What thoughts to people have on the humanising of Hitler? My uni lecturer said the other day of Downfall that "of course Hitler was human, what else was he, a rabbit?" Besides that, do you think this is part of a popular movement to de-caricturise Hitler and make him human so he is someone we can comprehend and learn from (thus learning from his mistakes to never repeat them)?
shareAbsolutely not! By the way there's no such word as de-characturise, nor is there a de-charicature. although that would be closer.
ronboy
I agree with your lecturer. He was certainly a human, or a very convincing alien clone. ANyways, yeah i'm sure he felt emotion and I applaud filmmakers who don't just go for the simple Boo Hiss approach.
shareI think you make an excellent point. As much as so many of us like to look at him as just some horrible creature that couldn't possibly be human like us, the fact is he was human. So many people live in denial, believing someone like this couldn't exist again so just shove this whole thing in the closet and don't talk about it. But, while it hasn't happened on the scale that it did then, there are dictators out there like him hoping to achieve similar goals to his, and we need to learn from them. It's extremely important to attempt to delve into their psyche and try to learn what makes them tick. Is it anger? Or do they just feel that's they way things should be? Understanding the way the think and their reasons for doing what they do could be our greatest defense/weapon against them.
shareTitanium_Badger,
I agree with you completely. And, I also think it's important to examine what we may label "evil" actions to be sure that we understand the source. But the hardest thing to do is to admit to ourselves that each of us has the capability to feel dark feelings, have dark ideas, and to even express ourselves in varying degrees of thought, word or deeds that are not always correct, right or "good". In other words, examine our own hearts for vestiges of racism, anti-whatever. I would love to see our civilization really talk in the open about prejudice and racism and anti-Semitism, and all the other forms of fear/suspicion/hatred that can so easily turn into "evil" actions. My own belief is it all stems from FEAR and is just a continuum from there.
I think that the film began to scratch the surface with the roots of Hitler. Through watching the documentary: "The First World War" (2003) (mini) and seeing the effects on the German psyche followed, then viewing : "The World at War" (1974) (mini) one can realize how easy it is that not only Hitler, but the Nazi party, the SS and, I would be willing to estimate most Germans themselves fell into the resentment and anger that brought about the third reich, and ultimately the second war. I would very much like to read any good book that psychologically profiles Hitler, and perhaps the whole German mindset that followed the end of the first war, and through the fall of Berlin in 1945. And perhaps even more fascinating to delve into the collective feeling of the German people in a post-Hitler Germany from 1945 to today. As far as humanising Hitler, I feel that any film that doesn't humanise it's protagonist, especially one that is a historic figure, does a great disservice to the viewer by making the subject more of a mythic or even comic book like character rather that a real person. A person who had friends, dreams, dissapointments, just as all of us. The interaction between Max and Hitler started to bring that out for me. In thier relationship I was able to see that perhaps the people that we all interact with are all one misstep away from becoming one who could do such monstous things. And as they are, so are we. All capable of wandering down a path that leads to the pain and suffering of others, and ultimately ourselves.
ratfink702
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Of course Hitler was human. I find it ridiculous when people act as if he was anything but. Yes he was deeply twisted and a horrible man but that doesn't make him any less of a person.
I believe John Cusack said in an interview that (and keep in mind I'm probably horribly paraphrasing here) it was important to humanize Hitler in order for us to remember that it could happen again and be careful to make sure it never does.
If I stumbled would you still be there?
Hitler was very different when he was younger. He actually disagreed with the persecution of people of other races and religions because of his religious upbringing (Catholic I think). Then he went nuts somewhere along the line. I saw this on some history channel type show. If you watch the show where they translated Hitler's home recordings using lip readers, it's very creepy and surreal. There's one line where he says to Ava "Did you like the movie last night? No...? Perhaps you'd like 'Gone with the Wind...'" It's weird to see the duality of the man.
shareHe also often followed a vegetarian diet (though not always) and was known to love animals, and hate smoking. Probably not things one might expect from a future madman....
shareHe was also a quarter Jewish and a potential homosexual. He even had his father's hometown obliterated by turning it into a military shooting range (for fear that one day someone would find out the truth). Read his profile on wikipedia, it's pretty interesting.
shareThere's a review of the new Norman Mailer book on Hitler in the new Entertainment Weekly magazine, and there's a sidebar that says that no one has been able to confirm that Jewish rumor....
share[deleted]
total BS
shareActually, all throughout history there have been maniacs who had a deep love of animals. Caligula named a horse to the senate, for instance.
shareCouldn't disagree more.
share[deleted]
From the film "Runaway Train":
"You're an anaimal!"
"No - I'm worse - human!"
Another thing that we forget is that Hitler was actually kinda removed from all of the horrors of the Holocaust. He just put out the orders and had his team of unterfurhers (or whatever they were called, the people directly underneath him) actually carry out the plan in detail. While all this Holocaust stuff was going on, Hitler was in his mansion or the Eagle's Nest or whatever... wining and dining and doing paperwork and making speeches.
I'm not saying he is not a horrible man. I'm just reminding people that the Holocaust was actually carried out by everybody else.
