The Lives of Others

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Movie
Original title The Lives of Others
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2006
length 137 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
script Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
production Max Wiedemann ,
Quirin Berg
(co-producers:
Dirk Hamm ,
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
music Gabriel Yared ,
Stéphane Moucha
camera Hagen Bogdanski
cut Patricia Rommel
occupation

The Lives of Others is a German feature film from 2006 . With his feature film debut, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck , who also wrote the screenplay, was a worldwide hit. The drama focuses on the state security apparatus and the cultural scene in East Berlin and also deals seriously and critically with the history of the GDR . It takes up the topic that true art can bring out what is good in people and shows the possibility of a reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. Ulrich Mühe , Sebastian Koch , Martina Gedeck and Ulrich Tukur can be seen in the most important roles . The production was made with a relatively low budget and unusually low actor fees.

The criticism gave the acting performances with the greatest praise. Many reviewers expressed satisfaction that after a series of comedies about the GDR, a feature film finally dealt with the subject in a serious style. However, there was a split in the assessment of whether the film adequately reproduced the historical aspects. The film was showered with awards, including the 2006 German Film Prize (seven prizes out of eleven nominations), the Bavarian Film Prize (in four categories) and the European Film Prize (in three categories) as well as the Oscar for the best foreign language film . In the accompanying film book and in the DVD audio commentary, there were statements by Mühe and Donnersmarck that referred to alleged Stasi activities by Jenny Gröllmann and Gregor Gysi . There were legal disputes over this; as a result, the original media could no longer be distributed with these statements.

action

Odor preserves from Stasi stocks

In East Berlin of 1984 is Stasi - Captain Gerd Wiesler (HGW abbreviation XX / 7) tasked in an " Operational process to collect" incriminating evidence against the playwright Georg Dreyman. He considers the playwright, celebrated as a “state writer”, to be worth watching himself, but has no idea what motive, Minister of Culture Bruno Hempf, supports this project. Hempf wants to turn Dreyman off in order to win his apolitical partner, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland, for herself. Wiesler "bugged" the apartment in which Dreyman and Sieland live with a group of the Stasi and set up a listening station in the attic of the house. He observed a meeting between Sieland and Hempf. His superior Grubitz instructs him not to gather any information about the minister and offers him a career boost if the observation is successful. Wiesler is disappointed that the operational process is not directed against "enemies of socialism", but serves purely private goals.

When Hempf drives Sieland to her apartment late at night, Wiesler lures her partner to the front door to inform him about the affair. As a result of the spying, Wiesler, single and without any noteworthy private life, gained insight into the world of art and the open mind as well as into interpersonal relationships that he himself does not maintain. Dreyman's attempt to put in a good word with Minister Hempf for his friend Albert Jerska, a director who had been banned from his profession for seven years, was unsuccessful. After Jerska's suicide , the writer sits down at the piano and plays the “Sonata of the Good Man”, a piano étude that Jerska gave him as a birthday present. Wiesler is very touched by the music. Soon he stole a Brecht volume from Dreyman's apartment , which he reads in his free time. The motivation he has learned to spy on his neighbors is increasingly being questioned by ethical standards. As a result of this change of heart, in his reports he suppresses the unfolding oppositional activities of Dreyman, whose attitude towards governance has changed, and instead writes irrelevant things that he freely invents. Sieland got involved with the minister under the pressure, suffers from regular meetings with him and is dependent on tablets. In a pub, Wiesler tries to talk to her by posing as an unknown admirer and encourages her to be honest. Then she returns to Dreyman instead of spending the night with Minister Hempf.

An editor of the German magazine Der Spiegel smuggles a typewriter with a red ribbon into the country (a local hummingbird , probably referring to the Neckermann export model "Brillant Junior") and leaves it to Dreyman. Motivated by the suicide of his friend Jerska, the playwright writes a report on the exceptionally high suicide rate in the GDR, which the authorities have not published since 1977 . The mirror prints the text anonymously. The western publication angered the Stasi leadership. Hempf, injured by Sieland's rejection, orders her arrest and interrogation by the Stasi. When she was questioned by Grubitz, she could not withstand the pressure , was advertised as an " IM " and reveals Dreyman as the author of the Spiegel article. During the subsequent search of the apartment, however, the Stasi officers did not find the typewriter they needed as evidence. Grubitz, who meanwhile has doubts about Wiesler's loyalty, then sets up another interrogation of Sieland, which is carried out by Wiesler and monitored by Grubitz. During this interrogation, the actress reveals the hiding place of the typewriter. Even before the house search carried out this time by Grubitz, Wiesler rushes to Dreyman's apartment and removes the typewriter. Sieland, who cannot know which side Wiesler is on, runs in front of a truck that accidentally passes by in view of the impending discovery of the typewriter and is fatally injured. Grubitz, who could not find the typewriter, apologizes to Dreyman for the measure. Although he cannot prove anything to Wiesler, as a punishment he transfers him to a monotonous post in monitoring letters .

The former remand prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen

After the reunification , the same play by Dreyman as at the beginning of the film is performed with a different dramaturgy . The author meets Hempf in the foyer. Dreyman asks the ex-minister why he was never monitored, to which Hempf responds condescendingly that he should look behind his light switch. The discovery of the surveillance technology in his apartment prompts Dreyman to inspect his Stasi files at the BStU , from which he concludes that he was covered by Stasi employee "HGW XX / 7" and that he also removed the typewriter at the last moment . He identifies him as Wiesler and locates him. Wiesler now earns his living by delivering mail. Dreyman does not contact him.

Two years later Dreyman published the novel The Sonata of the Good Man . Wiesler, who became aware of this through a shop window display, reads “Dedicated to HGW XX / 7, in gratitude” and buys the book. When the seller asked about gift packaging, he replied ambiguously: “No. It is for me."

Emergence

Material development and pre-production

From 1997 Donnersmarck studied feature film directing at the Munich Film School , where the first idea for The Lives of Others arose. Unlike many graduates, he did not spend any years of practice watching television and immediately considered a movie. In 2001 he began research that lasted almost four years. He held talks with victims and perpetrators of the Stasi and visited the historical places. To write the first version, he said he moved into a cell in the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz in the Vienna Woods for one month , the abbot of which was his uncle Gregor . Finally he moved from Munich to Berlin to finish the book there. Manfred Wilke , head of the SED State Research Association , was at his side as a scientific advisor .

The young producers Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg had already produced a short film Donnersmarcks at the film school. Co-producer was Dirk Hamm from Creado Film. Donnersmarck was able to win Buena Vista International for the rental , among the television stations Bayerischer Rundfunk and arte . The project received additional funding from the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern , the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Filmförderungsanstalt . The budget for the film was around 1.8 million euros. With this budget, the film could only be made because the actors and staff worked for a fraction of their regular salaries. Actor Sebastian Koch said that everyone works “for less than half the usual fee, out of the conviction that they are making an important film”. Ulrich Mühe had already received a large number of scripts on the subject of the GDR, but had found no interest in them because they were “always too short, always too short” . Donnersmarck's book surprised him with its coherence and empathy with time. For the film music, Donnersmarck wanted the Lebanese composer Gabriel Yared , whose earlier work impressed the director and who usually works for much higher budget productions. So that Yared could get an idea of ​​the film, Donnersmarck translated the entire script into French. Yared let himself be won over to participate. He was supported by Stéphane Moucha , who orchestrated his compositions and occasionally worked as a co-composer.

Filming and post-production

Only 37 days of shooting were available for the recordings between October 26th and December 17th, 2004. The limited time did not allow improvisation. The director led the team politely but stubbornly demanding, with long working days and short breaks. The creators emphasized the great effort they put into ensuring the historical authenticity of the furnishings: The wiretapping technology shown is an original Stasi recording device, with a lot of real suffering. For the sound recording, Donnersmarck insisted on an old analog Nagra ; the sound engineer copied it every evening into a digital format. The film was shot on 35 mm film material in order to achieve a “ cinematic aesthetic” ; cheaper digital technology was out of the question for the makers. The director then spent seven months editing , which he and the film editor Patricia Rommel made on an Avid editing system in his Berlin office .

