Question: write a summary of the critic’s argument, determine how successful the critic is in marshaling evidence to support his argument, and say whether you agree with the critic’s argument.
Answer: I literally think that if someone sat in our class on Monday and wrote a summary of the most important things we said, they would pretty much have composed a similar article to this critical article by Steve Hochstadt. The main thing that the article starts to discuss is the controversial portrayal of Hitler, which is what we talked about first in class yesterday. Hochstadt wrote about how Hitler had never been portrayed this way in a movie before; the excessive make-up making him look like clay, the gray and greasy hair, the bent over frail old man. Also, Hochstadt discusses how all of these tactics make Hitler into a human, which had never really been done before by other filmmakers.
Next the article talks about the fact that this movie is made to look like a documentary. By the use of Traudl Junge, the clips at the beginning and the end make this movie seem more like what happened exactly in Hitler’s bunker on the last days of the war. Hochstadt says that the use of characters like Junge makes the audience have an odd kind of sympathy. But, it was dangerous for the filmmakers to portray Hitler and the other characters involved in the Holocaust in this manner because not only was it taboo in German films, but it was unthought of to make someone sympathize with Hitler.
Next, Hochstadt discussed the role of some of the other less important characters, still pulling on the sympathy string of the audience. Just like we discussed in class, Schenck was portrayed as a Nazi that actually had remorse for the German people. However, the filmmakers decided to leave out the fact that Schenck had previously experimented with concentration camp inmates. By leaving out some of these historic facts, the viewers feel even more sympathy for the downfall of this nation.
Also, Hochstadt brought up the Goebbels children which he quoted, “these innocents appear to me to symbolize here the broader sacrifice of ordinary Germans for the megalomania of Nazi fanatics, like Hitler and Goebbels, who are repeatedly quoted here as welcoming the collective Untergang of Germany which did not deserve them” (242). By showing these children, Hochstadt believes that once again the filmmakers use innocent figures like these doll-like children to show the entire suffering of Germany under few Nazi monsters. I find it ironic though that while Hochstadt makes the same connection we as a class did about the innocence of these children, in the following sentence he brings up the megalomania, like Goebbels and Hitler, Goebbels being these “innocent” children’s father.
Next, Hochstadt brings up yet another topic we discussed in class; the issue of believing Traudl when she says she didn’t know about what was going on in the war. Hochstadt said that the only reason that the documentary of the real Junge was added was to address that question, and since the answer seemed to be that she really didn’t know much about what was going on, she seemed even more innocent.
Finally to conclude this review of the movie, Hochstadt said that the movie was a “riveting portrayal of Hitler, but a sanitized version of Nazi Germany” (243). By saying this to close his review, he shows that the new portrayal of Hitler was extremely insightful, but the lack of historic accuracy with less important characters as well as the certain tactics that drew the audiences sympathy towards potential Holocaust perpetrators, was not a fair depiction of Nazi Germany.
