British P.O.W.s in the Wormhoudt massacre near Dunkirk in 1940, while Schenck's experiments with medicinal plants in 1938 allegedly led to the deaths of a number of concentration camp prisoners.[9] In answer to this criticism, the film's director, in the DVD commentary, stated he did his own research and did not find the allegations as to Schenck to be convincing. Furthermore, Mohnke strongly denied the accusations against him, telling author Thomas Fischer, "I issued no orders not to take English prisoners or to execute prisoners."[10]
Wim Wenders called the filmmakers' collaboration with a history professor "a strategic move to compile cultural capital and move the film beyond the reach of reprehensibility, challenge, or contradiction by writers or critics unwilling to engage the material other than by pointing out historical inaccuracies." He felt that the film said: "Wir wissen, wovon wir reden" ("We know what we're talking about"). Further, Wenders argued that Der Untergang presented an uncritical viewpoint toward the barbarism of its subject matter, and accused the filmmakers ofVerharmlosung (rendering harmlessness). Wenders supported this observation with close readings of the film's first scene, and of Hitler's final scene, suggesting that in each case a particular set of cinematographic and editorial choices left each scene emotionally charged, resulting in a glorifying effect.[11]
The film's ending has also been the subject of criticism for not revealing what actually happened to several of the women who were present in the bunker. After the fall of Berlin an estimated 2 million German women were raped by the Soviets.[citation needed] In the film, the women manage to escape or are seemingly left unharmed when the Soviet soldiers arrive, whereas in reality several of the women were raped, somegang raped, and brutalized by the Soviet soldiers..[citation needed] Gerda Christian, Traudl Junge, Else Krüger and Constanze Manziarly, together with others, left the bunker on May 1 under SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke's leadership. This group slowly made its way north hoping to link up with a German army holdout on the Prinzenallee. The group, hiding in a cellar, was captured by the Soviets on the morning of May 2. Like millions of other German women,[12] Gerda Christian and Else Krüger were raped by soldiers of the Red Army. For these two women it was apparently in the woods near Berlin.[13] According to author James O'Donnell of The Bunker, Junge was also raped. However, Junge herself never mentioned this in her autobiography.[14]
While the film states that Manziarly vanished in 1945, Junge recounts her being taken into an U-Bahn tunnel by two Soviet soldiers, reassuring the group that "They want to see my papers." She was never seen again.[15]

[edit]Parodies

One scene in the film, in which Hitler launches into a furious tirade upon finally realizing that the war is truly lost, has become a staple of internet viral videos.[16] In these wildly anachronistic videos, the original audio of Ganz's voice is retained, but new subtitles are added so that he now seems to be reacting instead to some setback in present-day politics, sports, popular culture, etc. One parody depicted Hitler flying into a rage in response to being banned from Xbox Live. The creator of this parody was the one who originally came up with the idea of Downfall parodies, his video Hitler gets Banned from Xbox Live was the first ever Downfall parody (and the first parody to be taken down as well).[17] This video accumulated a vast number of YouTube views and was posted on video game related sites.
By 2010, there were thousands of such parodies, including many in which a self-aware Hitler is incensed that people keep making Downfallparodies.[18]
The film's director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, spoke positively about these parodies in a 2010 interview with New York magazine, saying that many of them were funny and they were a fitting extension of the film's purpose: "The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality. I think it's only fair if now it's taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like."[19] Nevertheless, Constantin Films has taken an "ambivalent" view of the parodies, and has asked video sites to remove many of them.[20] On April 21, 2010, the producers initiated a massive removal of parody videos on YouTube.[21] However, there has been a resurgence of the videos on the site since the mass removal.[22] On July 28, 2010, Constantin responded by issuing DMCA takedown notices on videos which had countered the blocking of the videos using a Fair Use argument.[citation needed]
As of October 2010, Youtube no longer blocks any Downfall-derived parodies,[23] and is now placing ads on some of them. This was seen by many as a sign of relief, ending the cat-and-mouse game that involved parodists and Constantin Film.



Corynne McSherry, an attorney specializing in intellectual property and free speech issues[24] for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated "All the [Downfall parody videos] that I've seen are very strong Fair Use cases and so they're not infringing, and they shouldn't be taken down

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