The centerpiece of the film is Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of Adolf Hitler. It is, quite simply, one of the greatest acting performances in the history of cinema.
Before Downfall, cinema often depicted Hitler in one of two ways: as a ranting, one-dimensional lunatic, or as an off-screen boogeyman. Ganz did something far more difficult and dangerous: he humanized him. downfall -2004-
This is not a sympathetic portrayal—far from it. But it is a human one. We see Hitler as a trembling old man, stooped and shuffling, his hand shaking behind his back. We see him doting on his dog, Blondi, and being gentle with the secretaries. He is charming, even. And then, the switch flips. The centerpiece of the film is Bruno Ganz’s
The famous "rant" scene—where Hitler realizes the war is lost and General Steiner failed to attack—shows the terrifying duality. One moment he is calm, the next he is a vessel of pure, venomous rage. But Ganz captures the pathetic nature of that rage. He isn’t a god of war; he is a delusional manchild throwing a tantrum because reality refused to bend to his will. By showing the man, Ganz made the monster even more terrifying, reminding us that evil doesn't always wear horns; sometimes it wears a tailored suit and speaks softly. Ganz did something far more difficult and dangerous:
If 2004 is remembered for one thing in tech history, it is the birth of Web 2.0. But with new birth came new ways to fail.
To understand Downfall (Der Untergang, 2004), one must understand the cinematic void that preceded it. For nearly six decades, portraying Adolf Hitler as a central character in a mainstream narrative film was considered a taboo too heavy to lift. He appeared as a caricature (Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator), a mad specter (the newsreels of the 1940s), or a distant evil. He was never a man drinking tea, shaking with rage, or petting a dog.
Enter director Oliver Hirschbiegel and writer Bernd Eichinger. Armed with the memoirs of Traudl Junge (Hitler’s last private secretary) and historian Joachim Fest’s account of the last days of the Third Reich, they decided to do the unthinkable in 2004: they went inside the Führerbunker.