An Interview with Oliver Hirschbiegel, Director of the Oscar-Nominated Film “Downfall.”

“I’m shitting my pants,” says Oliver Hischbiegel anxiously. “The thought that I might have to get up on stage is very scary. Well, my girl will be there to hold my hand.” Hirschbiegel’s new film, Downfall, which depicts Hitler’s final days in his bunker, is nominated for Best Foreign Film at next week’s Academy Awards. The film garnered considerably popularity and controversy when it was released in Germany this fall.

It’s Tuesday morning, and I’m sitting opposite Mr. Hirschbiegel in his suite at The Regency. “There’s a left-wing faction of writers who stick to the idea that you must not depict Adolph Hitler as a human being,” says Oliver Hirschbiegel of the controversy. “I never really got that point, because it’s an insult to the survivors.” He takes a drag from his cigarette. “To say that the man responsible for that horrendous crime, was a creature from hell that had come over the German people by witchcraft is an insult.”"

Downfall is about the last days of the Third Reich as seen both on and under the streets of Berlin. In the Führerbunker, Hitler ranks out his commanding officers and the German people for losing the war, while on the streets above, the Soviet Army reduces the once-proud city to rubble. But Hirschbiegel’s film, the first German production about the leaders of the Nazi regime, also portrays the dictator’s softer side. Hitler is seen lavishing almost fatherly affection of his mistress Eva Braun – who he eventually marries – and awarding children for their service to the Reich.

“The problem with depictions of Hitler so far is that they either were caricatures or demonizing. I didn’t want to manipulate the audience. I wanted to create a maximum of a three-dimensional character and leave the decision to the audience. Knowing about the responsibility I’d taken on, I was basically shitting my pants every day and so was Bruno,” he said, referring to Bruno Ganz, the Swiss-born actor whose performance as Hitler has garnered praise from the film’s most vehement detractors.

“Getting into a character like Hannibal Lecter is unpleasant enough. Dealing with Adolph Hitler is - compared to that - such an incomprehensible task. You need to reach down inside you and find aspects that will help you portray the person; and then, it’s frightening. Nietzsche said that if you look into the abyss for a long time, you fall down and lose yourself in the abyss.”  

Prior to Downfall, Hirschbiegel made the internationally-acclaimed thriller Das Experiment. That film cemented his reputation: a reputation that he’s not quite modest about. “In Germany I’m like Michael Mann or Ridley Scott. I stand for very successful filmmaking that has high quality and gets a big audience.” Downfall broke box-office records in Germany, where it was seen primarily as a film made by Germans for Germans. Recently, J. Hoberman advocated this position in the Village Voice, which is echoed by Hirschbiegel himself. “I always try to tell me tales in the most universal way, but in this case, I deliberately did this as a German director for a German audience.”

At the dawn of the 21st century, Hirschbiegel sees a “historic necessity” to tell this story. “The old people who are witnesses and could tell us things are dying away, so if we hadn’t done it now, it would have been too late.” Asked whether he views himself at all as a historian, Hirschbeigel prefers the term “storyteller.” “In this case, the story is history. I never want to step over that line, where it starts becoming manipulative and influencing people in a certain way. You must no do that. As soon as you do, you’re using the means of the Göbbelspropoganda.”

This philosophy is evident in the film’s near-obsessive attention to detail; Hirschbeigel only lets his creativity flourish in an atmosphere of historical accuracy. On this account, the filmmaker Wim Wenders published a scathing column against the film, in the German weekly Die Zeit. The headline read, “Why shouldn’t we see Hitler die in Downfall? Critical notes on a film without a position.” “This means that [Wenders] didn’t get the point of the point of the movie, which is that we only showed things we have accounts and descriptions that we can rely on. And Eva and Hitler killed themselves secretly, there was no one present – I can’t show it because it would have been my decision as the artist or director how to stage the death of Adolph Hitler. And that, in itself, is a mistake.”     

Hirschenbiegel did not respond to this or any of Wenders’ more serious claims – for instance, the claim that the film as too ambivalent in its depiction of Hitler – and characterizes it as polemic. “The problem with polemic and emotional statements is they always lack arguments. In this case, you can only deal with arguments.” So how exactly would he like the film to be viewed? “The worst thing that could have happened was if people had watched it like two and a half hours of entertainment” Rather he hopes that Downfall will “serve as an inducement to look inside our (Germany’s) history and start asking the right questions.” He would like the film to affect the audience on an emotional level that he considers unique to the art of film. “As soon as there is an emotional connection - and this is what does the film - people start to communicate. That’s a wonderful thing film can do.”

In the week since Downfall was released, Hiscbiegel says he’s very pleased with the American response. “People here look at it as a movie. They talk about the craft of filmmaking and staging. They didn’t do that so much in Europe.” In countries like France and England, the director points to left-wingers – à la Wenders – arguing against the film. “It’s hard to deal with polemic. But it was good for the movie, because people talk about it. And that’s what we had in mind. That’s just the right thing.”