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. 16, stars Swiss-born actor Bruno Ganz ("Wings of Desire") as the Nazi dictator in his Berlin bunker during the final days of World War II.

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at the Toronto International Film Festival September 14, is based on firsthand testimony and recently discovered historical documents recounting the period from April 20, Hitler's last birthday, until May 2, 1945, when the Soviet army stormed the Berlin bunker to find the Fuhrer had committed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.

"The time is ripe for such a film," Eichinger said. "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.

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I hope nobody takes this the wrong way, but even the most horrible of men have a human side to them. Often psychopaths are described as quiet, well-behaved people before police find severed heads in their freezers...

Hitler was a fairly normal man until the syphilis drove him insane.
and even the insane will have moments of politeness.

Im a perfect example

how's this a tender side

Anyway sounds good, I'll watch it if it ever comes here.

I could care less about his human, tender side, he is scum and should be only remembered for the piece of crap he was. He deserves nothing that shows him as a partially good person. All he was, was a murder and physcopath!

Yes, he was a monster... but he was a human monster, this film raises the point that we ALL have the potential for good... and evil. No being is completely good- just as no being is completely evil.

One could make the case the Hitler's evil was a product of society and the times... starting with the rather unfair Treaty of Versailles, and his disgruntlement with Germany's accpetance of it.

Now before you start trying to rip me a new arse, let me say I'm not defending what he did. Rather, I'm saying that people are reluctant to understand how the evil he commited came about.

I myself will see this film just to see what sort of insight it may have to offer into the man's phsychology at that time.

U r right there stewey, but I despise hitler more than mere words can describe, he was a human and may have had some good in him, but he let himself become an evil monster and I will not watch this movie. He slaughtered so many innocent people, that to me he is no longer human and I wont watch something that even in the smallest most insignificant way tries to show us he was partially good.

sounds alot like me refusal to watch any of bush's speaches- Druidus sends me quotes of all the bushisms! XD

Cant wait 4 the movie ... anyway, Hitler was a megalomaniac ... I believe this is itself a human side just one of the mmm 'evil ones' I believe from the history I have learned that Hitler from a young age found society difficult. Hitlers exploits as a foot soldier in WWI are reasonably well known & it seems that he wasn't exactly an extrovert then kind of a loner like someone with their own agenda. His agenda was his way of dealing with the stuff he had trouble with. He was fiercely Nationalistic & after penning Mein Kampf began a following which with success fueled the megalomania that drove the Nazi party.

I would love to hear this original ... I believe Hitler with the success/celebrity definitely had developed strong social skills of course at the height of the Nazi domination & after a few French champagnes in his duchy/villa I reckon he would have been the life of the party *LOL* but it doesnt take away his pure evil his megalomania which in him I believe unique in history.
I often wonder about WWII that if you had all the Nations leaders in a meeting together in one room ... I know who would take the lead & I hate to say Im pretty sure it would be Hitler. Even Stalin would have crumbled in a face to face debate with Hitler. Churchill would be out of his league. Roosevelt was just too nice a man to grapple with a Hitler. The Japanese at the time admired Hitler as did the Axis obviously. De Gaull nope ... none of them. Just as well the Nazi's lost who knows what Hitler could have ben capable of ?!

I will not be watching this film. I find it offensive to the millions of people who died because of him. I find it offensive to the survivors. He should not be put in the limelight.

Pure idiocy! Hitler was never a 'normal' man. He was a frustrated, unsuccessful artist in Austria before he was the man we all know and love now. Syphillis had nothing to do with his murdering millions of innocent people.

I actually heard about this movie a while back. See above for my thoughts on it.

Has other said, even the worst serial homicides are human, and had more "human" moments. Hitler order the extermination of gipsys, jews and others, but he loved his partner and the children he thinks were "aryan" .

that pretty much sums up...well, everything i could ramble about in this topic. humans are monsters and the worst of us are still humans.

I do try to be as accurate as possible, and say as much as I can with as few words as possible.

And as soon people start to forget about him, is when it will happen again.

I cant wait for this movie, sounds good. I loved The Last Ten Days, so I should love this to. Hope it comes to North America!

I don't have time to really comment so much on Hitler or the film, yet I do find this response interesting.

People have a desire to see evil and good as black and white. One is evil, then he CANNOT be good. One is a monster, then they CANNOT be human. This is an interesting tendancy that allows us to psychologically surround ourselves, protecting ourselves from the mere THOUGHT that a human being who has committed horrible crimes could be very similar to ourselves.

It's an interesting thought.

it's the way people's minds are wired, actually, if i remember what i read correctly...but people have a natural urge to label something as one thing and one thing only. easier to process in the head, ya know? it's like, why label one thing many things when you can just use one word and be done, eh? it's ;azy, but it's human nature. hwacha.

Well I respect your view point, but I beleive they should make movies of Hitler. If nothing else to remind us of the warning of history, lest we forget.

Touche.

I agree comepletely. Ignoring history merely guarantees the possibility of repeating it.