Locations

House 1 of the Ministry for State Security , today the Normannenstrasse Memorial

The shooting took place almost exclusively in Berlin. The BStU willingly granted filming permits for the former headquarters of the Ministry for State Security on Normannenstrasse in Berlin-Lichtenberg . There was a room next to Erich Mielke's former study in Grubitz's office. The exterior shots in front of Dreyman's apartment took place in Wedekindstrasse in Berlin-Friedrichshain , the interior shots of the apartment and the attic took place at Hufelandstrasse 22 in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg . Other scenes were at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxembourg-Platz in the Green Salon (dance scene), the Hebbel Theater (in the former West Berlin), the Frankfurter Tor and in the Karl-Marx-bookstore at the Karl-Marx-Allee filmed . The director Hubertus Knabe refused a filming permit for the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen memorial , where the central remand prison was located in GDR times . According to Donnersmarck, Knabe did not approve the project because he thought the script glorified the Stasi. The memorial's regulations provide for filming permits only for documentaries, but not for fictitious representations.

Shape and style

The Lives of Others was the most diverse genres associated, in particular the drama , the thriller , the love story and the melodrama . The work was also referred to as a political espionage film, a psychological study, conscience drama and social portrait, as a "historical social drama which is expanded in terms of content and dramaturgically with set pieces from political drama and love story" , and as a " post-modern genre mixture of political thriller and love melodrama, cleverly differentiated drama of conscience and [...] portrait of society ” . Some recognized a piece of morality.

Michelangelo's Pietà

Donnersmarck narrates linearly and chronologically and adheres to a conventional threefold dramaturgical division into exposition, confrontation and conflict resolution. Wehdeking (2007) stated that the book had the “quality of a tectonically built drama” , with readable Aristotelian units of plot, time and place. According to Falck (2006), the film is “characterized by a captivatingly calm, clear imagery that contrasts with the inner drama, the pathos and the great feeling of the story”. Among the stylistic means, the tension-increasing parallel montages between Wiesler in the attic and what is happening in Dreyman's apartment stand out. The filmmaker uses symbols such as the red color of the typewriter, on which Dreyman writes with passion. In the dying scene, the writer hugs his beloved in a way that imitates the Pietà .

Donnersmarck said that his composer Yared had convinced him with regard to music, "to be more of a European filmmaker than an American composer" . Wehdeking (2007) saw the sonata “ingeniously designed in worn triplets with a melancholy descending motif” . She acoustically anticipates that Dreyman will adopt a dissident attitude. Cinematographer Hagen Bogdanski has "withdrawn" according to his own assessment and "tried to do it without any camera tricks". Not least because of the meager budget, he did not use any cranes or tripods, only a few content-based tracking shots. The predominant setting size is close focus. Long shots were almost completely dispensed with, on the one hand so that no historically incorrect elements get into the picture, on the other hand, in order to concentrate the narrative on the characters. The props are short and most of the rooms are pretty empty. While there are no books in Wiesler's functional apartment, Dreyman's old apartment is filled with books. There is cold light in the attic and warm in the apartment below. The director came up with the color palette while leafing through GDR photo books, where intense red and blue were rarely found. In his strict color concept, he replaced red with orange and blue with green. The pictures are either in brown, beige and orange or in green with gray. The color coordination was only possible through the set design and costumes, Bogdanski did not use any filters.

Acceptance by criticism and the public

Premieres

The producers submitted The Lives of Others as a competition entry for the Berlinale 2006 , but the festival management declined the work's participation. In the opinion of Welt am Sonntag , she presented herself with a “cinematic indictment” . The film would have upgraded the Berlinale and Good Bye, Lenin! historically supplemented, which began its global triumphal procession from Berlin in 2003. The international press later expressed a lack of understanding about the exclusion. In January 2006, the critics were allowed to see the film in Berlin for the first time. In mid-March, more than a week before the regular cinema release, Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann invited the members of the Bundestag to a special screening. The film was shown in German cinemas on March 23, 2006. The film was first shown on German free TV on September 29, 2008 at 9 p.m. on Arte .

German criticism of the cinematic implementation

For "tight, thrilling and a great sense of tension drama tells" was Alexandra wax from Filmdienst the work, for accurate representation of the environment. The GDR appears frighteningly authentic and has a coherent look that makes the repression physically noticeable. In the elaborate character study, Ulrich Mühe played "grandiose inconspicuous" . The work is a great asset for young German cinema. In the Welt am Sonntag Matthias Ehlert praised the script for its astonishing perfection. Donnersmarck hit the tone of GDR life, as if he had witnessed it, and did not want to impress the audience, but had the courage to move it. “The life of others is great cinema that is rarely achieved in this country. The more than two hours are of breathless density, the dialogues polished, the details surprising, the atmosphere harmonious. The complexity of the entanglements is masterfully penetrated, and you wait in vain for the usual clichés. ” It “ sticks out ” beyond the very good level of young German filmmakers . Rainer Gansera said in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the ensemble played intensely, right down to the supporting roles, and that the effort gave Wiesler's transformation a contour in an admirable way. Donnersmarck built succinct scenes, told stories "with wit and electrifying tension, attentive to every nuance of words and gestures" and made the atmosphere of intimidation palpable. The beauty of the pictures always serves to establish the truth.

There were also mixed assessments of artistic performance. In contemporary German cinema, Daniel Kothenschulte from the Frankfurter Rundschau noted, a political film in the guise of an exciting genre thriller is an event. The lives of others have the show values ​​of American or French thrillers, and cameraman Hagen Bogdanski has given "even intimate interior shots a special generosity" . The excellent actors carried their well-invented characters through the first three quarters of the film, during which the script skilfully portrayed their conflicts between conviction and opportunism . With regard to the character Sieland, Donnersmarck had reached a dramaturgical dead end and sacrificed it in a melodramatic way. epd film reviewer Martina Knoben praised the tension, the impressive actors and the credible representation of the surveillance and threatening apparatus. But with its different gray the work is visually "not very imaginative" and the characters are not designed without clichés. The director skilfully plays with melodramatic and horror film elements, but thereby undermining the political dimension, because Sieland in particular appears to be guided by fate and not as a free actor. Wiesler's change of character works like a miracle and is hardly understandable. Similarly, Reinhard Mohr from Spiegel Online also considered the development of Wiesler's character and political attitude to be “not always credible and stringent” . But Mühe played so grandiose that the other stars faded a bit, despite their “brilliant performances” . Donnersmarck tells the story “very close and impressive” , but in places too slowly, and towards the end he affords lengths.

German criticism of the representation of GDR and Stasi

Numerous critics emphasized that with The Lives of Others a feature film is now coming out that deals with the GDR in a serious way. They praised the choice of the dramatic form instead of comedy and slapstick, that he “does not make the injustice state of the GDR ridiculous using the grotesque means ” and does not allow liberating laughter. He renounced Ostalgie and GDR folklore, Trabis and Spreewald gherkins and got by without the “simple-minded police officers, stupid party bosses and devious subjects” of previous films. These negations were mostly due to Good Bye Lenin! (2003) and Sonnenallee (1999), which these critics most frequently used for comparison. IM appeared in both of them "without affecting the happiness of the films". In the newspaper Die Welt , Mariam Lau linked these earlier productions with the GDR show and similar television programs. These films would have satisfied the need of former system-conform GDR citizens for shame defense, for repressing their complicity. Some West Germans, on the other hand, would not have appreciated that with the GDR an alternative to the form of society in the Federal Republic had disappeared. “The West was in 'Good Bye, Lenin!' the realm of mindless commerce, destroyer of family and solidarity. " In view of the comparisons, Donnersmarck emphasized that he was not angry about these " sunlit comedies " : " It was actually beneficial to laugh about this delicate topic of the GDR for fifteen years. "

Andreas Kilb stated in his FAZ review that The Lives of Others was the first feature film to focus on the Stasi. With a sure taste of the first film, Donnersmarck described the GDR “as a country where hearing and seeing pass. Where every word is listened to, every step is monitored, there is no longer any reality in the end, only matrices and protocols. ”The West German approached the subject with patience, serenity and curiosity, which would probably have been less possible for an East director. Any future film about the Stasi will seem like a straggler. Evelyn Finger von der Zeit spoke about the best film so far since 1989 about the GDR . The charm of the script lies in its seriousness; it is thoroughly researched, rich in punch lines and has an inexorable analytical sobriety. Instead of a realistic portrayal, the director strives for a “metaphorical hyperrealism”, a “parable about the impossibility of hiding in a niche of decency from the political situation”.

