The fact that DOWNFALL was based upon Traudl Junge's memoirs of her life as Hitler's secretary is why there were sympathetic overtones in the depiction of Hitler. Junge said many times that the man she knew was not a monster --- that in some ways, she did not see that Hitler until she began taking down the dictation of his last political will and testament. There is an interesting documentary in which Junge is a talking head for ninety minutes, speaking of her experiences. That might sound boring, but think of her experiences! Anyway, after the war she passed a monument to Sophie Scholl and was struck by the fact that the two of them were the same age. And yet Scholl recognized the intrinsic evil of the Hitler regime enough to die opposing it. Junge said it was only then --- after the war --- that she realized that she could have known that which she did not know.
A lot of Titanic afficiandos (a description that fits me!) objected to Jack and Rose running buckety-buckety in front of the truly wonderful recreation of the ship, but in fact they were necessary. It was the love story that attracted the target audience, i.e. young girls. The movie isn't about the sinking, it is about a 17 year-old girl's journey to self-actualization. And the fact that she got to canoodle with Leonardo as part of the process didn't hurt box office. Witness the difference between cash intake between Cameron's Titanic and A Night to Remember.
For the small group of viewers who truly cared about the actual Titanic, let's face it. During the Jack/Rose dialogue (excruciating, although I thought Winslet and DiCaprio were excellent), we were looking past them to groove on how just right they'd done the paneling, or the clock on the Grand Staircase or . . . well, you get the idea. But if it hadn't been for the Rose character, the movie wouldn't have a titanic commercial success.
9/11 . . . we have a family friend who is 94, sharp as a tack. During World War II she was trapped behind German lines in the Ardennes, during the Battle of the Bulge. She was a nurse in what I suppose was a M*A*S*H unit, and she spent the time dealing with wounded soldiers while the battle raged around the hospital tents. In brief, Mary Lou was not morbid, or sheltered. Unlike most of us, she had personal experience of graphic violence.
Her grandson worked for one of the financial firms in the Trade Center, and died on 9/11. She also lost a son-in-law. Mary Lou was sharply critical of the image projected by the early rescue workers, or more precisely the television reporters. "As though they will find the bodies sitting at their desks. Those people were pulverized, limbs will be everywhere, they will be pulling small human remnants out of that rubble. Show them that, but don't leave them with the idea that this was anything other than horrific." No swelling music, no resolution of their grief at the end of the picture. Ands to be fair to the reporters, they wanted what everyone else wanted, i.e an easy way to comprehend this horrific event.
I think film by its nature is too shallow a medium to do justice to major historical events, which by their nature are large, messy experiences that defy easy categorization. In a good historical novel we can enter imaginatively into the event --- a film simply shows us pictures, thereby limiting our imagination to what we actually see.
About Anne Frank's diary --- an unexpurgated version has been released, but only since the death of Otto Frank, who controlled the diary. The tag line from the play and movie is something that Anne wrote: "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are basically good." But it is not all that she wrote, and there is serious questioning of the use of this sentiment as a valedictory for her entire life. There was a need for a survivor (sound familiar?) and at least part of that need was satisfied by the Anne Frank of the play. The plucky little girl who made lemonade out of the lemons that were dealt to her. And yes, that is a part of Anne, but not all. She was a human being, and more complicated than the Anne displayed in the play and movie. Other characters were also presented in their best light. There is an interesting take on this in Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer, which uses the distasteful (to me) premise that Anne survived, but could not reveal this because of the impact her diary had. I don't like the novel, but it's pretty damned brilliant.
Simon
