Downfall (2004 film)

Additional cast members in smaller roles include Alexander Slastin as Soviet Marshal Vasily Chuikov, Elena Dreyden as Inge Dombrowski, Norbert Heckner as Walter Wagner, Silke Nikowski as Frau Grawitz, Leopold von Buttlar as Sohn Grawitz, Veit Stübner as Tellermann, Boris Schwarzmann as Matvey Blanter, Vsevolod Tsurilo as Russian Adjutant, Vasily Reutov as Weidling's chief of staff Theodor von Dufving. The Goebbels children are portrayed by Alina Sokar (Helga), Charlotte Stoiber (Hilda), Gregory Borlein (Helmut), Julia Bauer (Hedda), Laura Borlein (Holde), and Amelie Menges (Heide).

Producer and screenwriter Bernd Eichinger wanted to make a film about Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party for twenty years but was, at first, discouraged after its enormity prevented him from doing so.[6] Eichinger was inspired to begin the filmmaking process after reading Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich (2002) by historian Joachim Fest.[7][8][6] Eichinger also based the film on the memoirs of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler's secretaries, called Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary (2002).[9][10] When writing the screenplay, he used the books Inside the Third Reich (1969), by Albert Speer,[11] one of the highest-ranking Nazi officials to survive both the war and the Nuremberg trials; Hitler's Last Days: An Eye-Witness Account (1973), by Gerhard Boldt;[12] Das Notlazarett unter der Reichskanzlei: Ein Arzt erlebt Hitlers Ende in Berlin (1995) by Ernst-Günther Schenck; and Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936–1949 (1992) by Siegfried Knappe as references.[13]

After completing the script for the film, Eichinger presented it to director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Though he was interested in exploring how the people of Germany "could have plumbed such depths", as a German, Hirschbiegel hesitated to take it as he "reacted to the idea of Nazism as a taboo". Hirschbiegel eventually agreed to helm the project.[14][13]

Bruno Ganz studied the Hitler and Mannerheim recording for four months to prepare for his role[15]

When Bruno Ganz was offered the role of Hitler, he was reluctant to accept the part, and many of his friends advised against it,[4][16] but he believed that the subject had "a fascinating side", and ultimately agreed to take the role.[15] Ganz conducted four months of research and studied a recording of Hitler in private conversation with Finnish Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim in order to properly mimic Hitler's conversational voice and Austrian dialect. Ganz came to the conclusion that Hitler had Parkinson's disease, noting his observation of Hitler's shaky body movements present in the newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau, and decided to visit a hospital to study patients with the disease.[15] Ganz auditioned in the casting studio with makeup for half an hour and tested his voice for Hirschbiegel who was convinced by his performance.[4][17]

Alexandra Maria Lara was cast as Traudl Junge; she was given Junge's book Until the Final Hour (2002), which she called her "personal treasure", to read during filming. Before she was cast, she had seen André Heller's documentary film Im toten Winkel which impressed her and influenced her perspective on Junge.[18][19]

Filming took place near the Obvodny Canal in Saint Petersburg in a run-down industrial district to imitate the setting for Berlin

Principal photography lasted twelve weeks from September to November 2003, under the working title Sunset.[20][13] The film is set mostly in and around the Führerbunker; Hirschbiegel made an effort to accurately reconstruct the look and atmosphere of World War II through eyewitness accounts, survivors' memoirs, and other historical sources. Hirschbiegel filmed in the cities of Berlin, Munich, and Saint Petersburg, Russia, with a run-down industrial district along the Obvodny Canal used to portray the historical setting in Berlin.[20][21] Hirschbiegel noted the depressing atmosphere surrounding the shoot, finding relief through listening to Johann Sebastian Bach's music.[16] Alexandra Maria Lara also mentioned the depressing and intense atmosphere during filming. To lighten the mood, Lara's colleagues engaged in activities such as football, while Ganz tried to keep a happy mood by retiring during shooting breaks.[19]

The film was produced on a €13.5 million budget.[4] The bunker and Hitler's Wolf's Lair were constructed at Bavaria Studios in Munich by production designer Bernd Lepel.[17][1] The damaged Reich Chancellery was depicted through the use of CGI. Hirschbiegel decided to limit the use of CGI, props and sets so as not to make the set design look like that of a theatre production,[17] explaining:

The only CGI shot that's been used in the film was the one with the [Reich Chancellery] because of course we could not reconstruct that – that's the only thing. I'm very proud of that, because if you do a war movie, you cannot do that and build sets. You feel the cardboard. You feel that it's all made to entertain, and it takes away from that horror that war basically means.[17]

During production, Hirschbiegel believed that Hitler would often charm people using his personality, only to manipulate and betray them.[16] Many of the people in the film, including Traudl Junge, are shown to be enthusiastic in interacting with Hitler instead of feeling threatened or anxious by his presence and authority. The production team sought to give Hitler a three-dimensional personality, with Hirschbiegel telling NBC: "We know from all accounts that he was a very charming man – a man who managed to seduce a whole people into barbarism."[25] He said Hitler was "like a shell", attracting people with self-pity, but inside the shell was only "an enormous will for destruction".[16]