As much as it would be desirable for the Stasi to work through the films on a permanent basis, said the aforementioned Daniel Kothenschulte, Donnersmarck's film was not about this much-desired work. Because The Lives of Others are reminiscent of post-war films like The Murderers Are Among Us , who wanted to come to terms with the National Socialist past by confronting a few, highly positioned villains with the simple, all the more kind-hearted people. It does not deal with the collective involvement of the Stasi and is hastily conciliatory in this regard. Wiesler will be acquitted of all previous crimes.

Claus Löser judged in the taz that with its differentiated perspective the film could have contributed to the analysis of the GDR dictatorship. In some places it makes the perfidy of the system recognizable, but ultimately it fails because of the cheapest clichés. The fictionalization is not the problem. But the film claims historical truthfulness and affords inaccuracies. The shown high Stalinism meet for the GDR in 1985 not to, Western publications have not compromised then an author, but protected. It is absurd and impractical for an informant to eavesdrop on conversations and type them in at the same time, and shift changes and typewriter noise would not have gone unnoticed by the neighbors. The GDR cadres were not as hedonistic as the minister, so the subject falls “on the level of a sleazy backstairs intrigue” , and with the “national whore […] the whole thing finally degenerates into a politically disguised man's joke”.

Other statements in Germany

Marianne Birthler on November 4, 1989 at the demonstration on Alexanderplatz

Joachim Gauck , from 1990 to 2000 head of the Stasi records authority BStU , which is often named after him , said: "There are a few inaccuracies in it, but a lot is very well done." He particularly appreciates that there is no nostalgia because it is remembering without pain. He suspected that those critics who accuse the film of historical errors saw the film as anti-communist agitation, but did not dare to say so outright. His successor, Marianne Birthler , watched the film with friends, former GDR opposition members: “We all thought the film was well done and effective and we all agreed that a story like the one told never happened. And never could have happened. While some said that one shouldn't give the impression that something like this had happened, others said that it was okay anyway. I belonged to the latter. It's not a documentary. ”The songwriter Wolf Biermann , who had expatriated from the GDR in 1976 , was also present . He made fun of "people from the West" who stay out of debates about the GDR past on the pretext of not wanting to judge the East Germans in a morally arrogant manner and thus flee cowardly into immaturity. He was extremely astonished that a young West German created “such a realistic moral image of the GDR with a probably fictitious story”, who is nevertheless able to have a say and to judge without painful GDR socialization. The coming to terms with the GDR should perhaps be left to those who have not experienced the misery themselves, because "we all know in the darkest depths of our hearts what treason and cowardice mean, what honesty and bravery mean".

In an interview in April 2019, Christoph Hein still expressed negative comments about the film 13 years later: “Donnersmarck invented a GDR dramaturge for his film and with him he can do whatever he wants [...] that is his artistic one Freedom. What I cannot accept is the [ sic !] Mixture of melodrama and historical facts. The individual parts may be right, at different times, but he mixes them together into an effective pulp. For example, he completely ignores the exciting development in the GDR from the 1950s to the 1980s, when the system had long since eroded. He denies the dictatorship the story so that it fits better. ”On the question of why the criticism comes after such a long time:“ I was also upset at the time, but nobody wanted to hear that. Not now either. 'The life of others' is now school material, and that is fatal: Because today's schoolchildren are presented with this distorted picture and believe: That is exactly how the GDR was.

Hein had previously reported that Donnersmarck asked him in 2002 to “describe the typical life of a typical GDR playwright”; he, Hein, had followed suit. In the premiere his name was mentioned in the opening credits; However, he did not find himself in the story told and asked Donnersmarck to delete his name from the opening credits. The film “does not describe the 1980s in the GDR”, but is a “horror tale set in a fabulous country, similar to Tolkien's Middle-earth ”. His life was "completely different". On the other hand, the film critic Andreas Platthaus pointed out in the FAZ that Hein could by no means have been the model for the protagonist: the screenplay had long been completed when Donnersmarck and Hein met. Incidentally, the director never said that Hein's life in the GDR had inspired him to make the film, rather that it was more the experiences of Wolf Biermann . This assertion by Donnersmarck was already proven to be misleading in Hein's previously published SZ article, because Biermann had lived in the FRG since 1977 and could therefore not “in the decisive years of the collapse of the state and in the period in which the film was set Be country. ”Hein also reported that a few years ago a German studies professor dealt with Hein's anti-censorship speech from 1987, to which the film alludes in a scene. The students asked, “How many years in prison did the author of this text get? The professor replied that the author did not go to prison. "The students did not want to believe that, they knew better," because they had seen the film 'The Lives of Others'. "

Criticism abroad

Wprost regretted that the Polish filmmakers had shown little desire to settle honestly with the People's Republic since the fall of the Wall . Why this European hit movie was made in Germany and not in Poland is shown by the scene in which Dreyman can easily and unbureaucratically gain insight into his Stasi files and the real names of his supervisor. Meanwhile in Poland so-called “moral authorities” extolled the “politics of the thick line” . The work, which is precise in German, is the first successful vivisection of a communist totalitarian state in the cinema . The film does not delve into the question of Wiesler's responsibility for his previous actions and forgives quickly, stated the Gazeta Wyborcza . It affects the Polish debate on lustration , the review of office candidates for cooperation with the communist secret police . However, the Germans have largely behind them lustration, punishment and atonement. Donnersmarck courageously answers the question that cannot be dealt with in Poland: What do you want more - truth or reconciliation? With good bye, Lenin! and The Lives of Others , the Germans built on the legends of the past, which went into the common memory of the democratic state, taking into account the positions of opposition members at the time and those who were loyal to the system. While Poland is stuck in a belated lustration looking for culprits, the Germans are to be envied for their unifying cinematic myths.

The film opened in France at the end of January 2007. According to Le Monde , the film is exciting, entertaining and solidly staged, encounters the past without taboos and testifies to the mature state of German society. Le Figaro linked the plot to the Gröllmann case. The story is certainly lacking in probability, but the film faithfully reflects East German reality and is beneficial against Ostalgia. The Liberation felt that the debut film was the work of a fully developed director. The former organ of the French Communist Party, L'Humanité , described the work as a counterpart to the Ostalgie genre. On the face of it, the plot seems to open the door to primeval anti-communism, but the in-depth psychological study adds complexity to the film. The film, whose director has to be remembered, is played in an exemplary manner and staged with admirable precision.

A little later, The Lives of Others started in the United States and received almost without exception positive, often very good reviews. The New York Times only found praise for the "highly intelligent, completely honest" film. She appreciated Donnersmarck's old-fashioned approach of offering good guys and bad guys, his clear point of view, the craftsmanship qualities and the performers. At the beginning of the film, she characterized Wiesler as a Stalinist bureaucrat from a picture book with a shot of Gestapo . The US trade journal Variety said that despite the lack of a marketable Hitler hook, as in Der Untergang, the production was benefiting from the increasing interest overseas in dramas on German history. Although the production is intensive in dialogue, low in action and inexpensive, it captivates from the start thanks to the lack of stereotypes of the political thriller and the powerful game. Hempf actor Thomas Thieme reminds of Gert Fröbe .

The critic Tim Evans also sees this “terrifying” film, which is permeated with black humor, as a counterpart to Wolfgang Becker's Good Bye, Lenin! . He concludes his criticism with the conclusion: "The callousness of the GDR during the Cold War is shown in an oppressive way, but the director retains a pinch of black humor."

