DOWNFALL Is a Box-Office Hit in Germany
This past weekend, 480,000 filmgoers across Germany lined up to get tickets for the €13.5 million (US$16.5 million) German-made Der Untergang / Downfall, the highly controversial film depicting Adolf Hitler’s last 12 days in his underground bunker. The figures for Downfall, which stars Bruno Ganz (the angel who becomes human in Wings of Desire) as the Nazi leader, were deemed particularly impressive since the nearly three-hour-long production only allowed two showings per evening.
In an interview with the Bild tabloid, former German chancellor Helmut Kohl declared that Downfall "was a film that had to be made and I hope that as many people as possible will see it." The former chancellor added, "It is an important film because it [...]
by Andre Soares | September 27, 2004
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Tags: Adolf Hitler, Box Office, Bruno Ganz, Der Untergang, Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Political Movies
DOWNFALL Accused of Humanizing Hitler
One of history’s most hated monsters has undergone a humanizing makeover in the German motion picture Der Untergang: Hitler und das Ende des 3. Reiches (Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich), directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Based on historian Joachim Fest’s best-selling Adolf Hitler biography and on the memoirs of the dictator’s last personal secretary, Traudl Junge, Downfall chronicles the last days of the German Führer, besieged inside his underground bunker while the Soviet Red Army battled the Nazi forces on the ground.
During that period, Hitler suffers psychotic delusions and goes into mad rages, but also shows courteousness and even warmth toward Junge and his wife-to-be Eva Braun.
In the film, Hitler is played by Swiss-born actor [...]
by Andre Soares | September 4, 2004
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Tags: Adolf Hitler, Bruno Ganz, Der Untergang, Downfall, Joachim Fest, Juliane Kohler, Political Movies, War Movies
