The Lives of Others
Encyclopedia
The Lives of Others is a 2006 German drama film
, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
. The film involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin
by agents of the Stasi
, the GDR's secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe
as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur
as his boss 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 23 March 2006. At the same time, the screenplay was published by Suhrkamp Verlag
. The Lives of Others 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 nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards
. The Lives of Others cost 2 million USD and grossed more than 77 million USD worldwide .
in 1984 and 1985. Despite its name, the GDR was a dictatorship that used secret police, the Stasi
, to maintain control. The movie's main character is secret police officer Hauptmann
Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe
).
Wiesler's superior, Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur
), assigns him to spy on successful playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch
). Shortly before a party at Dreyman's flat, Wiesler and a Stasi team bug the apartment. Wiesler and another agent then set up equipment in attic above Dreyman's unit, and begin alternating shifts of surveilling the writer, then typing up frequent reports about what they hear.
Wiesler soon learns the real reason behind the Dreyman surveillance. The Party
's Minister of Culture, Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) covets Dreyman's live-in girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck
), and is using his influence with the Stasi to bring Dreyman down and rid himself of a rival. While Grubitz sees the situation as an opportunity for career advancement, Wiesler, a dedicated socialist, is horrified by the abuse of power. Wiesler also sees that Dreyman and Sieland are deeply in love. Hempf uses his knowledge of Sieland's addiction to prescription drugs and his power to destroy her career to rape Sieland. She is repulsed by these meetings, but she is passive, knowing he can ruin her career and life.
Wiesler manages to help Dreyman discover Sieland's relationship with Hempf, and Dreyman implores Sieland not to meet him. Sieland at first refuses and flees their apartment, walks in a bar nearby where Wiesler is having a drink. Posing as a fan of her work, Wiesler convinces her to return to Dreyman and not to meet Hempf.
Although he is a Communist, Dreyman is increasingly disillusioned with the way his blacklist
ed colleagues are treated by the State. At Dreyman's birthday party, his friend Albert Jerska, a blacklisted theatre director and close friend, gives him the sheet music
to a piece titled "Sonate vom Guten Menschen" (Sonata of a Good Man). Shortly afterwards, Jerska hangs himself. Infuriated, Dreyman decides to anonymously publish an article on the concealed suicide rates in the West German periodical Der Spiegel
. As all typewriters are registered, Dreyman uses a miniature typewriter smuggled in from West Germany
, which he hides under the floorboards of a doorway between two rooms of his apartment. Before selecting the flat as a headquarters, Dreyman and his friends test whether the flat is bugged, by acting out a feigned attempt to smuggle one of their blacklisted friends through the checkpoint Heinrich-Heine-Straße of the Berlin Wall
. However, Wiesler decides against alerting the border control police, the "defection" appears to succeed, and the conspirators believe the flat is not bugged.
Wiesler has told himself he will let Dreyman's illegal activity go unreported just this once. But he himself starts to change through his surveillance - he starts to lie in his reports to protect Dreyman, as well as reducing surveillance hours in order to eliminate his assistant. Realising how empty his own life is, Wiesler steals a book by Bertolt Brecht
off Dreyman's desk and reads it himself.
Eventually, Dreyman and his friends publish the article on unreported suicides, enraging the East German State. Through an agent in Der Spiegels offices, the Stasi obtains a copy of the typed manuscript and realizes that it was written on an unregistered typewriter with red ink. At the same time, Hempf is livid at being jilted by Sieland and orders Grubitz to destroy her. Grubitz arrests Sieland, appearing at the dentists office as she buys her drugs. Threatened with the end of her acting career, Sieland reveals Dreyman's authorship of the article. Their flat is torn apart by a Stasi search team, which fails to find the hidden typewriter.
Grubitz orders Wiesler to interrogate Sieland, warning him that failure will cost them both. Sieland recognizes him as the man from the bar, tells him where the typewriter is hidden, and agrees to become a Stasi informant. Dreyman's apartment is searched again, but Wiesler has already left the prison, ostensibly to obtain the evidence. Before Dreyman or the search team arrive, he breaks in and removes the typewriter from the apartment.