Gross profit

source rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
Metacritic
critic
audience
IMDb

The lives of others are also considered a success from a commercial point of view. Wehdeking (2007) suspected that the target groups addressed included "the 'middle class', the 'conservatives', the 'established', the 'experimental' and 'post-material', through the film medium of course also the hedonists of plural discourses". In Germany, The Lives of Others started with 159 copies, the number was later increased to 201. Ultimately, the film received more than 2.3 million visitors. In comparison, Sonnenallee (1999) scored more than 2.6 million and Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) over 6.5 million admissions. Germany accounted for 19.1 of the 77.4 million US dollars earned in cinemas worldwide.

country Population
in millions		 Box office income
in USD million 		Entrances
in millions		 Max.
Number of copies
Germany 82 19.1 2.37 201
Austria 8th 0.4 0.05
Switzerland 7th 1.3 0.12
France 65 10.8 1.52 131
Spain 45 6.8 0.86
United Kingdom 61 5.5 0.53 099
Italy 60 5.2 0.76 112
Rest of Europe 9.6
European Union as a whole 7.21
United States 300 11.3 1.64 259
rest of the world 7.3

Legal dispute over film book and DVD

A number of supplementary media were published to accompany the film premiere. The film music CD includes nine orchestral pieces by Yared and eight pop / rock tracks from the GDR record label Amiga , three of which are not used in the film. The book on the film was published by Suhrkamp Verlag . It contains the original script from the stand before the shooting and editing, background information from the director and Manfred Wilke as well as descriptions of the two actors Koch and Mühe.

In it, Mühe stated that the East German actress Jenny Gröllmann , his wife from 1984 to 1990, spied on her theater colleagues for the Stasi during the dictatorship. Gröllmann, represented by the lawyer Hardy Langer , a colleague of the Die-Linke politician Gregor Gysi , took legal action against the statements. The Berlin Regional Court issued an injunction against the sale of the book in April 2006 , as Gröllmann had taken an oath in lieu of an affirmation that she had never knowingly collaborated with the MfS . After a few copies had previously gone on sale , the publisher was only able to sell the book in blackened form . In later editions, the contentious passages about IM activities were removed. Mühe emphasized that he had seen files at the BStU from which what he had said emerged. The past should not be denied and he does not want to sign the cease and desist statement . On July 4, 2006, he was unsuccessful with his complaint before the Berlin Regional Court. This decided that it was inadmissible to present the suspicions against Gröllmann as facts. She passed away in August 2006, and in January 2007, Mühe signed the cease and desist letter.

In November 2006, the DVD was released along with the main film with an audio version for the visually impaired, audio commentary by Donnersmarck and Mühe, additional scenes and a making-of . In his audio commentary, the director mentioned that although the Birthler authority confirmed Gysi's activity as an “IM” upon request, it was legally forbidden to call him “IM Notary”. After Gysi's request for an injunction, Buena Vista announced in January 2007 that it had stopped shipping this DVD version. Immediately after the withdrawal, the original DVD version achieved bids on Internet exchanges well above the new price of 18 euros. The new version has been available since February 2007 and only differs in the adapted audio commentary. In it, Donnersmarck no longer mentions any names and says that the release of the Stasi files after the fall of the Wall was the most un-German decision since 1945 and was "great" because it put this power in the hands of the citizens. Unfortunately you can only read, but not talk about it yet. That is not yet real freedom of speech, but it will still come. The new and old editions can be differentiated by the product number (old sales / rental DVD: Z4 / Z4R, new sales / rental DVD: Z4A / Z4S).

Historical factual fidelity

The question of historical authenticity arose in the case of The Lives of Others , because the film was marketed with this argument and the public relations work aimed to present it as part of the German Stasi debate.

Structure and procedure of the Stasi

The Ministry for State Security , also MfS or Stasi, was the domestic and foreign secret service of the GDR and at the same time the investigative authority for “political crimes” and thus also responsible for monitoring and exposing opposition members and potential dissidents . The " operational procedure " (OV) was the highest level for covert surveillance of a person and was primarily of a preventive nature. Measures for so-called " decomposition " were aimed at shaking opponents in their convictions or at sowing mutual distrust among them. Donnersmarck did not want any parallels to emerge between the Stasi and the Gestapo , because the latter consisted of "bone breakers" , but the Stasi of "soul breakers" . The GDR government expected artists to support the official cultural policy line . The state determined which fonts were printed and could impose professional bans on opposing artists . Department XX / 7 was responsible for overseeing literary and cultural life and lastly comprised 40 full-time employees and around 350 to 400 IM.

One complaint about the film is that, because of the minister's bullying motives, the political objectives of the Stasi activities are underestimated and the regime's ideological rigor and paranoia are ignored. In addition, the GDR shown consists almost entirely of Stasi perpetrators and victims, but hardly any average citizens, although only a few percent of the population belonged to these groups. Long-term interrogations, as shown at the beginning of the film, were common until the 1960s , according to Gieseke (2008), but in the 1980s the Stasi turned to psychological means such as solitary confinement. He also considers the in-house prostitutes to be an invention, which the "boys from the MfS" were supposedly able to order. The Stasi, which was shaped by petty-bourgeois morals, only used prostitutes to make Western targets vulnerable to blackmail. The “company” also shared more of the labor than Wiesler's activities as a trainer, interrogator, eavesdropper, and others would suggest. Unlike the film character Wiesler, who signs his reports as HGW XX / 7, only "unofficial employees" had aliases, while Stasi officers signed with their real names.

Change of heart among MfS employees

Wilhelm Zaisser on June 26, 1953 next to Walter Ulbricht and Otto Grotewohl (from left to right)

One of the much discussed questions in the context of the film was whether it was a realistic idea that an employee of the Stasi would refuse to work out of moral indignation at the actions of his superiors. The historical advisor of the film project, Manfred Wilke , asserted some role models. The two first MfS chiefs Wilhelm Zaisser (1950–1953) and Ernst Wollweber (1953–1957), two old communist revolutionaries, opposed party secretary Walter Ulbricht . In 1979 Gert Trebeljahr and in 1981 Werner Teske were sentenced to death as a MfS dropout and executed. Another example of an MfS employee who opposed the line of the SED was the double agent Werner Stiller , who in 1979 managed to escape arrest by fleeing across the border to West Berlin.

In the opinion of historians, however, there is no documented case of a full-time Stasi officer who underwent a change as described for the film character Wiesler. Only among the "unofficial employees" were there cases in which employees changed sides for reasons of conscience. Zaisser and Wollweber resigned from their post not because of a moral or ideological change, but after lost power struggles within the party. According to the Giesekes judgment (2008), Teske, who was arrested for attempting to flee, is not an example of a story about such a change.

The implementation of the operational process described by Donnersmarck, which would not have been possible in the Stasi hierarchy with its internal control mechanisms and very bureaucratic records, is not historically accurate. According to Gieseke (2008), a thoughtful, idealistic brooder like Wiesler would have been a foreign body in the Stasi apparatus. Even his well-groomed Standard German does not fit in an environment in which almost all men speak Saxon or Berlin. In keeping with the German police tradition, they were authoritarian, authoritarian and anti-intellectual personalities who could only perceive the art scene as a threat to their orderly world. The fact that one of them admires the artists is an illusion from Donnersmarck, who “basically has no idea” of the life of the MfS employees. Werner Schulz , a former GDR civil rights activist and former member of the Bundestag, similarly lamented the film's detachment from historical truthfulness. There could never have been a Stasi officer who turned from a tough interrogator into a courageous protector of dissidents, because the Stasi apparatus was based on complete devotion and reliability and only allowed unscrupulous employees. This is implicitly a “creative trivialization” of the system by the film. Stauffenberg and Sophie Scholl were not inventions. " Steven Spielberg would have been torn apart around the world if he had come up with Oskar Schindler and his list ."

Western publications by GDR citizens, suicide problem

The GDR severely punished critical publications in foreign media. Section 220 (1) of the GDR Criminal Code said: Anyone who publicly [...] despises or defames the state order or state organs, institutions or social organizations or their activities or measures [...] will face imprisonment for up to two years or with Sentenced to probation, fines or public reprimand. A western publication also affected the paragraphs § 97 ( espionage ), § 99 ( treasonous communications) and § 219 (illegal contact).

