Watched the extended movie last night again- still excellent. ( well, Also saw the Deer Hunter so an excellent evening!!...). I read (said by unknown) that " The only thing real in the bunker was fear!". I believe it.
Is the The Deer Hunter good? I've heard its got excellent reviews and its very good but Ive never seen it. Can you tell me what its like?
im am a bit like you .huff. i herd good things about this film but never seen it maybe oneday my interests stop at the korean war some grand films to be seen there ..mw
Sorry, don´t want to spoil a great film by telling the plot, but I can tell you there´s "some" Russian roulette in the film. Besides, you can get it from the shop these days for a very low price so don´t wait another second, the movie´s absolutely GREAT!
there is a powerful lot of war films out there from around the world how do you know you like this one the best??
Good movie. I watched it few times. But everything is true in this movie? I m sorry but i dont think so. for example about hitler's secretary??? she walked so calm between red army and passed them? right? so anybody knows that red army soldiers raped her so many times? i just wanted to say that.
yes, it is pretty much known that they took great creative license with that scene. We discussed that in another thread.
To my knowledge there are three films that cover the same ground, Hitler and entourage in the bunker (I'm excluding the Richard Basehart 1962 Hitler because that film covers the bulk of his political career and doesn't center on the doings in the Fuhrerbunker) These are: Hitler: The Last Ten Days 1973 - Alec Guinness, Simon Ward The Bunker 1981 - Anthony Hopkins, Richard Jordan Downfall 2004 - Bruno Ganz The Alec Guinness film is the weakest by far, and not worth seeing (and I own it!). Guinness doesn't seem to have done his homework. He shows us a caricatured Hitler without the extreme physical deterioration the real man exhibited in 1945. Some of the supporting cast are good physical types for the persons they portray, but that's as far as it goes. Simon Ward is there but fills no dramatic function. The woman in the Eva Braun role is way too sexy; her dirndl shows too much luscious bosom. The bunker sets are junk. The walls are made to resemble unpainted reinforced concrete, which is good. But all the rooms are way too big. Every spoken word has reverb on it like they're sheltering in Carlsbad Caverns or something, and there's the sound of explosions, gunfire and even the rumble of bomber planes underneath everything. The real Fuhrerbunker had tiny rooms, and there was hardly any sound down there except the ever-present rumble of the ventilation and power machinery. There's no insight in the script at all, and the invented scenes (the final moments of Eva and Adolf, for example) are just absurd. Sir Alastair Cook introduces the film with a voice-over narration, and Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper puts in an endorsement too. I hope they were appalled by the finished product. (Well, Trevor-Roper fell for the Hitler Diaries, didn't he?) Downfall is most outstanding for Bruno Ganz, whose Hitler is considered the definitive 21th century interpretation. But there are weaknesses. The chap in the role of Goebbels is just a ghoul, there's no charm there at all. The real Goebbels was a masterful speaker, no one could move a crowd to ecstatic paroxysms better except Hitler himself. And he was the truest of the true believers. Goering and Himmler both tried to bug out during the last days to save their skins. Herr Dokter Goebbels could have at least tried to arrange an escape for his children if not for himself as well, but he moved his whole family into Berlin to die with Big Daddy Adolf. There's a lot of drama, tragedy and insight there that Downfall glosses over. One of the biggest failings of the film are the Bunker sets themselves. They are often too big, much too brightly lit, and painted. The real bunker didn't have enough power plant to run the ventilators, the pumps and the lighting to the brightness shown in the Ganz film. The very best bunker movie is also the most obscure, the 1981 HBO made-for-tv film The Bunker starring Anthony Hopkins. It's based on a book by James P. O'Donnell, the first Western journalist to visit the Bunker in July, 1945. His book is based largely on personal interviews with the largest selection of actual bunker inhabitants and visitors ever compiled in the West. O'Donnell's book didn't appear until 1978 because it took him 30 years to compile his evidence as so many of the eyewitnesses had gone to ground or been held in brutal captivity by the Russians for many years. The research behind Downfall pales by comparison. The sets in this production are top-notch and by far the best of any film on the subject (O'Donnell who had actually been there was consulted by the production designers from start to finish) The rooms are suitably scaled, the walls are bare concrete except for Hitler's personal rooms which are paneled, even the settee on which Hitler and Eva Braun took their lives is correctly upholstered. Some of the action takes place in the Reichskanzlei (the Bunker dwellers, except Hitler tried to spend as much time as possible there rather than underground) which is also well-represented. Hopkins leads a powerful cast, though not a box office bonanza. The one weak spot is the actor in the role of Hermann Goering, who looks too young for the role. Hopkins himself was just beginning to make his mark internationally. His Hitler is on the money, in my opinion -- palsied, sullen, apt to fly into fits of sputtering rage. Hopkins' Hilter is a familiar Fuhrer, though in a pre-war flashback he's seen clowning buffoonishly for Eva Braun's cine camera, which drives home the enigma at the foundation of Hitler's character. However, the real monster of The Bunker is Magda Goebbels (Piper Laurie). The scene of Frau Goebbels tempting her six children with drugged candy is an unforgeable horror. See this film and read the book, if at all possible. P.S. A little pointless tidbit. The actor who plays Hans Bauer, Hitler's pilot, in The Bunker, a substantial role in that film, appears to be the same actor who played Bauer in the Alec Guinness film. However IMDb doesn't credit that role as it's non-speaking.
I'm watching this movie now and it's a great movie. I usually hate subtitled movies but this one is terrific.
I believe this is a deleted scene from Downfall. The man shown is bunker electrician Johannes Hentschel. [video=youtube;mUIEnk75DyA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUIEnk75DyA&feature=related[/video]
Browsing the stalls at Beltring last weekend I picked up a copy of After The Battle with a 'How They Made...' article about Downfall. Sat down yesterday evening and watched the DVD for the first time in a while. Absolutely superb. And no CGI......
Bruno Ganz is simply brilliant as the looney Hitler. I wouldn´t mind if he made another Hitler film even as a B-movie "Hitler returns pts 2 and 3"...
Awww man I really want to see this movie! I've seen many user-made spoofs on YouTube, and that sparked my interest lol Anybody know if it's available on NetFlix?
There are plenty available on ebay for low cost : I recently saw copies on sale at a local supermarket for £3.
