The film had earlier won seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards—including those for best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor—after setting a new record with 11 nominations. Released 17 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall , marking the end of the East German socialist state, it was the first notable drama film about the subject after a series of comedies such as Good Bye, Lenin!
This approach was widely applauded in Germany even as some criticized the humanization of Wiesler's character. Many former East Germans were stunned by the factual accuracy of the film's set and atmosphere, accurately portraying a state which merged with West Germany and ceased to exist 16 years prior to the release. The film's authenticity was considered notable, given that the director grew up outside of East Germany and was only 16 when the Berlin Wall fell.
Wiesler and his team bug the apartment, set up surveillance equipment in an attic, and begin reporting Dreyman's activities. After an intervention by Wiesler leads to Dreyman's discovering Sieland's relationship with Hempf, he implores her not to meet him again. Sieland flees to a nearby bar where Wiesler, posing as a fan, urges her to be true to herself. She returns home and reconciles with Dreyman. Shortly afterwards, Jerska hangs himself. Dreyman decides to publish an anonymous article in Der Spiegel , a prominent West German newsweekly. Dreyman's article accuses the state of concealing the country's elevated suicide rates.
Since all East German typewriters are registered and identifiable, an editor of Der Spiegel smuggles Dreyman a miniature typewriter with a red ribbon. Dreyman hides the typewriter under a floorboard of his apartment but is seen by Sieland.
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When Dreyman and his friends feign a defection attempt to determine whether or not his flat is bugged, Wiesler does not alert the border guards or his superior Lt. Anton Grubitz Ulrich Tukur and the conspirators believe they are safe. Dreyman's article is published, angering the East German authorities. The Stasi obtains a copy, but are unable to link it to any registered typewriter. Livid at being rejected by Sieland, Hempf orders Grubitz to arrest her.
She is blackmailed into revealing Dreyman's authorship of the article, although when the Stasi search his apartment, they cannot find the typewriter. Grubitz, suspicious that Wiesler has mentioned nothing unusual in his daily reports of the monitoring, orders him to do the follow-up interrogation of Sieland. Wiesler forces Sieland to tell him where the typewriter is hidden. Grubitz and the Stasi return to Dreyman's apartment. Sieland realizes that Dreyman will know she betrayed him and flees the apartment.
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When Grubitz removes the floor, the typewriter is gone—Wiesler having removed it before the search team arrived. Unaware of this, Sieland runs to the street and commits suicide by stepping into the path of a truck. Grubitz informs Wiesler that the investigation is over, his career is over, and his remaining 20 years with the agency will be in Department M, a dead-end position for disgraced agents. On November 9, , Wiesler is steam-opening letters when a co-worker tells him about the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Wiesler leaves the office, inspiring his co-workers to do the same. Two years later, Hempf and Dreyman meet while attending a performance of Dreyman's play. Dreyman asks the former minister why he had never been monitored. Hempf tells him that he had been under full surveillance in Dreyman searches his apartment and finds the listening devices. At the Stasi Records Agency , Dreyman reviews the files kept while he was under surveillance. He reads that Sieland was released just before the second search and could not have removed the typewriter. He is at first confused by the false and contradictory information regarding his activities, but when he reaches the final report, he sees a fingerprint in red ink.
Dreyman searches for Wiesler, who now has a menial job.
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Unsure of what to say to him, he decides not to approach him. Two years later, Wiesler passes a bookstore window display promoting Dreyman's new novel, Sonate vom Guten Menschen. Deeply moved, Wiesler buys the book. When the sales clerk asks if he wants it gift-wrapped, he responds, "No. This is for me. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 's parents were both from East Germany originally they were from further east ; the von Donnersmarcks belonged to Silesian nobility but the region was transferred to Poland from Germany after World War II.
He has said that, on visits there as a child before the Berlin Wall fell, he could sense the fear they had as subjects of the state. He said the idea for the film came to him when he was trying to come up with a scenario for a film class. He was listening to music and recalled Maxim Gorky 's saying that Lenin 's favorite piece of music was Beethoven 's Appassionata.
Gorky recounted a discussion with Lenin:. But I can't listen to music often, it affects my nerves, it makes me want to say sweet nothings and pat the heads of people who, living in a filthy hell, can create such beauty. But today we mustn't pat anyone on the head or we'll get our hand bitten off; we've got to hit them on the heads, hit them without mercy, though in the ideal we are against doing any violence to people.
Hm-hm—it's a hellishly difficult office! Donnersmarck told a New York Times reporter: I sat down and in a couple of hours had written the treatment. Knabe objected to "making the Stasi man into a hero" and tried to persuade Donnersmarck to change the film. Donnersmarck cited Schindler's List as an example of such a plot development being possible. There was a Schindler. There was no Wiesler.
The Lives of Others - Wikipedia
The film was received with widespread acclaim. Corliss praised the film as a "poignant, unsettling thriller. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, describing it as "a powerful but quiet film, constructed of hidden thoughts and secret desires. Scott, reviewing the film in The New York Times , wrote that Lives is well-plotted, and added, "The suspense comes not only from the structure and pacing of the scenes, but also, more deeply, from the sense that even in an oppressive society, individuals are burdened with free will.