The film mentions that the GDR had the second highest suicide rate in Europe and stopped publishing the statistics in 1977. In fact, the GDR had kept the suicide statistics secret since 1963, and in 1977 the secrecy was tightened. Experts and politicians in the state were aware that an above-average number of people in the GDR committed suicide. Contrary to what the film suggests, a direct causal correlation between dictatorship and suicide rate cannot be proven. Cases are known in which the activities of the Stasi created conditions that allegedly induced people to commit suicide. The film is realistic in that it reproduces the patterns of perception and communication strategies of the Cold War at the time.

Der Spiegel , in which Dreyman published his article about the high suicide rate in the GDR, according to the film store, actually printed various articles by GDR citizens who critically dealt with the GDR. These included the “memory protocols” by the writer Jürgen Fuchs and contributions by Robert Havemann . Donnersmarck was also inspired by the “ Spiegel Manifesto ”, which appeared in the news magazine in January 1978. A “League of Democratic Communists in Germany” was named as the originator, behind which anonymous middle and higher SED cadres stood. This writing deplored the great power behavior of the Soviet Union and the parasitic GDR government acting against the people. The Stasi then interrogated the main author Hermann von Berg .

Topics

State surveillance

Mikhail Gorbachev 1985

Lindenberger (2008) explained its international success with the fact that people around the world either deal with the dictatorial past of their own country or fear the growth of overpowering, uncontrolled state power in democracies . Also Horn (2008) suggested an archetypal public interest in the fascination for secret surveillance and the dark, medial side of power. The GDR and its state security is a case of state paranoia, a fundamental mistrust of everything and everyone. It is a paranoia of the rulers who suspect the citizens of subversive behavior, even in everyday trivialities. The state is less concerned with observing without being observed than with making citizens aware that their behavior is subject to constant observation and scrutiny in order to discipline them. It is no coincidence that the plot begins in 1984 , the year of Orwell, and the first part of the film ends on March 11, 1985, when it becomes known that Mikhail Gorbachev took office, which heralded the era of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union .

Turning point, reconciliation and remembrance

Ulrich Mühe and Johanna Schall at the demonstration on November 4, 1989 on Alexanderplatz

According to Wilke, the figure Wiesler is supposed to represent the religious crisis of a communist in the late GDR. Because even among the GDR leadership elite, doubts about the state of the country increased. Some inwardly resigned from the official line and, when the fall of 1989 came, let things take their course. This development affects both characters, Wiesler and Dreyman, who initially take the proclaimed ideals of the republic at face value. Reinhard Mohr pointed out in Spiegel Online : “It is an underground irony of history that sets in motion a comprehensible historical dialectic in the course of the film that both opponents are absolutely convinced GDR citizens and devout communists. The fact that both eventually fall away from the faith is precisely the fruit of their mutual confrontation. [...] If you like, you can see it as a distant variation of Hegel's master-servant dialectic [...] "

Wiesler discovers the novel dedicated to him in the display of the Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin.

The utopian attraction of film lies in the possibility of political reconciliation and the self-healing power of art, and an important reason for its commercial success, Stein found (2008). Lindenberger (2008) also thinks that the story relies on the longing for reconciliation. Victims and perpetrators find ways to communicate in a human way. She only goes into the crimes of the GDR state insofar as this does not undermine the basic motive of the action, the transformation of a person. When describing totalitarian systems, many viewers assume they were on the right side. In this context, inventing a morally correct ending for a perpetrator figure is more comforting than recognizing that such processes did not occur. The life of the other opens up an opportunity to empathize with GDR history for an audience that would otherwise hardly be able to identify with it - and the film is basically, if not exclusively, a West German projection onto the strange "other". The film has as much to do with the GDR as Hollywood has with Hoyerswerda , said the filmmaker Andreas Dresen , who comes from the East . The fairy tale of the good person is well received, but does not serve to establish the truth. He would have been more interested in a Stasi officer with a wife and children and normal working hours, because his everyday life would be a “painful self-exploration. For East as well as West. ” But the East Germans prefer to remember the friendly side of the GDR, while the West Germans see opportunism as something not their own, something belonging to another country.

Wiesler's change of character

The experiences of the Third Reich and the GDR show Donnersmarck that people in Germany are too ready to accept authority. The party and the Stasi acted in accordance with their Marxist-Leninist , dichotomous worldview, which was strengthened by the division into two German states . For their struggle, the Stasi men needed a belief in socialism and a hatred of the “ hostile-negative elements ”. Initially, Wiesler has both, meanwhile Grubitz's faith has turned into cynicism . At this time he was meticulous and obedient to the authorities, a Prussian chekist , a “narrow-minded, ascetic monk of the GDR state religion” and the “most vicious of all Stasi watchdogs”. It is a medium of surveillance, functions as a listening device, as a transmitter and, when interrogated, as a lie detector. As a medium, he therefore has no life of his own. With no relatives or friends, he lives in a sparsely furnished prefab apartment and leads a joyless life. "Ancient moral philosophy saw a lack of being in evil - Wiesler's wickedness was not bad will either, but a lack of being alive."

Installed in the attic, Wiesler looks “like a little Stasi cosmonaut in the orbit of a Soyuz capsule”. The easy-going, casual, free-thinking theater bohemian is initially hated by him, but he is increasingly fascinated by his world. The action directed against Dreyman leads the Communist Wiesler to subject his own faith to a test; Given the private cause of the operational process, hatred does not provide any answers. It remains unclear whether it is his newfound appreciation for art that makes him apostate or a disgust for the unnecessary operational process. His actions remain ambiguous for the time being; , for example, ringing the bell could be a decomposition action be apart to accommodate the pair Dreyman and Sieland.

There are different interpretations as to whether Wiesler “infected” himself through contact with a new world of thinking and feeling and transforms himself into someone new, or whether the encounter exposes the buried good core in him. Speculations that the observer had fallen in love with the actress, Donnersmarck rejected: The man was only fascinated by Sieland, because you have to be emotionally very open to fall in love, and that is not at the beginning. A decomposer is decomposed and no longer sees Dreyman as an “enemy object”. Now he covers its transformation into that "dangerous" element that Dreyman was not and that Hempf hoped to stamp the writer on. The medium HGW XX / 7 proves to be unreliable and distorts the message to be conveyed. By freely inventing reports, Wiesler in turn becomes an author of fiction.

Humanistic understanding of art

In the film book, Donnersmarck revealed how he came up with the basic idea for the film. During creativity exercises at the film school in 1997 he felt that what Lenin is supposed to have said about Beethoven's Appassionata was true of Beethoven's moonlight sonata : “Suddenly something occurred to me that I had once read from Gorky, namely that Lenin spoke about the ' Appassionata 'said that he could not hear them often because otherwise he would' say loving stupid things and stroke people's heads', which he had to 'hit, hit relentlessly' in order to bring his revolution to an end. " Some pieces of music simply force humanity and love to take priority over ideology and rigor. Donnersmarck wondered how one could get Lenin to listen to the music, and he thought of the image of a man listening to it through headphones in a desolate room.