The film explores the suicides and deaths of the Nazi Party as opposed to the people who choose life. Hitler's provision of cyanide pills to those in the bunker and the Goebbels' murder of their children are shown as selfish deeds while people such as Schenck, who choose to help the injured and escape death, are shown as rational and generous.[26][27] In the DVD commentary, Hirschbiegel said that the events in the film were "derived from the accounts, from descriptions of people" in the bunker.[28] The film also includes an introduction and closing with the real Junge in an interview from Im toten Winkel, where she admits feeling guilt for "not recognizing this monster in time".[27]

Downfall sold nearly half a million tickets in Germany for its opening weekend and attracted 4.5 million viewers in the first three months.[33][29] The final North American gross was $5,509,040, while $86,671,870 was made with its foreign gross.[5] The film made $93.6 million altogether.[13]

Downfall was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 77th Academy Awards.[34] It won the 2005 BBC Four World Cinema competition.[35] The film was also ranked number 48 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[36]

The film was released on DVD in 2005 by Columbia-TriStar Home Entertainment (now Sony Pictures Home Entertainment).[37] Shout! Factory released a collector's edition Blu-ray in March 2018, with a "making-of" featurette, cast and crew interviews, and audio commentary from director Oliver Hirschbiegel.[38]

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 90% based on 141 reviews from critics, with a weighted average of 8.00/10. The website's consensus reads, "Downfall is an illuminating, thoughtful and detailed account of Hitler's last days."[39] On Metacritic, the film was awarded the "Must-See" badge, holding a weighted average of 82 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[40]

Reviews for the film were often very positive,[41] despite debate surrounding the film from critics and audiences upon its release (see Controversy).[42][24] Ganz's portrayal of Hitler was singled out for praise;[43][44][45] David Denby for The New Yorker said that Ganz "made the dictator into a plausible human being".[46] Addressing other critics like Denby, Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said the film did not provide an adequate portrayal of Hitler's actions, because he felt no film could, and that no response would be sufficient. Ebert said Hitler was, in reality, "the focus for a spontaneous uprising by many of the German people, fueled by racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear".[47]

Hermann Graml, history professor and former Luftwaffe helper, praised the film and said that he had not seen a film that was "so insistent and tormentingly alive". Graml said that Hitler's portrayal was presented correctly by showing Hitler's will "to destroy, and his way of denying reality".[48] Julia Radke of the German website Future Needs Remembrance praised the film's acting and called it well crafted and a solid Kammerspielfilm, though it could lose viewer interest due to a lack of concentration on the narrative perspective.[49] German author Jens Jessen said that the film "could have been stupider" and called it a "chamber play that could not be staged undramatically". Jessen also said that it was not as spectacular as the pre-media coverage could have led one to believe, and it did not arouse the "morbid fascination" the magazine Der Spiegel was looking for.[50]

Hitler biographer Sir Ian Kershaw wrote in The Guardian that the film had enormous emotive power, calling it a triumph and "a marvellous historical drama". Kershaw also said that he found it hard to imagine anyone would find Hitler to be a sympathetic figure in his final days.[30] Wim Wenders, in a review for the German newspaper Die Zeit, said the film was absent of a strong point of view for Hitler which made him harmless, and compared Downfall to Resident Evil: Apocalypse, stating that in Resident Evil the viewer would know which character was evil.[4][42]

Downfall was the subject of dispute by critics and audiences in Germany before and after its release, with many concerned regarding Hitler's portrayal in the film as a human being with emotions in spite of his actions and ideologies.[42][30][51] The portrayal sparked debate in Germany due to publicity from commentators, film magazines, and newspapers,[25][52] leading the German tabloid Bild to ask the question, "Are we allowed to show the monster as a human being?"[25]

It was criticized for its scenes involving the members of the Nazi party,[23] with author Giles MacDonogh criticizing the portrayals as being sympathetic towards SS officers Wilhelm Mohnke and Ernst-Günther Schenck,[53] the former of whom was accused of murdering a group of British prisoners of war in the Wormhoudt massacre.[N 1] At a discussion in London, Hirschbiegel said that the allegations that Schenck had performed unethical medical experiments were unproven.[56] Russian press visited the set, making the producers uneasy and occasionally defensive. Yana Bezhanskay, director of Globus Film, Constantin's Russian partner, raised her voice to Russian journalists and said: "This is an antifascist film and nowhere in it do you see Hitler praised."[20]

Cristina Nord from Die Tageszeitung criticized the portrayal, and said that though it was important to make films about perpetrators, "seeing Hitler cry" had not informed her on the last days of the Third Reich.[57] Some have supported the film: Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, director of Hitler: A Film from Germany, felt the time was right to "paint a realistic portrait" of Hitler.[16] Eichinger replied to the response from the film by stating that the "terrifying thing" about Hitler was that he was human and "not an elephant or a monster from Mars".[8] Ganz said that he was proud of the film; though he said people had accused him of "humanizing" Hitler.[52]