The Lives of Others
(original German:
Das Leben der Anderen)
(film)
is an Academy Award-winning German film, marking the feature film debut of writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
With The Lives of Others Donnersmarck won the 2006 Academy
Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film had earlier won seven Deutscher
Filmpreis awards including best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor
and best supporting actor, after having set a new record with 11 nominations.
It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe
Awards.
Cast
Martina Gedeck - Christa-Maria Sieland
Ulrich Mühe - Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler
Sebastian Koch - Georg Dreyman
Ulrich Tukur - Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz
Thomas Thieme - Minister Bruno Hempf
Hans-Uwe Bauer - Paul Hauser
Volkmar Kleinert - Albert Jerska
Matthias Brenner - Karl Wallner
Charly Hübner - Udo
Herbert Knaup - Gregor Hessenstein
Bastian
Trost - Häftling 227
Marie Gruber - Frau Meineke
Volker Michalowski
- Schriftexperte (as Zack Volker Michalowski)
Werner Daehn
- Einsatzleiter in Uniform
Martin Brambach - Einsatzleiter Meyer
Hubertus
Hartmann - Egon Schwalber
Thomas Arnold - Nowack
Hinnerk Schönemann
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler
Paul Faßnacht - Onkel Frank Hauser (as
Paul Fassnacht)
Ludwig Blochberger - Benedikt Lehmann
Paul Maximilian Schüller - Junge mit Ball
Susanna Kraus - Andrea
Gabi Fleming - Prostituierte 'Ute'
Michael Gerber - Zahnarzt Dr. Czimmy
Fabian von Klitzing - Tagesschausprecher
Harald Polzin - Wächter
Sheri Hagen - 'Martha' 1991
Gitta Schweighöfer - 'Anja' 1984
Elja-Dusa
Kedves - 'Anja' 1991
Hildegard Schroedter - 'Elena' 1984
Inga Birkenfeld
- 'Elena' 1991 / BStU-Mitarbeiterin
Philipp Kewenig - Christas Verhafter
Jens Wassermann - 'Rolf' Andi Wenzke-Falkenau
Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky
- Bandleader
Manfred Ludwig Sextett - Band
Kai Ivo Baulitz - Buchverkäufer
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ralf Ehrlich - Kollege in der Stasi-Kantine
Klaus Münster - Erich Mielke (voice)
This thriller/drama involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police. It stars the late Ulrich Mühe as Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his chief officer Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman's lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland.
The film was released in Germany on March 23, 2006. At the same time the screenplay was published by Suhrkamp Verlag. Donnersmarck and Ulrich Mühe were successfully sued for libel for the book, in which Mühe asserted that his former wife informed on him while they were East German citizens through the six years of their marriage. In the film's publicity material, Donnersmarck says Mühe's former wife denied the claims, although 254 pages' worth of government records detailed her activities.
The organizers of the Berlin Film Festival refused to accept it as an official entry in 2005. The film succeeded in Germany despite a widespread contemporary reluctance in the country, particularly in its films, to confront the totalitarian excesses of the East German state.
The Lives of Others total cost came
to $2 million and it grossed more than US$74 million worldwide as of November
2007. A possible Hollywood remake is said to be in the works, with Anthony Minghella
or Sydney Pollack directing.
Awards and Nominations
79th
Academy Awards
Best Foreign Language Film winner
64th Golden Globe Awards
Best Foreign Language Film nomination
Independent Spirit Awards 2007
Best
Foreign Language Film
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2007 audience
award
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2006
Best Foreign-Language
Film
European Film Awards 2006
Best Film
Best Actor: Ulrich Mühe
Best Screenwriter: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
German Film Awards
2006
Best Film
Best Actor
Best Supporting Actor
Best Director
Best Cinematography
Best Production Design
Best Screenplay
Palm
Springs International Film Festival 2007 Audience Choice Award
Vancouver International
Film Festival 2006 People's Choice Award
Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinéma
2006 People's Choice Award
London Film Festival 2006 Satyajit Ray Award
Zagreb
Film Festival 2006
Best Film
Audience Award
Copenhagen International
Film Festival 2006
Best Male Actor
Audience Award
Seville Film Festival
2006 Silver Giraldillo
Locarno International Film Festival 2006 Audience Award
Warsaw International Film Festival 2006 Audience Award
Bavarian Film Awards
2005
Best Actor: Ulrich Mühe
Best Newcomer Director: Florian Henckel
von Donnersmarck
Best Screenplay: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
VGF
Producer Prize: Wiedemann & Berg
Plot
In the East Germany (GDR) of 1984, Stasi Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (HGW), a keenly idealistic supporter of the communist regime, is shown interrogating a prisoner who is suspected to know who helped another person defect to the West. In the film, this is juxtaposed with his playing a recording of the interrogation while lecturing a class on Stasi methods. One of the student in the class exclaims that sleep deprivation is "inhumane", but Wiesler replies that it is necessary. He claims that an innocent man will become enraged at the injustice, while the guilty will know he is there for a reason and will become quiet then cry. Then the prisoner is shown crying. Wiesler then points out that the prisoner has said the same thing in exactly the same words, which Wiesler claims shows that he is a liar who has rehearsed this line; someone telling the truth would say it in different ways. Eventually the prisoner provides a name.
Wiesler's old classmate, now a Lt. Colonel, assigns him to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman, who, Wiesler is told, is suspected of Western sympathies. Stasi agents secretly enter Dreyman's apartment in order to install small microphones in the light switches and electric sockets. Wiesler and his assistant Udo monitor the activity in the attic space above the apartment, typing a summary of activities for the record after each shift.