Beethoven on a GDR postage stamp from 1970

The director was convinced that art that is honest and not propaganda can change people. “That's why music was so important to me. Because it is the most emotional art form. It contains no evaluation. ” The idea that art can produce better people is deeply rooted in German intellectual history. In his treatise On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), Schiller postulated that the beauty of real art enables man to act morally. Because art gives his soul freedom and creates a balanced relationship between reason and sensuality. As the trigger for Wiesler's awakening, Donnersmarck assigns the "Sonata of the Good Man" a central meaning. Jerska, who would rather " cross over " into the afterlife than live in a system that does not allow him to be a good person, gives Dreyman the grades. According to the instructions in the script, Jerska's apartment has “something of Faust's study” . Wehdeking (2007) found that this was the manifestation of the “educated civic potential of the Enlightenment and the free speech ” , and that art was a counterbalance to oppression. According to Schmidt (2009), the filmmaker positions his work as a rediscovery and confirmation of the old humanistic tradition beyond the vicissitudes of history, in particular the failed 40-year experiment of “real socialism” in the German Democratic Republic. Wiesler's idealism in the service of socialism led him to the Stasi and, after he had recognized the materialism of the GDR, led him to betray this state. With the Wiesler figure, the director alluded to Gorbachev, a "Stalinist who has become the greatest anti-Stalinist" . When he was studying at Oxford , the ex-statesman came to conferences; and because Donnersmarck spoke Russian, he was appointed for a city tour. “But he was only interested in people. It's not important to be the smartest or the most powerful. But to be able to follow his heart and his conscience. "

Friedrich Schiller

In terms of humanistic aesthetics, there is also the dualism between body and mind. The film draws a boundary between the material, political, historical and the aesthetic, intellectual, and timelessly universal. Therefore, according to Schmidt (2009), the narrative hardly needs to bother with historical factual accuracy: “The film asserts the superiority of aesthetics over politics and is only as interested in details of everyday life in the GDR as they are in semiotic reconstruction can contribute to binary opposites. ” The aforementioned opposites are fundamental for the semiotics of film and indispensable supports of the humanistic belief in the good and the true, which is clearly delimited from the political sphere. His slender appearance sets the idealist Wiesler apart from the corpulence of the careerist Grubitz as well as from the buxom prostitute. The odor towels also serve to semiiotically attach physicality to the materialistic GDR state: the possession of the smell of a person by the Stasi shows his physical bondage. The same emphasizes Sieland's addiction to tablets. And in order to be able to pursue her profession, the actress has to cede control of her body to men: to Dreyman, who puts the words in her mouth as an author, and to Hempf, who bans her from performing after having sexually refused to do so. Dreyman recognizes Wiesler's idealistic behavior from the traces of red paint on his files, which inspired him to write his first novel. Choosing a novel rather than a play allows him to bypass the bodies and voices of actors and develop a more direct relationship with the reader. As a consequence, Dreyman refrains from addressing Wiesler face to face and prefers a spiritual bond, expressed in the dedication of the novel. In the script the instruction reads at this point: “But he realizes that he cannot speak to him. The material power gap (and what a role that plays in the new Germany!) Is too great for an encounter that would have to take place on the same human level. "

Weak point woman

In retrospective films about life in the GDR, including Sonnenallee and Good Bye, Lenin! Schmidt (2009) further stated that male development was given an important place alongside weak and sick female figures and against the background of a state coded as female. For Lenssen (2007), The Lives of Others is representative of the dilemma of female characters in these films. “The hopefuls of a socialist image of man have turned into battered allegories of the fine arts, freedom and wild youth.” Often they only stand between male protagonists, perpetrators and victims. With Donnersmarck even this dramaturgical task of the woman is omitted: Wiesler does not allow himself to be converted through feelings for Sieland, but through disembodied art, through poems and sonatas. Finally, he also replaces Sieland as Dreyman's muse. The Sieland sketched in the film is irrational, complex and compliant, weak, seduced and guilty and longs for male recognition. The script assigns her this role, while both men are given the opportunity to mature. Therefore, Lindenberger (2008) considered the film to be misogynistic. Donnersmarck added another Hollywood-compatible one to the countless stories about a woman between two men. He understood her death as the classic letting die of a woman who stands in the way of the union of two men. The redeeming end requires their sacrificial death.

Martina Gedeck (2007)

Even Martina Gedeck appeared angry that the Sieland played by it is sacrificed so that the man is a catharsis experiences. Donnersmarck stubbornly ignored their warnings at the preliminary meetings. She described him as a beginner who should not yet be classified among the great directors. Less than a year later, he did not give up any of his quota of invitations to the Academy Awards .

In the DVD audio commentary, the director speaks of a “love between these two men who never get to know each other. [...] de facto is the love axis between Dreyman and Wiesler ” . When Wiesler holds the novel in his hands, you can feel "that this love is very fresh and strong". Schmidt (2009) analyzed that Donnersmarck constructs binary opposites between men and women, which reinforce a traditional understanding of gender. While women remain tied to physicality, circumstances, corruptibility, impermanence and death, he ascribes properties to men that overcome the material world: spirit and understanding, absolute, universal principles, spirituality and art.

Brecht

In view of the position that the humanistic understanding of culture occupies in The Lives of Others , the numerous references made by the film to the writer Bertolt Brecht may come as a surprise. Because it aims at an inner change of the individual, while Brecht was convinced that a better life can only be realized through the collective change of society. Schmidt (2009) assessed this use of Brecht as a very selective picking of his statements about the relationship between art and social change and also a tendentious appropriation of Brecht as an icon for post-revolutionary art. The writer, part of the German literary canon , is placed in the humanistic tradition and thus saved into the time after the fall of the Wall, just as the state artist Dreyman, who is loyal to the line, turns out to be a timeless author who also played on stages after the reunification. Contrary to Wiesler's furtive reading, Brecht was by no means subversive to read in the GDR; rather, his works were compulsory subjects in school. The poem Memory of Marie A. , of which Wiesler is taken, belongs to the rather apolitical Brechts and points to Wiesler's increasing receptivity to beauty and love beyond ideology. He hears the poem in Dreyman's voice, which indicates the closeness of the two.

The name of the Sonata of the Good Man is similar to that of Brecht's piece The Good Man of Sezuan . In this parable, Brecht conveys that it is impossible to be a good person in a bad world. The piece and the film have in common that Brecht's Shen Te like Dreyman and Wiesler try to defend their integrity against the claims of others and mask their goodness in order to protect themselves. These people are forced into a schizophrenia "in which individuals overcome the tension between themselves and the state by creating a public and a private face". Donnersmarck and Brecht also agree that art can drive political change. But the lessons of their works are mutually exclusive. Brecht's play is a criticism of capitalism and claims the impossibility of kindness in a dehumanizing system, while Donnersmarck upholds the belief in individual ethics amid state terror. In addition, the dramaturgical approach of The Lives of Others corresponds to a theater concept from the time before Brecht: Brecht defined the alienation effect , according to which a play can change the consciousness of the theatergoer through arguments and not through empathy with and identification with characters. The film audience, however, identifies with Wiesler, who for his part falls short of the ideological-psychological distance to his observation objects and gets emotionally involved in their life.

Awards

In Germany

Abroad

Listings

In a survey by the BBC in 2016 for their list of the 100 most important films of the 21st century took The Lives of Others place the 32nd

literature

Books

  • Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: The life of others. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-518-45786-1 .
  • Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: The life of others. Blacked out edition Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-518-45908-2 .

Scientific contributions

  • Arendt, Christine: On the analysis of culture-reflective films and their reception in GFL lessons. “The Lives of Others” and “Nowhere in Africa”. Interpretation, narratology, memory rhetoric and reception by Italian students. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2019 (Series: Film, Medium, Discourse). ISBN 978-3-8260-6636-8 .
  • Paul Cooke: "The Lives of Others" and Contemporary German Film. A companion. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-026810-2 .
  • John T. Hamilton: Conspiracy, Security, and Human Care in Donnersmarck's Lives of Others . In: Historical Social Research . Vol. 38 (2013), No. 1, pp. 129–141.
  • Jens Gieseke: Stasi goes Hollywood: Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others and the limits of authenticity. In: German Studies Review. Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, pp. 580-588 (German).
  • Volker Wehdeking: Generation Change: Intermediality in Contemporary German Literature. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-503-09827-9 , pp. 127-137.
  • Gary Schmidt: Between authors and agents: Gender and affirmative culture in The Lives of Others . In: The German Quarterly , Vol. 82, No. 2, Spring 2009, pp. 231–249, (English).
  • Thomas Lindenberger: Stasiploitation – Why Not? The Scriptwriter's Historical Creativity in The Lives of Others. In: German Studies Review. Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, pp. 557-566 (English).
  • Lu Seegers: The Lives of Others or the 'Real' Memory of the GDR . In: Astrid Erll, Stephanie Wodianka (ed.): Film and cultural memory. Plurimedial constellations . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020443-8 , pp. 21-52.
  • Mary Beth Stein: Stasi with a human face? Ambiguity in The Lives of Others. In: German Studies Review. Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, pp. 567-579 (English).

conversations

  • With Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12, Welt der Leere.