Grubitz returns with several police officers and lifts up the floorboards where Dreyman has hidden the typewriter, finding only sawdust. Seeing the horrified look on Dreyman's face as he realises she disclosed its location, a guilt-ridden Sieland runs out of the apartment into the street, and steps into the path of an oncoming truck. Wiesler is anguished as he witnesses her death. Dreyman runs downstairs to Sieland, who dies in his arms. Dreyman weeps inconsolably as Grubitz offers a polite but perfunctory claim of sympathy. He ends the surveillance of Dreyman's apartment.
Grubitz has figured out that Wiesler obstructed the investigation and tells Wiesler that he is being demoted to "Department M," a dead-end assignment where disgraced agents tediously steam open letters, and that he will be there until he retires in 20 years. As they part, we see that a headline in the newspaper Grubitz has been reading announces that Mikhail Gorbachev
has become the leader of the Soviet Union
.
Four years and eight months later, Wiesler is indeed steaming open letters in a dank, windowless office, when a co-worker listening to radio news tells him of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Wiesler understands that this means the end of the Stasi; he gets up and leaves, followed silently by his coworkers. Two years later, after the German reunification
, Hempf and Dreyman have a chance encounter. Dreyman asks Hempf why he was never under surveillance, unlike his friends and colleagues. Hempf, still humiliated after all these years at losing Sieland to the playwright, tells Dreyman contemptuously that despite being a favored artist, he was under full surveillance after all. After uncovering the wires and miniature microphones in his apartment, Dreyman goes to the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives to read file upon file of the Stasi's surveillance of his life with Sieland. He figures out that Sieland was released from police interrogation just before the second search, and that she could not have had enough time to remove the typewriter. Seeing a fingerprint in red ink on the final typewritten report from Stasi Agent "HGW XX/7," he realizes that a secret policeman had knowingly covered up his authorship of the suicide article. Deeply moved, Dreyman succeeds in locating Wiesler and watches from a distance as the former secret policeman goes about his new job, delivering leaflets. He cannot bring himself to approach Wiesler.
Two more years pass. While delivering leaflets one day, Wiesler passes a bookstore and sees a display of Dreyman's new novel, "Sonate vom Guten Menschen" in the window. He goes in, opens a copy of the book, and discovers that it is dedicated "To HGW XX/7, with gratitude". As Wiesler purchases the book, the sales clerk asks if he wants it gift-wrapped. Wiesler responds, "No, it's for me."
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 movie 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:
Donnersmarck told a The New York Times reporter: "I suddenly had this image in my mind of a person sitting in a depressing room with earphones on his head and listening in to what he supposes is the enemy of the state and the enemy of his ideas, and what he is really hearing is beautiful music that touches him. I sat down and in a couple of hours had written the treatment
." The screenplay was written during an extended visit to his uncle's monastery, Heiligenkreuz Abbey
.
Donnersmarck had difficulty getting financing for the film. Podhoretz speculated that the reason was a reluctance on the part of the film industry to confront the horrors of East German Communism
, although he says it is rich with dramatic possibilities. That may also explain why the organizers of the Berlin Film Festival refused to accept it as an official entry for 2006, the critic wrote.
Prior to his death, Sydney Pollack
was said to be directing a possible Hollywood remake of the film.
site Rotten Tomatoes
reports a 93% "Fresh" rating, based on 139 positive reviews out of 149.
American journalist John Podhoretz
called the film "one of the greatest movies ever made, and certainly the best film of this decade." William F. Buckley, Jr.
wrote in his syndicated column that after the film was over, "I turned to my companion and said, 'I think that this is the best movie I ever saw'." John J. Miller
of National Review Online named it #1 in his list of 'The Best Conservative Movies' of the last 25 years.
A review in Daily Variety by Derek Elley noted the "slightly stylized look" of the movie created by "playing up grays and dour greens, even when using actual locations like the Stasi's onetime HQ in Normannenstrasse."
Time
magazine's Richard Corliss
named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #2. 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."
The film is built for "on layers of emotional texture", wrote Stephanie Zacharek in Salon online magazine. "von Donnersmarck seizes upon telling details: In one sequence, as Minister Hempf paws at a female conquest, we get a flash of his giant white underpants, a touch that would be funny if it weren't so subliminally horrific."
