HOW DOES A FILM BECOME A MEME?

By Ian Long

The Downfall meme must be one of the best-known clips on YouTube.

Which makes it highly relevant to my 'Writing the Micro-Film' workshop on March 27.  Outstanding sequences from feature films can tell us a lot about creating micro-films (they often operate with a similar logic).

In the clip, a subtitled Hitler rails at his generals about being booked on Ryanair, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, the fact that people are laughing at his rants on YouTube, and finding out that there's no Santa.

If it seems strange to "make a joke of Hitler," it's worth remembering that people laughed at him even when he was threatening the lives of millions. 

Comedy is an outlet in impossible situations, and we still need it when confronting dangers of all kinds.

New versions of the meme once appeared daily, and the parody still gets revived at key moments.

Making new variants on the clip even has its own verb, ‘unterganging,’ from the 2004 film’s German title.  

Although director Oliver Hirschbiegel enjoyed the parodies, his production company took many down.

This sparked new wave of unterganging, in which Hitler rants unhappily about the deletion of “his” clips.

So why did a clip from a German-language historical drama became an internet phenomenon? What struck such a nerve?

Structure?  Content?

The answer comes when we read the clip as a tightly constructed mini-narrative.

Let’s just ​remember where it’s from.

What is Downfall about?

It's April 1945.  Allied forces are advancing on Berlin, and Hitler has taken refuge in the Führerbunker. 

Many people are urging him to make a strategic retreat.  Meanwhile, he pins his hopes on a planned counter-attack led by SS Commander Felix Steiner. 

The film's first act revolves around the issue of “defending the city.” 

As the clip starts, Hitler’s generals explain that Berlin is surrounded.  He replies that “Steiner’s assault will bring it under control.”

Fearfully, the generals tell him that Steiner's attack isn’t going to happen.

So Hitler's famous explosion of rage isn't about Twitter going down or the quality of a new 'Star Trek' film.

It comes with his final realisation that the war is effectively over. 

Where does the ‘meme clip’ come in the film?

It’s the first act turning-point. Which explains its narrative energy.

The clip has a miniature dramatic structure - a beginning, a middle and an end:

1.  A short first mini-act with an overarching question - will Steiner’s attack be successful? - quickly generates a answer: it has already failed. 

Which brings a new question: how will Hitler react? 

This pushes us into:

2.  The longer second mini-act, and Hitler’s rant. Here, he diverts all blame for the defeat onto the generals and the army, threatens them with retribution, and presents himself as blameless.

But what will he do now?

3.  The brief third act: Hitler says he will stay in Berlin, explicitly raising the possibility of suicide.

The break into Act Two of the larger film comes when Hitler says he would “rather blow his brains out” than leave Berlin

It arrives relatively late at 41 minutes (but Downfall is a two and a half hour film).

Hitler’s reaction to Steiner’s failure locks himself and everyone else in the Bunker into the “suicidal descent” which will occupy the rest of the story.

The clip contains its own hook, escalation and payoff, sketching the change of emphasis as the larger film moves from its First Act and into its Second Act.
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So whoever edited it from the original made a pretty inspired choice.

The lessons for writers

You may not want to write a 'memeable' sequence into your feature, but the Downfall parodies show how a well-constructed mini-narrative can take on a life of its own. 

1. Structural economy. Even a brief scene can live independently if it contains a clear causal turn (a question, a pivot and a payoff).

2. Constrained design. Highly readable acting, a contained setting, a distinct visual frame and a single active voice gives legibility and makes a clip reinterpretable.

3. New technology. The Downfall parodies came when tech opened up tools for editing and reworking clips, and to upload the results to a global platform.

There are other crucial reasons why the meme was so successful. But I didn't want to make this blog too long.

​Come to the workshop to find out the rest - and to enjoy, analyse and learn from a host of inspiring micro-films, and leave with a portfolio of new ideas.

For more details and to book, click here.


If you can think of more reasons why the clip went viral, or have any other thoughts, please add a comment below.