hitler gets mashed/you-tubed..(..”Want to see Hitler expatiating on the disastrous impact of Sarah Palin..or the meltdown of the property market?..”)
“..In 2004, I flew to Berlin to interview Hitler.
All right, not Hitler, but the closest anyone has come to impersonating him.
The Swiss actor Bruno Ganz landed the lead role in the first German-language drama to place Hitler at the heart of the narrative.
It was the ne plus ultra of commanding performances, which drew deep on Ganz’s phenomenal resources.
I saw Downfall three times without tiring of its sheer relentless force.
It has its detractors, of course.
An Oxford historian of the second world war recently told me that the film promulgates a dangerous myth:..
..that the German people were Hitler’s final victims.
To less rarefied viewers, it’s simply a masterpiece.
Yet however many times you could be mesmerised by the three hours’ traffic of its story, you couldn’t possibly have predicted, four years ago, that its most iconic scene would be turned into a four-minute sketch..
..destined to be recycled in an apparently limitless set of variations.
Ganz’s Führer is an unwitting star of the internet.
Want to see Hitler expatiating on the disastrous impact of Sarah Palin or the meltdown of the property market?
Want to see him ordering a pizza..or struggling with Windows Vista..
..or responding to the news that Newcastle United is for sale?
It’s all there on YouTube.
The scene in Downfall in which Hitler goes doolally after learning of the encirclement of Berlin has spawned more than 150 parodies..
..and counting.
At the time of writing, the most recent -
- a fairly lame skit in which Hitler goes ballistic on hearing that a junior Nazi has stolen his trademark combover as a seduction aid -
- had been added four hours previously..”
go to source/story>>Hitler and the You Tube Downfall mash-ups - Times Online