Wiesler soon finds out that the real reason why Dreyman is being spied on is that a minister named Hempf, a member of the Party's Central Committee, is attracted to Dreyman's girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria. If Dreyman is arrested, the minister will have free rein. This destroys Wiesler's motivation, as the job is not seriously investigating crimes against the Socialist state.
Wiesler secretly intervenes so that Dreyman will discover the relationship between Christa-Maria and the party member. A week later, when she is about to go to another meeting with Hempf, Dreyman confronts her with knowledge of her liaisons. Although they argue, Christa-Maria still leaves. Wiesler later sees her at a bar, and insinuates to her that her talent does not require her to give herself to Hempf. Although at first it seems that Christa-Maria carries out her rendez-vous with Hempf, Wiesler later learns through his underling Udo that this rendezvous in fact didn't happen and Christa-Maria went home to Dreyman after her encounter with Wiesler, although Udo is unaware of the implications of this information.
Dreyman is a supporter of the regime, but dislikes the way dissidents are treated. He publicly stands up for his friends if he feels that they have been unfairly treated. One friend, Jerska, is a director who has lost his reason to live due to being blacklisted. At Dreyman's 40th birthday party, Jerska gives Dreyman a gift of sheet music entitled "Sonata for A Good Man" (German: Sonate vom guten Menschen). Shortly afterward, Jerska commits suicide; this finally spurs Dreyman into speaking out against the regime. Dreyman arranges with West Germany's weekly magazine Der Spiegel to anonymously publish an article on suicide rates in the GDR. While the GDR publishes detailed statistics on many things, it has not published any information on suicide rates since the 1970s, presumably because they are embarrassingly high. Because all typewriters are registered, Dreyman uses a separate typewriter with a red ribbon to write the article, which he hides under the floor in his apartment. Before Dreyman and his friends discuss sensitive issues in Dreyman's apartment they test whether it is bugged: they pretend that someone will be smuggled in a relative's car over to the West. Later they conclude that the apartment is not bugged, because the car is not searched. Unknown to them, that is only because Wiesler has temporarily taken pity on them and had not understood that the discussion was in fact a test.
As Wiesler's
empathy for the writer and his girlfriend has grown over time, he lies in his
reports to protect Dreyman. Also, at his proposal, the hours of surveillance are
reduced, so that it is no longer continuous and he no longer has to share the
work with his more objective assistant. Eventually, Dreyman and his friends finish
the article and it is published, upsetting the East German government.
Meanwhile, the minister, angered that Christa-Maria had chosen to no longer see him, orders Wiesler's superior, Anton Grubitz, to find some way to destroy her and tells him that she has been illegally buying prescription drugs. Grubitz and his men manage to catch her in the act of purchasing these drugs and she is arrested. Terrified, she turns Dreyman in, although she does not reveal the location of the typewriter. The house is searched for contraband by security officials, but by chance they miss the typewriter. Wiesler is called in to interrogate Christa-Maria. At this point, Grubitz begins to suspect Wiesler's newly found pity and implies that, even though they are longtime friends, a failure to perform his work will be very costly. Wiesler interrogates Christa-Maria (with his boss watching through the two-way mirror) with the same flawlessness and objectivity that characterized him for years. She breaks down and tells him where the typewriter is hidden. Wiesler, however, still determined to protect a couple he has come to care for, travels to their apartment in advance of the Stasi search team and takes the typewriter away.
During a second search, in the presence of Christa-Maria, when the hiding place of the typewriter is about to be opened, Christa-Maria leaves in shame and runs into the street, apparently throwing herself deliberately in front of a truck. The secret hiding place is opened, but is found empty. A helpless Wiesler, who is watching the events just outside the apartment, tries to tell Christa that he has the typewriter, but can't complete his words. Dreyman arrives at the scene and Christa-Maria dies in his arms. As a result the surveillance operation becomes pointless: Wiesler's superior calls it off but, distrusting Wiesler, ensures the end of his career. The newspaper lying in the front seat of Wiesler's car announces that Gorbachev is the new Party Secretary of the Soviet Union. Wiesler is demoted to Department M, where he tediously must steam-open letters all day. Four years and seven months later, Wiesler is still opening letters when a co-worker with a radio notifies him of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Upon hearing the news, Wiesler and his co-workers leave.
At the end of the film, after German reunification, Dreyman encounters the former minister at the playhouse and asks why his apartment was never bugged. The minister, now a successful businessman, ironically details the scope of Dreyman's extensive surveillance, telling him where to look for the equipment. Dreyman finds the wires and becomes perplexed why he was never caught. The Stasi's archives are now open to the public; he goes there, reads his own file, and learns the truth. While agent "HGW XX/7" must have heard Dreyman and his friends conducting anti-regime activities (such as the writing of the suicide article), HGW did not report those things in his voluminous typed notes, and falsely wrote instead that Dreyman was writing a play on the 40th anniversary of the GDR, a topic the regime would have approved. Next to the final page of notes is a smudge from the secret typewriter's red ink, proving that it was HGW who removed the typewriter. Dreyman now asks for the identity of "HGW XX/7" and is shown his name and photo. He takes a taxi and watches Wiesler for a few moments, working at his new job delivering newspapers.
Two years later, Dreyman publishes a novel "Sonata for A Good Man". By chance, Wiesler sees the book in a bookstore, and finds that it is dedicated "To HGW XX/7, with gratitude". He goes to buy the book and the cashier asks if he would like to have it gift wrapped. "No," Wiesler responds, "it's for me."
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