Reviews

Other comments

Reports

Teaching material

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the life of others . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2006 (PDF; test number: 104 804 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for The Lives of Others . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ a b c Andreas Kilb: Conspiracy of the listeners . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 22, 2006, p. 35
  4. ↑ a b c I can climb the mountain again . In: Stern , March 14, 2007, conversation with Donnersmarck
  5. ↑ Lars-Olav Beier, Malte Herwig, Matthias Matussek: Poetry and Paranoia . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 2006, p. 172 ( online ).
  6. ↑ Ulrich Mühe in the film book, p. 183; Press booklet, p. 14; Matthias Ehlert: The friend on my roof . In: Welt am Sonntag , February 12, 2006, p. 59
  7. ↑ Press release of the federal government on the Oscar win ( memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archiv.bundesregierung.de
  8. ↑ a b Sebastian Koch: Why am I only now playing a leading role in the cinema in Germany . In: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: The life of others . Movie book. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2008. Supplement to the DVD special edition “The Complete File”. Pp. 177-180
  9. ↑ Ulrich Mühe in conversation in: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: The life of others . Movie book. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2008. Supplement to the DVD special edition “The Complete File”. Pp. 182-183 and 186
  10. ↑ a b according to the making-of
  11. ↑ a b c d e Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: The life of others . Movie book. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2008. Supplement to the DVD special edition “The Complete File”. Pp. 162-168
  12. ↑ a b c Production notes in the press release ( memento of the original from November 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 196 kB), pp. 14-16 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.just-publicity.de
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Donnersmarck in the audio commentary on the DVD
  14. ↑ a b c Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck in conversation with the Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12: "World of Emptiness"
  15. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Marianne Falck: The life of others. (PDF; 1.5 MB) Film booklet from the German Federal Agency for Civic Education . Bonn 2006, pp. 8-11
  16. ↑ Criteria for granting filming permits on the grounds of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stiftung-hsh.de
  17. ↑ Rainer Gansera: In the lye of fear . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12; Volker Behrens: This is how dictatorship feels . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , March 16, 2006, p. 8; Harald Pauli: The indiscreet charm of the state security . In: Focus , March 20, 2006, pp. 72-74; Marie-Noëlle Tranchant: Un jeune cinéaste derrière le rideau de fer . In: Le Figaro , January 31, 2007; Jean-Luc Douin: La Vie des autres, de Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Au temps de la RDA et du soupçon . In: Le Monde , January 31, 2007, p. 27; Mary Beth Stein: Stasi with a human face? Ambiguity in The Lives of Others . In: German Studies Review , Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, pp. 567-579
  18. ↑ a b c d e f Volker Wehdeking: Generation change: Intermediality in contemporary German literature. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-503-09827-9 , pp. 127-137
  19. ^ A b A. O. Scott: A Fugue for Good German Men In: New York Times , February 9, 2007
  20. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Mary Beth Stein: Stasi with a human face? Ambiguity in The Lives of Others . In: German Studies Review , Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, pp. 567-579
  21. ↑ Schmidt 2009, p. 242. In Donnersmarck's script, p. 109, it is said that Dreyman's red-smeared hands are like full of blood.
  22. ↑ a b c d e f g Thomas Lindenberger: Stasiploitation – Why Not? The Scriptwriter's Historical Creativity in The Lives of Others . In: German Studies Review , Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, pp. 557-566
  23. ↑ Hagen Bogdanski in conversation with Marko Kregel in Giving the Film a Face . Schüren, Marburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-89472-484-9 , pp. 150-151
  24. ↑ Hagen Bogdanski in Kregel 2007, pp. 151–152
  25. ↑ Kregel 2007, p. 151
  26. ↑ Donnersmarck in the audio commentary on the DVD, at 8:20, in the film book, p. 165, and in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12: Welt der Leere
  27. ↑ Hagen Bogdanski in Kregel 2007, p. 150
  28. ↑ a b c d Matthias Ehlert: The friend on my roof . In: Welt am Sonntag , February 12, 2006, p. 59
  29. ↑ Pierre Bocev: La Stasi de l'ex-RDA sur grand écran . In: Le Figaro , April 1, 2006, p. 6
  30. ↑ a b Derek Elley: The Lives of Others ( Memento of February 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Variety, June 19, 2006, p. 40
  31. ↑ Press release of the Federal Government ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated March 14, 2006; Reinhard Mohr: Stasi without Spreewald cucumber . In: Spiegel Online , March 15, 2006; Volker Behrens: This is how dictatorship feels . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , March 16, 2006, p. 8 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archiv.bundesregierung.de
  32. ↑ Filmdienst.de and Heute-im-fernsehen.de.de .
  33. ↑ a b c Alexandra Wach: The life of others . In: film-dienst No. 6/2006, pp. 42–43
  34. ↑ a b c Rainer Gansera: In the lye of fear . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12
  35. ↑ a b c Daniel Kothenschulte: The informers are among us . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , March 23, 2006, p. 38
  36. ↑ a b Martina Knoben: The Lives of Others . In: epd Film , No. 3/2006, p. 32
  37. ↑ a b c Reinhard Mohr: Stasi without Spreewald cucumber . In: Spiegel Online , March 15, 2006
  38. ↑ Alexandra Wach: The life of others . In: film-dienst No. 6/2006, pp. 42–43; Martina Knoben: The Lives of Others . In: epd Film , No. 3/2006, p. 32; Andreas Kilb: Conspiracy of the listeners . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 22, 2006, p. 35; Reinhard Mohr: Stasi without Spreewald cucumber . In: Spiegel Online , March 15, 2006; Rainer Gansera: In the brink of fear . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12; Harald Pauli: The indiscreet charm of the state security . In: Focus , March 20, 2006, pp. 72-74; Volker Behrens: This is how dictatorship feels . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , March 16, 2006, p. 8
  39. ↑ a b Mariam Lau: No more funny . In: Die Welt , March 22, 2006, p. 3
  40. ↑ Evelyn Finger: The conversion . In: Die Zeit , No. 13/2006 of March 23, 2006
  41. ↑ Claus Löser: When spies love too much . In: taz , March 22, 2006, p. 16
  42. ↑ Joachim Gauck in conversation with Die Welt, March 22, 2006: Nostalgia is memory without pain ; His contribution in Stern , March 16, 2006, p. 228: "Yes, it was like that!"
  43. ↑ a b Marianne Birthler in conversation with the Berliner Zeitung, June 17, 2006: I find people who are honest with themselves alive
  44. ↑ a b Wolf Biermann: The ghosts emerge from the shadows. “The Lives of Others”: Why the Stasi film by a young West German amazes me . In: Die Welt , March 22, 2006, p. 29
  45. ↑ Christoph Hein: “We resign when we stand still”. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung . April 7, 2019, accessed on April 20, 2019 (on the occasion of his work Gegenlauschangriff ). See also MDR KULTUR: Christoph Hein criticizes "The Lives of Others" on YouTube , accessed on April 20, 2019.
  46. ↑ a b Christoph Hein: "Why I had my name deleted from" The Lives of Others "" In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 24, 2019
  47. ↑ Andreas Platthaus , That's me, but I don't recognize myself , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 29, 2019, p. 9.
  48. ↑ Christoph Hein: The censorship is outdated, useless, paradoxical, misanthropic and hostile to the people, illegal and punishable . In: zeit.de . December 4, 1987. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  49. ↑ Piotr Gociek: Wszyscy jesteśmy esbekami . In: Wprost , No. 4/2007, January 29, 2007
  50. ↑ Tadeusz Sobolewski: Niemcy NRD rozbrajają In: Gazeta Wyborcza January 25, 2007
  51. ↑ Jean-Luc Douin: La Vie des autres, de Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Au temps de la RDA et du soupçon . In: Le Monde , January 31, 2007, p. 27