Exactally what I said

Do you think he just sprang from the womb and started strangling puppies?
There were events and actions that led Hitler to being how he was.
One of those was Syphillis. As was shown in the Tuskogee experiment if left untreated you will go insane. This was one of the events that led to Hitler being who he was. No matter how much the world hates him at one point in time he was an INNOCENT little boy.
The more Hitler is studied the better. Then just maybe we can start preventing people from ending up the way he did.

I absoloutely agree that people should never forget this animal and what he did. Some of you may know that a part of my family's history was erased/wiped out due to this man. I have to say that portraying him as someone who has a 'tender side is just plain wrong. Yes okay he may have been an innocent when he was born but the Hitler that everyone knows was purley evil on a massive scale and no-one should be swayed by this.
The director of this film has obvioulsy done this to make himself famous. Anyone who makes a film knowing how controversial it is going to be is doing it for this reason only. I find that incredibly insensitive. For someone to make money out of pure evil and the pain, torture and agonising death that millions endured is very very wrong.

he did do something good for germany though. he fixed up the economy don't forget. but it is amazing how all these evel people are mad. look at caligula, the only reason his invasion of britain failed was beecause he ordered his men to stop on the beach to collect sea shells

Not really, Germany's economy was booming during the 1920s, it was just the Wall Street Crash which threw it into chaos and made people vote for the extremists in the first place.

Hitler took over an economy which actually was beginning to heal itself anyway.

Also the economy under the Nazis was unstable, some historians beleive that one of the reasons Germany was going from one war to another without any breaks and outside the time table (war with the USSR was originallt planned for 1945, and with the US for 1957) because they were trying to take people's minds of the economic issues, take resources from other nations and continue on a war economy as long as possible.

I've seen that footage before on TV. And I remember a program talking about how kind he was, and his mistress or whatever and all that. It's already been done.

Totally agree we should always be reminding ourselves about this kind of thing so we don't let it happen again. I think it's good to study the Hitler before he became the hated household name he is today. Find the patterns that let this kind of thing happen. Where does the innocent boy become the monster? Is my next door neighbor's son headed in that direction?

Hopefully the summary won't be "Hitler was a great guy!" I'm sure it won't. But I'm sure interested in what makes a perfectly "normal" guy become a monster.
Is it genetic? Will I become a monster? Cause I feel like a pretty well adjusted 'normal' guy... no real quest for power or anything. Bin Laden at one time seemed like the kid next door. It's not just Hitler, lots of terrible people out there started as a Toddler like Ghandi.

The Summary isnt "Hitler was a great guy".

It was "Hitler was a human being" which is forgotten alot of the time.

People arent born monsters, the events which happen in their lifes turn them into them.

And if you think people cant change, Nelson Mandela was once considered a terrorist, look where he is now.

Give it a few decades.. people probably will forget the ultra-negative we have and see him as any other dictator, no special hatred for him.

There is already a group of folks out there who think Hitler is a hero. Movies that portray monsters in a 'human' light are not doing anybody any good in my opinion. We had a couple of monsters here back in the old days...They went by Bonnie and Clyde. They murdered and robbed there way across the south. Hollywood made them into heros and even for me after seeing the movie it is hard to think of them in the same monster light as I had previously. So, you are right Talon...after a while of portraying Hitler's gentler side...the evil side will pale a bit.
You already have people wanting to blame Syphillis for the murder of 6 million Jews. Let us never forget the EVIL that was Hitler.

I think it would be interesting to watch

[QUOTE]There is already a group of folks out there who think Hitler is a hero. Movies that portray monsters in a 'human' light are not doing anybody any good in my opinion.

Oh, I'm not blaming the movie for it. I want to see the movie, I'm saying its a natural occurance in history. People probably said what we say about Hitler all the time about various butchers. Thing is, the further you travel in time from the event, the less of an impact on you it has.

I mean, a terrorist attack kills 200 people tomorrow, we think 'Oh my god!'

We read a book which tells us 1000 people were butchered by some Roman General... we thing 'sad, but so?'

I think that nurture and the enviernment you are raised in has a lot to do with how you turn out in the end. That, and a combonation of other factors.

Hitler chose to do what he did and he chose to become like he was, he had a rough life and went through some pretty bad things before he became the ruker, But that gives him no right to do what he did. He was a monster plain and simple and that was his choice!

Couldnt have said it better myself. I know it will happen adventually...

a human monster, with human desires, human faults and human failings.
why wouldn't Hitler have a nice side. Is that really so hard to believe.
They always catch these serial killers and the neighbors all say what a nice guy he was. No matter who you are we all have good in us and vice versa we all have evil in us. I'm glad Hitler's dead and the Nazi regime destroyed but we have to remember it was run by people, supported by people and finally stopped by people.

I don't think there is any need for anyone to have any compassion for Hitler. If he killed my family, I know that I'd want him to be forever remembered as the biggest f-ck up ever. So what if it's incredibly intriguing to see his downfall? He doesn't deserve the positive attention.
That's my view anyway.

How about this for an idea:

Those that want to see the film should have the right to- and those that don't want to see it, should have the right not too? Can we at least agree on that?