At another point in the movie, the main character, Wiesler, becomes enchanted by and sympathetic to the couple he is listening in on. "Wiesler's response to those feelings [...] move in on him imperceptibly, with very little telegraphing, making them that much more convincing," Zacharek writes. Podhoretz, reviewing the movie in The Weekly Standard
, ascribes the subtleness of Wiesler's response to Mühe, the actor playing him: "That scene [...] is limned with extraordinary stillness and compressed emotion by Ulrich Mühe, an actor heretofore unknown outside Germany who gives a performance so perfect in this, and every other moment in the film, that it's almost beyond words." Josh Rosenblatt, writing in the Austin Chronicle made the same point: "Like all great screen performances, Mühe's magic comes out most in its tiniest moments: a raised eyebrow here, a slight upturn of the lips there. It's a triumph of muted grandeur [...]"
Lisa Schwarzbaum, writing in Entertainment Weekly
, pointed out that some of the subtlety in the movie comes from the audience watching as characters are shown not taking action so much as being confronted by the action around them: "Some of the movie's tensest moments take place with the most minimal of action — Wiesler simply listening through headphones, Dreyman simply lying on his bed, a neighbor simply looking through a door peephole, her whole life contingent on what she does about what she sees. In those nerve-racking pauses (handled by a strong, understated cast), Henckel von Donnersmarck conveys everything he wants us to know about choice, fear, doubt, cowardice, and heroism."
An article in First Things
makes a philosophical argument in defense of Wiesler's transformation.
The East German dissident songwriter Wolf Biermann
was guardedly enthusiastic about the film, writing in a March 2006 article in Die Welt: "The political tone is authentic, I was moved by the plot. But why? 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 1965 and denaturalisation in 1976."
, 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."
Los Angeles Times
movie critic Kenneth Turan agreed that the dramatic tension of the film comes from being "meticulously plotted", and that "it places its key characters in high-stakes predicaments where what they are forced to wager is their talent, their very lives, even their soul
s." The movie "convincingly demonstrates that when done right, moral and political quandaries can be the most intensely dramatic dilemmas of all."
Zacharek, Scott, Podhoretz and Turan all make the point that although the film gives a powerful, subtle depiction of the corruption at the core of the East German state, it is focused on how people can rise above the moral corruption in which they're sometimes placed. As Podhoretz puts it, the movie is "a character study in the guise of a stunning suspense thriller."
, reviewing the film for In These Times
, wrote that it softpedals the oppressiveness of the German Democratic Republic
, as when a dissident confronts the minister of culture and doesn't seem to face any consequences for it. Žižek also says the character of the playwright is simply too naive to be believable: "One cannot but recall here a witty formula of life under a hard Communist regime: Of the three features — personal honesty, sincere support of the regime and intelligence — it was possible to combine only two, never all three. [...] The problem with Dreyman is that he does combine all three features."
Although the opening scene of the film is set in Hohenschönhausen prison (which is now the site of a memorial dedicated to the victims of Stasi oppression), the movie could not be filmed there because Hubertus Knabe, the director of the memorial, refused to give Donnersmarck permission. Knabe objected to "making the Stasi man into a hero" and tried to persuade Donnersmarck to change the movie. Donnersmarck cited Schindler's List
as an example of such a plot development being possible. Knabe's answer: "But that is exactly the difference. There was a Schindler
. There was no Wiesler."
Anna Funder
, the author of a book about the Stasi (Stasiland
), wrote in a review of the movie for The Guardian
that it was not possible for a Stasi operative to have hidden much information from superiors because Stasi employees themselves were watched and operated in teams, seldom if ever working alone. She noted that in his "Director's statement", Donnersmarck wrote, "More than anything else, The Lives of Others is a human drama about the ability of human beings to do the right thing, no matter how far they have gone down the wrong path." Funder replied: "This is an uplifting thought. But what is more likely to save us from going down the wrong path again is recognising how human beings can be trained and forced into faceless systems of oppression, in which conscience is extinguished." Nevertheless, Funder said, the movie is a "superb film" despite not being true to reality.
and Anthony Minghella
announced a deal with The Weinstein Company
to produce and direct an English-language remake of The Lives of Others. Minghella died in March 2008 and Pollack died less than three months after Minghella's death.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Florian Maria Georg Christian, Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck is a German film director, best known for writing and directing the 2007 Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others and the 2010 film The Tourist.-Personal life and family:...