  52. ↑ a b Pierre Bocev: Un miroir des réalités est-allemandes d'avant 1989 . In: Le Figaro , January 31, 2007
  53. ^ Edouard Waintrop: Le Mur fissuré de l'intérieur . In: Liberation , January 31, 2007, p. 4
  54. ^ Jean Roy: Le portrait d'un solitaire . In: L'Humanité , January 31, 2007, p. 23
  55. ↑ According to the evaluation of Metacritic.com , accessed on December 28, 2009. Of the 39 US reviews considered, 15 rated the film with the top grade 100, 5 reviews with 90 points, 16 with grades between 75 and 89 according to the evaluation method of Metacritic , 2 with 70 and one with 50. The latter means something like “neutral” or “mixed”.
  56. ↑ Evans, Tim: The Lives of Others (2006) . In: Schneider, Steven Jay, Ueberle-Pfaff, Maja (ed.): 1001 films that you should see before life is over. Selected and presented by 77 international film critics. Twelfth, updated new edition. Edition Olms, Oetwil am See 2017, ISBN 978-3-283-01243-4 , p. 908 .
  57. ↑ a b lives at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed November 8, 2014
  58. ↑ a b [1] at Metacritic , accessed on November 8, 2014
  59. ↑ The lives of others in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  60. ↑ according to Inside Kino , accessed December 28, 2009
  61. ↑ Box Office Mojo grossing results in US dollars on Box Office Mojo, accessed December 28, 2009
  62. ↑ Number of copies. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 12, 2015 .
  63. ↑ Admission numbers according to Lumiere. Database of film attendance in Europe , accessed May 30, 2010.
  64. ↑ Entry number for the USA: see also Inside Kino .
  65. ↑ copy number for France from: Les meilleures entrées semaine du 30 Janvier au 4 Février 2007. In: Libération , February 7th 2007; see also “The Lives of Others” started successfully in France. ddp basic service, February 6, 2007.
  66. ^ Reports on the legal dispute: Markus Deggerich, Peter Wensierski: The script of the others . In: Der Spiegel . No. 18 , 2006, p. 152 ( online ). ; Markus Deggerich: Court stops Suhrkamp book In: Spiegel Online - Literature , April 13, 2006; Jürgen Schreiber: The seduction officer In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 29, 2006; IM or no IM? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 21, 2006, p. 40; Daniel Kothenschulte: The sins of others . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , April 19, 2006, p. 15; Regine Sylvester: The target . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 3, 2006, p. 3; Thomas Leinkauf: The files and the truth . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 21, 2006, p. 17
  67. ↑ Ulrich Mühe is defeated in the Stasi trial . In: Berliner Zeitung , July 5, 2006. Ulrich Mühe continues to muzzle . In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn) , July 5, 2006, p. 11
  68. ↑ a b In the transmission . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 2007, p. 145 ( online ).
  69. ↑ No DVD of Stasi drama . In: Der Tagesspiegel , January 17, 2007; largely identical: legal dispute over DVD of “The Lives of Others” . In: Die Welt , January 19, 2007, p. 28. DVD of "The Lives of Others" stopped . In: Berliner Zeitung , January 18, 2007, p. 29. Gregor Gysi stops the Stasi attack . In: Berliner Kurier , January 18, 2007, p. 11
  70. ↑ Berliner Kurier: All wild on forbidden Stasi DVD , January 22, 2007, p. 13
  71. ↑ In the press booklet, p. 14, it is said that the film is "authentic down to the smallest detail" . Gieseke 2008, p. 581, and Lindenberger 2008, p. 558–559, said that the film must be measured against these demands
  72. ↑ Manfred Wilke in the film book (Donnersmarck 2006) on pp. 202–203 and in German Studies Review , Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3: Fiktion oder erlebte Geschichte? On the question of the credibility of the film The Lives of Others , p. 591
  73. ↑ a b c d e Eva Horn : Media of Conspiracy . In: New German Critique , vol. 35, no. 1, spring 2008, pp. 127–144
  74. ↑ a b c d Jens Gieseke: Stasi goes Hollywood: Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others and the limits of authenticity . In: German Studies Review , Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, pp. 580-588
  75. ↑ See Wilke im Filmbuch on p. 201 and in German Studies Review on pp. 589–590.
  76. ↑ Werner Schulz: "The Lives of Others" did not deserve a prize . In: Die Welt , February 25, 2007
  77. ^ Criminal Code of the GDR
  78. ↑ Wilke in the film book on p. 206 and in German Studies Review on p. 594
  79. ↑ Udo Grashoff : "In an attack of depression ..." Suicides in the GDR. Ch.Links Verlag, Berlin 2006,
    chapter 2.2 ("Explanatory approaches for the high suicide rate in the GDR") and 3.4.2 ("The work of the Ministry for State Security as a cause of suicide?").
  80. ↑ Christiane Badenberg, The number of suicides was a political issue, The suicide rate in the GDR was one and a half times higher than in the Federal Republic. ÄrzteZeitung, special edition from October 2, 2010
  81. ^ Udo Grashoff: 'The Death of Others': the myth and reality of suicide in the German Democratic Republic. UCL , November 27, 2014, accessed August 13, 2017 .
  82. ^ Wilke in the film book on pp. 207–208 and in German Studies Review on pp. 594–595. The manifesto is available in the Chronicle of the Wall .
  83. ↑ Wilke in the film book on pp. 211-213 and in German Studies Review on pp. 597-598
  84. ↑ Andreas Dresen: The pictures of the others . In: film-dienst , No. 22/2009, pp. 32–34
  85. ↑ a b Marie-Noëlle Tranchant: Un jeune cinéaste derrière le rideau de fer . In: Le Figaro , January 31, 2007
  86. ^ Wilke in the film book on pp. 204–205 and in German Studies Review on pp. 592–593
  87. ↑ a b Harald Pauli: The indiscreet charm of the state security . In: Focus , March 20, 2006, pp. 72-74
  88. ↑ Rainer Gansera: In the lye of fear . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12; similar in Matthias Ehlert: The friend on my roof . In: Welt am Sonntag , February 12, 2006, p. 59
  89. ↑ Marianne Falck: The life of others. (PDF; 1.5 MB) Film booklet from the German Federal Agency for Civic Education . Bonn 2006, p. 11; Rainer Gansera: In the brink of fear . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12; Lars-Olav Beier, Malte Herwig, Matthias Matussek: Poetry and Paranoia . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 2006, p. 172 ( online ).
  90. ↑ Volker Behrens: This is how dictatorship feels . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , March 16, 2006, p. 8
  91. ^ Wilke in the film book on p. 209 and in German Studies Review on p. 596
  92. ↑ Rainer Gansera: In the lye of fear . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2006, p. 12; Martina Knoben: The Lives of Others . In: epd Film , No. 3/2006, p. 32; Reinhard Mohr: Stasi without Spreewald cucumber . In: Spiegel Online , March 15, 2006; Mary Beth Stein: Stasi with a human face? Ambiguity in The Lives of Others . In: German Studies Review , Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, p. 567
  93. ↑ Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: The life of others . Movie book. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2008. Supplement to the DVD special edition “The Complete File”. Pp. 169-170
  94. ↑ Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck in the press booklet ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (P. 8, accessed on July 7, 2009; PDF; 196 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.just-publicity.de
  95. ↑ The traceability of the film to Schiller's ideas can be found in Cheryl Dueck: The Humanisition of the Stasi in The Lives of Others . In: German Studies Review , Vol. 31 (2008), No. 3, p. 606, and Schmidt 2009, p. 232
  96. ↑ a b Donnersmarck 2006, screenplay, p. 45
  97. ↑ a b c d e f g Gary Schmidt: Between authors and agents: Gender and affirmative culture in The Lives of Others . In: The German Quarterly , Vol. 82, No. 2, Spring 2009, pp. 231–249
  98. ^ A b Claudia Lenssen: Stubbornness and Mystery Games . In: Recherche Film und Fernsehen , Zeitschrift der Deutsche Kinemathek, No. 1/2007, p. 35
  99. ↑ Martina Gedeck in an interview with Tagesspiegel , March 21, 2006: When things go well, we dance together ; see also her conversation with the Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 24, 2006, p. 17: "One is looked at and recognized"
  100. ↑ Martina Gedeck has to stay at home . Spiegel Online , February 12, 2007
  101. ↑ Stein 2008, p. 577; Schmidt 2009, pp. 233 and 244
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on February 4, 2010 in this version .