Whether Hitler was was a monster, or someone that was driven to his madness, he was still a person... and it should always be remembered that it is people that commit the most horrible things on Earth.

And as was pointed out, as time passes, the sting of horror is diluted... especially when more horrific things happen.

Will George W. Bush be remembered as a super-patriot, or as a lunatic that sent thousands of troops to their death for nothing?

It should also be pointed out that the Allies were NOT so innocent during the war either. We have our share of blood on our hands too.

Here's a logic trick Descartes made famous.

Untreated syphillis causes insanity
Hitler had untreated syphillis
therefore untreated syphillis caused Hitler to be insane

there were also two other world leaders that had untreated syphillis.
one of them Napoleon. Cool Points to whoever knows the other one.

Could it have been Nero or Caligua?

Nope, not quite that long ago.
when I found out I was very surprised.

Maybe Stalin? He wound up killing more people than even Hitler during his reign... of course- that can't be proved since they all simply "disappeared" in the dark of night...

still wrong, it's not somebody we usually think badly about.

Ben Affleck?

Okay no more guesses.
Abraham Lincoln. That's what finally killed his wife. who gave it to who I have no idea.

aww getting all senstive, Trev? Honestly eventhought I HATE Kim Jong (not sure if I get the N Korea leader name correct) so much that I just WISH US would send military to capture him and torture him to death. But I wouldnt want people to mess up history. Because if we keep messing history up we will never be able to learn from our mistake.

One thing I CANT stand is when somoene say people do something cause they are crazy. That piss me off and if they hold a high position or something and say the reason people do something is because they are crazy, I automically lose respect for them. People CAN be crazy and still think! They dont all suddenly lose control and say "ok I will kill this person just cause I wanna to" or whatever! So there are ALWAY a reason for something to happen.

Anyway I think what Hitler was trying to do is getting rid of all jewish so he can provide the jobs to his people but after a while it end up become bigger. No one ever think "as soon as I have power I will do all of this massacre", it usually start with "those are our enemies so we gotta to get rid of then" then after a while someone would help their enemies or act in similar way as their enemies then the leader will think "ok I gotta to crush all of then" and it keep adding up until well... like as what happen during WWII. I wonder what year it show Hitler in? May it show before he start massacre or anything. However I think people should be realistic and not just say "aww Hitler is a such nice person I wish I have him as my brother/uncle/father/etc...." or "OMG HE IS A BUTCHER!!! HE IS HORRIBLE PERSON AND ALL GERMANS SHOULD DIE!!!". So my feeling on this is VERY vague, it would has turn out to be a great movie if they mix this one and something really horrible together cause it will show people how it get started and how it end up become so bad.

Lincoln *L* & I was gonna say Al Capone *LOL* anyway .... WHAT IF the sequence of events that shaped Hitler were different & he wound up being a beggar on the streets of Prague. I bet he wouldn't hesitate to beg for food. This does not mean the potential for sheer evil wasn't still there in his make up. BUT it is a possible example of the fact that BOTH evil & good exist in all humans. Very rare for a person to have these qualities in equal balance, lifestyle, environment & a host of factors regrettably shaped Hitler into the 'Human' we despise so much.
Despite my desire to see this film I still believe Hitler's evil was quite unique in History I dont think there was another to match him. The Nazi heirarchy actually had a whole list of evil dudes incl. at least 3 megalomaniacs (Himmler & Goehring) there may have been more too ... Heinrich Reinhardt had to be pretty close as well. With this the Nazi leadership is also (IMHO) unique in history.

He's another article on this issue;

'Human' Hitler disturbs Germans

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!" he rages, his hand shaking with Parkinson's disease.

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.

"He is a human being, not a psychopath. It is true that he was charming. 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.

"Should a monster be portrayed as a human being?" asked the tabloid newspaper Bild recently.

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.

Private side

Made at a cost of 13.5m euros ($16.4m), The Downfall is one of the most expensive German films for years.

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.

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.

"I cannot only hate this person," he said.

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.

Remarque saw it as a way of reviving memories. 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.

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.

"Drink, drink!" she shouts, forcing her screaming child to take "medicine".

But we do not see Hitler's suicide. 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.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3663044.stm

Germans flock to see Hitler film

More than 100,000 German filmgoers flocked to see a controversial big-budget movie about Adolf Hitler on its opening night on Thursday.
The Downfall, shown on 400 screens, stars Swiss actor Bruno Ganz as the Nazi leader and sparked debate about portraying Hitler with a human side.

Ex-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has hailed it as a way for young people to be reminded of the horror of Hitler.

The £9m film's makers said they were happy young and old had gone to watch.

Critics were divided over the film, which details the end of the Third Reich leading up to Hitler's suicide in his bunker on 30 April 1945.

German historian Hans Mommsen said: "Reducing history to stories about people is not suitable for gaining an understanding of the greater historical process."

But British historian and Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw said: "Of all the portrayals of Hitler, this is the first which I found convincing."

The film will be shown throughout continental Europe and in Japan. Producers are also hoping to distribute it in North America and Britain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3666076.stm

Maybe his evil deeds made him more human than his good ones did. Just a random thought.