. The film involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
by agents of the Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, the GDR's secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe
Ulrich Mühe
Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur is a German actor and musician.-Biography:Tukur spent his youth near Hanover where he finished his final secondary-school examinations in 1977. He also achieved a high school degree in Boston during an exchange of students where he met his first wife, Amber Wood. With her, he had two...
as his boss Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch
Sebastian Koch
-Life and career:Koch was born in Karlsruhe and grew up in Stuttgart. His mother raised him alone, and he spent some time in the children's home where she worked...
as the playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck is a German actress. She came to broader, international attention due to her roles in films such as Mostly Martha, The Lives of Others, and The Baader Meinhof Complex...
as Dreyman's lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland.
The film was released in Germany on 23 March 2006. At the same time, the screenplay was published by Suhrkamp Verlag
Suhrkamp Verlag
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature.In January 2010 the headquarters of the company moved from Frankfurt to Berlin.-Early history:...
. The Lives of Others won the 2006 Academy Award
79th Academy Awards
The 79th Academy Awards ceremony , honored the best films of 2006 and took place on February 25, 2007 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on ABC. Ellen DeGeneres hosted the ceremony for the first time. The producer was Laura Ziskin. The announcers were Don LaFontaine and Gina Tuttle.The nominees were...
for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
. The film had earlier won seven Deutscher Filmpreis
Deutscher Filmpreis
The Deutscher Filmpreis is the highest German movie award. From 1951 to 2004 it was awarded by a commission, since 2005 the award has been given by the Deutsche Filmakademie...
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 nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards
64th Golden Globe Awards
The 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards were aired on January 15, 2007. Some key dates announced by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are:The ceremony was broadcast live on NBC...
. The Lives of Others cost 2 million USD and grossed more than 77 million USD worldwide .
Plot
The movie takes place in the German Democratic RepublicGerman Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
in 1984 and 1985. Despite its name, the GDR was a dictatorship that used secret police, the Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
, to maintain control. The movie's main character is secret police officer Hauptmann
Hauptmann
Hauptmann is a German word usually translated as captain when it is used as an officer's rank in the German, Austrian and Swiss armies. While "haupt" in contemporary German means "main", it also has the dated meaning of "head", i.e...
Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe
Ulrich Mühe
Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
).
Wiesler's superior, Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur is a German actor and musician.-Biography:Tukur spent his youth near Hanover where he finished his final secondary-school examinations in 1977. He also achieved a high school degree in Boston during an exchange of students where he met his first wife, Amber Wood. With her, he had two...
), assigns him to spy on successful playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch
Sebastian Koch
-Life and career:Koch was born in Karlsruhe and grew up in Stuttgart. His mother raised him alone, and he spent some time in the children's home where she worked...
). Shortly before a party at Dreyman's flat, Wiesler and a Stasi team bug the apartment. Wiesler and another agent then set up equipment in attic above Dreyman's unit, and begin alternating shifts of surveilling the writer, then typing up frequent reports about what they hear.
Wiesler soon learns the real reason behind the Dreyman surveillance. The Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
's Minister of Culture, Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) covets Dreyman's live-in girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck is a German actress. She came to broader, international attention due to her roles in films such as Mostly Martha, The Lives of Others, and The Baader Meinhof Complex...
), and is using his influence with the Stasi to bring Dreyman down and rid himself of a rival. While Grubitz sees the situation as an opportunity for career advancement, Wiesler, a dedicated socialist, is horrified by the abuse of power. Wiesler also sees that Dreyman and Sieland are deeply in love. Hempf uses his knowledge of Sieland's addiction to prescription drugs and his power to destroy her career to rape Sieland. She is repulsed by these meetings, but she is passive, knowing he can ruin her career and life.
Wiesler manages to help Dreyman discover Sieland's relationship with Hempf, and Dreyman implores Sieland not to meet him. Sieland at first refuses and flees their apartment, walks in a bar nearby where Wiesler is having a drink. Posing as a fan of her work, Wiesler convinces her to return to Dreyman and not to meet Hempf.
Although he is a Communist, Dreyman is increasingly disillusioned with the way his blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed colleagues are treated by the State. At Dreyman's birthday party, his friend Albert Jerska, a blacklisted theatre director and close friend, gives him the sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
to a piece titled "Sonate vom Guten Menschen" (Sonata of a Good Man). Shortly afterwards, Jerska hangs himself. Infuriated, Dreyman decides to anonymously publish an article on the concealed suicide rates in the West German periodical Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
. As all typewriters are registered, Dreyman uses a miniature typewriter smuggled in from West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, which he hides under the floorboards of a doorway between two rooms of his apartment. Before selecting the flat as a headquarters, Dreyman and his friends test whether the flat is bugged, by acting out a feigned attempt to smuggle one of their blacklisted friends through the checkpoint Heinrich-Heine-Straße of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
. However, Wiesler decides against alerting the border control police, the "defection" appears to succeed, and the conspirators believe the flat is not bugged.