If Hitler was actually confronted about the death camps, he probably would have denied everything and accused other people of doing it without his authorization.
I don't think anything related to the Holocaust was on the record.
For example, see the movie "Conspiracy". Someone mentions that Hitler denies giving any orders related to the "The Final Solution" (sterilization or genocide of Jews) ... and one of the head Nazis in charge says something like "Yes, and he will continue to do so." implying that this was part of the plan... that there would never be any record or evidence connecting Hitler to the Holocaust.
I also a documentary that interviewed one of the women who worked as Hitler's personal secretary. She talked about what it was like to work for Hitler and what the day to day kinda routines Hitler had. Most of the time he was in his office doing paper work, or having meetings with people. I guess he was eating lunch alone until arrangements were made for Hitler to dine with the ladies from his staff so that he wouldn't have to dine alone. (Interestingly, on a side note, somehow the topic of children came up in one of their lunch conversations or whatever. Hitler said he didn't want children because the children of geniuses often turn out to be disappointments. Woah. The secretary from the documentary said that was the moment when she started to question Hitler - well, that is, she started to have doubts that she kept to herself.
So, even though Hitler was messed up... he was still playing the role of a nation's leader, someone educated and had civic duties and someone who, if connected to something like a holocaust, would pretty much face the end of his career.
I honestly don't know how Hitler influenced so many people to follow him and carry out his plans.
I agree completely. People on this board seem to misunderstand what "humanizing" means. I've read "of course he's human" a few times. Yes- he was a human. Humanizing in fimls means to make well-rounded, to show an up and down. To give context and perspective to a character's motivations and point of view. This film did humanize him, and I applaud them for it. If we keep characterizing Hitler in our movies as some sort of other-worldly demon, we will not have learned anything from what was allowed to happen- and that gives way for something like the Nazis to happen again and again.
shareyou guys are complete morons, the true enemy was Stalin.
Forget about all that CNN propeganda. Commnunism was the real threat. Wasn't there a war that lasted over 50 years between American and Russia?
I thought Noah's portrayal was fascinating. Hitler was a real person...as flawed as he was. Hitler's strentgth as a public speaker was mesmerizing to the down-trodden German people, who were looking for a ray of hope after being dessimated in WW1. I think we have learned from Hitler's lesson. Why do you think we are in Iraq? Some of the Korean and middle-east leaders correlate almost exactly to Hitler. Hitlers are born everyday. It's what we do annihilate them that is important.
sharei think we are in the iraq war because of all the hatred against arabs and arab states, along with the government flat out lying about a plethora of things. and the speeches that bush gave.
maybe we're not all that different as humans. just blindly listening to the government and believing that a majority (and in some peoples mind's all) of a certain race is evil.
i think it is funny that we hold ourselves in such high esteem and fall into the same trappings.
not to say that all our government does is wrong and some good may potentially come out of the iraq war at sometime the future. (killing of innocent civilians sucks(and i'm glad we stopped saddam from doing it) though that still happens every damn day)
It's necessary. He WAS human (no matter that we don't want to include him with us!) and if we don't remember our history then we'll be doomed to repeat it. Plain and simple.
"Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"
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Yes, Hitler was human and, in retrospect, really unlucky. I bet during his lifetime, a lot of people envied him. Thought, "what a great life I'd have if I could speak the way he does!" But no one in his right mind would envy him today.
I agree, Hitlers are born every day. Hitler just happened to come along at a particularly bad time in history, when the effects of bad choices like his would have really far-reaching consequences. The Europe of that time was a crazy place. The film does a great job of showing the "fragility" of life at the time, as Meyjes says in the commentary.
It's interesting that no one on this thread seems to deny the basic premise that Hitler should be humanized. Most films with political messages have much more dissension on points like this. But I'm guessing it's just because this is a hard film to watch, and if you made it through it, you're likely to be a person who's willing to look below the surface of things and try to understand people. So pat yourself on the back if you're on this thread.
It's too bad the film didn't do better at the box office, but I suppose not surprising. It's not fun to watch. But it's sure worthwhile.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
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Yeah, I think you can say the formula for great evil is "power without wisdom." This was an age when there wasn't much wisdom present in world affairs. A really crazy time.
Actually, I think you can generalize this further. The power can take lots of forms. For example, I read a book about a serial killer, a first-hand account of his life, called "I." He was a big, strong, handsome man who also happened to be real screwed up inside. His sex appeal gave him power over women, which was his downfall. He usually didn't actually intend to kill a woman, but when he got angry and figured no one could identify him, he would. (That was made easier by his being a long-haul trucker.) He actually had something of a conscience: one time when someone else took responsibility for one of his murders, he wrote a newspaper anonymously to say they didn't do it, he did. I didn't get the impression this was a "pride" thing for him. He just thought it was crazy that an innocent person would claim responsibility for a crime he knew they didn't do.
The really striking thing about the story is after he'd been caught and put in prison for life, he said, "this is the best life I've ever had." He was miserable out in the "free" world. This gives me a sense of how his "power" was really an unlucky thing, though some people probably envied him for his attractiveness to women when he was free.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
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