You never know, from one moment to the next, what course any of the characters will choose. American commentator John Podhoretz called the film "one of the greatest movies ever made, and certainly the best film of this decade. Several critics pointed to the film's subtle building up of details as one of its prime strengths. The film is built "on layers of emotional texture", wrote Stephanie Zacharek in Salon online magazine. Perhaps I was just won over sentimentally, because of the seductive mass of details which look like they were lifted from my own past between the total ban of my work in and denaturalisation in She claims that it was not possible for a Stasi operative to have hidden information from superiors because Stasi employees themselves were watched and almost always operated in teams.
In a BBC poll, critics voted the film the 32nd greatest since The Lives of Others also appeared on many critics' lists of the ten best films of The Europe List , the largest survey on European culture established that the top three films in European culture are. In September , 43 members of the Israeli elite clandestine Unit wrote a letter to Israel's prime minister and army chief, refusing further service and claiming Israel made "no distinction between Palestinians who are and are not involved in violence" and that information collected "harms innocent people.
The Lives of Others has been referred to in political protests following the mass surveillance disclosures. My knowledge of the Stasi is not very extensive, but it's largely from a movie called The Lives of Others , which won the Oscar for "Best Foreign Film" some years ago. Everybody should get that now.
It should be reissued now. But I'd like to see it dubbed so it had a wider audience.
- Das Museum als außerschulischer Lernort (German Edition).
- Selina Oder Das Andere Leben (German, Paperback).
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- Herlemanns Traum oder Das andere Leben (TV Movie ) - IMDb.
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What that shows is what life can be with a government that knew as much as the Stasi did then. But if they know—and one thing they can do with that information right now—is to turn people into informants, so that the government has not only the information that people say on electronic devices, they have what they say in the bedroom, because their wife or their whoever—spouse—is an informant.
As happened in the movie. That is what did happen in East Germany. And if we were to get that here, and there's the infrastructure for it right now, we will become a democratic republic in the same sense as the East German Democratic Republic. Film critic and historian Carrie Rickey believes that The Lives of Others was one of two movies that influenced Snowden's actions, the other being the Francis Ford Coppola film The Conversation , both being about wiretappers troubled by guilt. I would recommend these films to anyone interested in great movies that touch on the issues raised by L'Affaire Snowden.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave an interview in Le Figaro expressing his outrage over being the victim of surveillance himself. He drew a direct comparison to Henckel von Donnersmarck's film: It is not the case of some dictator acting against his political opponents. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the German film. For the unrelated Indian novel, see The Lives of Others novel. This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. August Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article.
Machine translation like Deepl or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. Then, the horror of the Nazi horror steps into her flat and forces her to flee the scene of her escape is one of the most powerful moments of the film.
The arts of survival becomes a struggle unendurable for the gentle minded, kind woman who finds too few friends in the tough reality. Soon, it is Elisabeth who will be bound to "become" Suzette Apart from a mainstay theme of a woman within the man-dominant society Walter, Elisabeth's husband manifests the 'duy above all' approach at least at the beginning of the story , the story is very daring for the time to work as an insight and the judgment of the times when Jews were persecuted solely because they were Jews. The character of Suzzette, brilliantly played by Vilma Degischer a word about the actress later is the manifestation and embodiment of victims of discrimination and appalling reality that spread around the country in the s and s.
Although her father is a well renowned doctor, his reputation is discarded once people find out he is a Jew. Yet, there were also people ready to help and Elisabeth embodies that attitude and, in the classical maxim, help she gives, help she will receive She places much charm and vitality as well as emotions and feelings to her character and creates an unbelievable rapport with the viewers.
A performance that has totally stood a test of time! This cannot be said about Aglaja Schmid who builds more upon her female appeal and gives a performance that may lead to ambiguous opinions. Nevertheless, some of her scenes still prove her talent which works rather on stage than on screen. The male characters are clear and predictable from a social standpoint but intriguingly for the time sophisticated and ambiguous from personal standpoints. These are also two: There is a bit of mystery about his character and a bit of illusion which corresponds to the atmospheric backdrop to the entire story.
Yes, the whole atmosphere of the entire film may remind you of something like G. So to say, most of the scenes are heavily influenced by the German Expressionism. In that relation, the film skillfully places us, viewers, within the depths of the true continuity with filming tradition and does not merely resort to sweet post-war fairy tales but displays this continuity, this tradition in the new context.
- Das andere Leben des Herrn Kreins (TV Movie ) - IMDb.
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Mind you, for instance, the shots of Bukowsky's house, this light and shadow noticeable throughout, the way tension is built primarily on images. Sometimes, like in the silent era, the image, the picture tells for itself. Consider the scene Elisabeth finds out about Suzette's death. A long static shot that makes us both observers and participants. The bars of destiny's irony, the inevitable doom, the the sound of steps drawing parallels with the pulse. As a production which rather stands on its own, it evokes unique emotions.
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- Das andere Leben () - IMDb.
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