Wiesler has told himself he will let Dreyman's illegal activity go unreported just this once. But he himself starts to change through his surveillance - he starts to lie in his reports to protect Dreyman, as well as reducing surveillance hours in order to eliminate his assistant. Realising how empty his own life is, Wiesler steals a book by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
off Dreyman's desk and reads it himself.
Eventually, Dreyman and his friends publish the article on unreported suicides, enraging the East German State. Through an agent in Der Spiegels offices, the Stasi obtains a copy of the typed manuscript and realizes that it was written on an unregistered typewriter with red ink. At the same time, Hempf is livid at being jilted by Sieland and orders Grubitz to destroy her. Grubitz arrests Sieland, appearing at the dentists office as she buys her drugs. Threatened with the end of her acting career, Sieland reveals Dreyman's authorship of the article. Their flat is torn apart by a Stasi search team, which fails to find the hidden typewriter.
Grubitz orders Wiesler to interrogate Sieland, warning him that failure will cost them both. Sieland recognizes him as the man from the bar, tells him where the typewriter is hidden, and agrees to become a Stasi informant. Dreyman's apartment is searched again, but Wiesler has already left the prison, ostensibly to obtain the evidence. Before Dreyman or the search team arrive, he breaks in and removes the typewriter from the apartment.
Grubitz returns with several police officers and lifts up the floorboards where Dreyman has hidden the typewriter, finding only sawdust. Seeing the horrified look on Dreyman's face as he realises she disclosed its location, a guilt-ridden Sieland runs out of the apartment into the street, and steps into the path of an oncoming truck. Wiesler is anguished as he witnesses her death. Dreyman runs downstairs to Sieland, who dies in his arms. Dreyman weeps inconsolably as Grubitz offers a polite but perfunctory claim of sympathy. He ends the surveillance of Dreyman's apartment.
Grubitz has figured out that Wiesler obstructed the investigation and tells Wiesler that he is being demoted to "Department M," a dead-end assignment where disgraced agents tediously steam open letters, and that he will be there until he retires in 20 years. As they part, we see that a headline in the newspaper Grubitz has been reading announces that Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
has become the leader of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Four years and eight months later, Wiesler is indeed steaming open letters in a dank, windowless office, when a co-worker listening to radio news tells him of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Wiesler understands that this means the end of the Stasi; he gets up and leaves, followed silently by his coworkers. Two years later, after the German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, Hempf and Dreyman have a chance encounter. Dreyman asks Hempf why he was never under surveillance, unlike his friends and colleagues. Hempf, still humiliated after all these years at losing Sieland to the playwright, tells Dreyman contemptuously that despite being a favored artist, he was under full surveillance after all. After uncovering the wires and miniature microphones in his apartment, Dreyman goes to the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives to read file upon file of the Stasi's surveillance of his life with Sieland. He figures out that Sieland was released from police interrogation just before the second search, and that she could not have had enough time to remove the typewriter. Seeing a fingerprint in red ink on the final typewritten report from Stasi Agent "HGW XX/7," he realizes that a secret policeman had knowingly covered up his authorship of the suicide article. Deeply moved, Dreyman succeeds in locating Wiesler and watches from a distance as the former secret policeman goes about his new job, delivering leaflets. He cannot bring himself to approach Wiesler.
Two more years pass. While delivering leaflets one day, Wiesler passes a bookstore and sees a display of Dreyman's new novel, "Sonate vom Guten Menschen" in the window. He goes in, opens a copy of the book, and discovers that it is dedicated "To HGW XX/7, with gratitude". As Wiesler purchases the book, the sales clerk asks if he wants it gift-wrapped. Wiesler responds, "No, it's for me."
Production
Henckel von Donnersmarck's parents were both from East Germany. He has said that, on visits there as a child before the Berlin WallBerlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
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 movie scenario for a film class. He was listening to music and recalled Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
's saying that Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
's favorite piece of music was Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Appassionata
Piano Sonata No. 23 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 is a piano sonata. It is considered one of the three great piano sonatas of his middle period . It was composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, and was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick...
. Gorky recounted a discussion with Lenin:
Donnersmarck told a The New York Times reporter: "I suddenly had this image in my mind of a person sitting in a depressing room with earphones on his head and listening in to what he supposes is the enemy of the state and the enemy of his ideas, and what he is really hearing is beautiful music that touches him. I sat down and in a couple of hours had written the treatment
Film treatment
A film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
." The screenplay was written during an extended visit to his uncle's monastery, Heiligenkreuz Abbey
Heiligenkreuz Abbey
Heiligenkreuz Abbey is a Cistercian monastery in the village of Heiligenkreuz in the southern part of the Vienna woods, c. 13 km north-west of Baden in Lower Austria...
.
Donnersmarck had difficulty getting financing for the film. Podhoretz speculated that the reason was a reluctance on the part of the film industry to confront the horrors of East German Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, although he says it is rich with dramatic possibilities. That may also explain why the organizers of the Berlin Film Festival refused to accept it as an official entry for 2006, the critic wrote.
Prior to his death, Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
was said to be directing a possible Hollywood remake of the film.
Critical reception
The film was received with widespread acclaim, film aggregateReview aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services . This system stores the reviews and then uses them for purposes such as: creating a website for users to view the reviews, selling information to third parties about consumer tendencies and creating databases for...
site Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports a 93% "Fresh" rating, based on 139 positive reviews out of 149.
American journalist John Podhoretz
John Podhoretz
John Podhoretz is an American neoconservative columnist for the New York Post, the editor of Commentary magazine, the author of several books on politics, and a former presidential speechwriter.-Life and career:...
called the film "one of the greatest movies ever made, and certainly the best film of this decade." William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
wrote in his syndicated column that after the film was over, "I turned to my companion and said, 'I think that this is the best movie I ever saw'." John J. Miller
John J. Miller
John J. Miller is the national political reporter for National Review and contributor to its Web component, National Review Online...
of National Review Online named it #1 in his list of 'The Best Conservative Movies' of the last 25 years.
A review in Daily Variety by Derek Elley noted the "slightly stylized look" of the movie created by "playing up grays and dour greens, even when using actual locations like the Stasi's onetime HQ in Normannenstrasse."
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #2. Corliss praised the film as a "poignant, unsettling thriller."
Film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film four stars, describing it as "a powerful but quiet film, constructed of hidden thoughts and secret desires."
Subtle treatment
Several critics pointed to the film's subtle building up of details as one of its prime strengths.The film is built for "on layers of emotional texture", wrote Stephanie Zacharek in Salon online magazine. "von Donnersmarck seizes upon telling details: In one sequence, as Minister Hempf paws at a female conquest, we get a flash of his giant white underpants, a touch that would be funny if it weren't so subliminally horrific."
At another point in the movie, the main character, Wiesler, becomes enchanted by and sympathetic to the couple he is listening in on. "Wiesler's response to those feelings [...] move in on him imperceptibly, with very little telegraphing, making them that much more convincing," Zacharek writes. Podhoretz, reviewing the movie in The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
, ascribes the subtleness of Wiesler's response to Mühe, the actor playing him: "That scene [...] is limned with extraordinary stillness and compressed emotion by Ulrich Mühe, an actor heretofore unknown outside Germany who gives a performance so perfect in this, and every other moment in the film, that it's almost beyond words." Josh Rosenblatt, writing in the Austin Chronicle made the same point: "Like all great screen performances, Mühe's magic comes out most in its tiniest moments: a raised eyebrow here, a slight upturn of the lips there. It's a triumph of muted grandeur [...]"
Lisa Schwarzbaum, writing in Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
, pointed out that some of the subtlety in the movie comes from the audience watching as characters are shown not taking action so much as being confronted by the action around them: "Some of the movie's tensest moments take place with the most minimal of action — Wiesler simply listening through headphones, Dreyman simply lying on his bed, a neighbor simply looking through a door peephole, her whole life contingent on what she does about what she sees. In those nerve-racking pauses (handled by a strong, understated cast), Henckel von Donnersmarck conveys everything he wants us to know about choice, fear, doubt, cowardice, and heroism."
An article in First Things
First Things
First Things is an ecumenical journal focused on creating a "religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society". The journal is inter-denominational and inter-religious, representing a broad intellectual tradition of Christian and Jewish critique of contemporary society...
makes a philosophical argument in defense of Wiesler's transformation.
The East German dissident songwriter Wolf Biermann
Wolf Biermann
Karl Wolf Biermann is a German singer-songwriter and former East German dissident.-Early life:Biermann's father, who worked on the Hamburg docks, was a German Jew and a member of the German Resistance....
was guardedly enthusiastic about the film, writing in a March 2006 article in Die Welt: "The political tone is authentic, I was moved by the plot. But why? 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 1965 and denaturalisation in 1976."
Characterisation
A.O. Scott, reviewing the film in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, 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."
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
movie critic Kenneth Turan agreed that the dramatic tension of the film comes from being "meticulously plotted", and that "it places its key characters in high-stakes predicaments where what they are forced to wager is their talent, their very lives, even their soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
s." The movie "convincingly demonstrates that when done right, moral and political quandaries can be the most intensely dramatic dilemmas of all."
Zacharek, Scott, Podhoretz and Turan all make the point that although the film gives a powerful, subtle depiction of the corruption at the core of the East German state, it is focused on how people can rise above the moral corruption in which they're sometimes placed. As Podhoretz puts it, the movie is "a character study in the guise of a stunning suspense thriller."
Criticism
Slavoj ŽižekSlavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
, reviewing the film for In These Times
In These Times
In These Times is a politically progressive monthly magazine of news and opinion published by the Institute for Public Affairs in Chicago...
, wrote that it softpedals the oppressiveness of the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
, as when a dissident confronts the minister of culture and doesn't seem to face any consequences for it. Žižek also says the character of the playwright is simply too naive to be believable: "One cannot but recall here a witty formula of life under a hard Communist regime: Of the three features — personal honesty, sincere support of the regime and intelligence — it was possible to combine only two, never all three. [...] The problem with Dreyman is that he does combine all three features."
Although the opening scene of the film is set in Hohenschönhausen prison (which is now the site of a memorial dedicated to the victims of Stasi oppression), the movie could not be filmed there because Hubertus Knabe, the director of the memorial, refused to give Donnersmarck permission. Knabe objected to "making the Stasi man into a hero" and tried to persuade Donnersmarck to change the movie. Donnersmarck cited Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
as an example of such a plot development being possible. Knabe's answer: "But that is exactly the difference. There was a Schindler
Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively.He is the subject of the...
. There was no Wiesler."
Anna Funder
Anna Funder
Anna Funder is an Australian writer who grew up in Melbourne. She studied creative writing at the University of Melbourne, also later studying at the Free University of Berlin as the recipient in 1994 of a DAAD Scholarship...
, the author of a book about the Stasi (Stasiland
Stasiland
Stasiland: Oh Wasn't it so Terrible - True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall Stasiland: Oh Wasn't it so Terrible - True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall Stasiland: Oh Wasn't it so Terrible - True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall (Stasiland: Ach, war es nicht so schrecklich - Wahre...
), wrote in a review of the movie for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
that it was not possible for a Stasi operative to have hidden much information from superiors because Stasi employees themselves were watched and operated in teams, seldom if ever working alone. She noted that in his "Director's statement", Donnersmarck wrote, "More than anything else, The Lives of Others is a human drama about the ability of human beings to do the right thing, no matter how far they have gone down the wrong path." Funder replied: "This is an uplifting thought. But what is more likely to save us from going down the wrong path again is recognising how human beings can be trained and forced into faceless systems of oppression, in which conscience is extinguished." Nevertheless, Funder said, the movie is a "superb film" despite not being true to reality.
Awards and nominations
- Australian Film Critics AssociationAustralian Film Critics AssociationThe Australian Film Critics Association or AFCA is an Australian film critic organisation.-History:Formed in 1996, AFCA began as the Melbourne Film Critics’ Forum, expanding to a national organisation in 2004...
2007 Film Awards- Best Overseas Film (commendation)
- 79th Academy Awards79th Academy AwardsThe 79th Academy Awards ceremony , honored the best films of 2006 and took place on February 25, 2007 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on ABC. Ellen DeGeneres hosted the ceremony for the first time. The producer was Laura Ziskin. The announcers were Don LaFontaine and Gina Tuttle.The nominees were...
- Best Foreign Language FilmAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language FilmThe Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
winner
- Best Foreign Language Film
- 64th Golden Globe Awards64th Golden Globe AwardsThe 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards were aired on January 15, 2007. Some key dates announced by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are:The ceremony was broadcast live on NBC...
- Best Foreign Language Film nomination
- 61st British Academy Film Awards61st British Academy Film AwardsThe 61st British Academy Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts took place on 10 February 2008, and honoured the best films of 2007.Joe Wright's Atonement won the award for Best Film...
- Best Foreign Language Film
- Best Film nomination
- Best Actor: Ulrich MüheUlrich MüheFriedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
nomination
- César Awards 2007
- Best Foreign FilmCésar Award for Best Foreign FilmThis is the list of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Foreign Film .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
winner
- Best Foreign Film
- Independent Spirit AwardsIndependent Spirit AwardsThe Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
2007- Best Foreign Language Film
- International Film Festival RotterdamInternational Film Festival RotterdamThe International Film Festival Rotterdam is an annual film festival held in various cinemas in Rotterdam, Netherlands held at the end of January. It is approximately comparable in size to other major European festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Locarno...
2007 audience award - Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2006
- Best Foreign-Language Film
- European Film Awards 2006
- Best Film
- Best Actor: Ulrich MüheUlrich MüheFriedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
- Best Screenwriter: Florian Henckel von DonnersmarckFlorian Henckel von DonnersmarckFlorian Maria Georg Christian, Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck is a German film director, best known for writing and directing the 2007 Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others and the 2010 film The Tourist.-Personal life and family:...
- German Film Awards 2006
- Best Film
- Best Actor
- Best Supporting Actor
- Best Director
- Best Cinematography
- Best Production Design
- Best Screenplay
- Palm Springs International Film FestivalPalm Springs International Film FestivalPalm Springs International Film Festival is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. It was started in 1989 and is held annually in January...
2007 Audience Choice Award - Vancouver International Film FestivalVancouver International Film FestivalThe Vancouver International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for two weeks in late September and early October...
2006 People's Choice Award - Montreal Festival du Nouveau CinémaFestival du Nouveau CinémaThe Festival du Nouveau Cinéma was known as the Montreal Festival of New Cinema and New Media until 2004. Founded in 1971, by Claude Chamberlan and Dimitri Eipides, it is an annual independent film festival held in Montreal and features independent films from around the world...
2006 People's Choice Award - London Film FestivalLondon Film FestivalThe BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...
2006 Satyajit RaySatyajit RaySatyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Award - Zagreb Film Festival 2006
- Best Film
- Audience Award
- Copenhagen International Film FestivalCopenhagen International Film FestivalCopenhagen International Film Festival is a film festival held in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was first held in 2003, and is held annually. The main award at the Copenhagen International Film Festival is the Golden Swan, which will be awarded for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best...
2006- Best Male Actor
- Audience Award
- Seville Film Festival 2006 Silver Giraldillo
- Locarno International Film FestivalLocarno International Film FestivalThe Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...
2006 Audience Award - Warsaw International Film FestivalWarsaw International Film FestivalWarsaw International Film Festival , also known as the Warsaw FilmFest, is a film festival held every October in Warsaw, Poland. The festival has been held every year since 1985....
2006 Audience Award - Bavarian Film Awards 2006
- Best Actor: Ulrich Mühe
- Best Newcomer Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
- Best Screenplay: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
- VGF Producer Prize: Wiedemann & Berg
Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' lists of the ten best films of 2007.- 1st - James BerardinelliJames BerardinelliJames Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
, ReelViews - 1st - Shawn LevyShawn Anthony LevyShawn Anthony Levy is an American film critic, author and blogger.Born in New York City, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Irvine, Levy has been the film critic of The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Oregon since 1997. He is a former Senior Editor...
, The OregonianThe OregonianThe Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850... - 2nd - EmpireEmpire (magazine)Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
- 2nd - Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle
- 2nd - Michael SragowMichael SragowMichael Sragow is a film critic and columnist who has written for The Baltimore Sun, The New Times, The New Yorker , The Atlantic and salon.com...
, The Baltimore SunThe Baltimore SunThe Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.... - 2nd - Richard Corliss, TIME magazineTime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
- 3rd - Rene Rodriguez, The Miami HeraldThe Miami HeraldThe Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States...
- 4th - David Ansen, NewsweekNewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
- 4th - Stephen Holden, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- 5th - Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun Times
- 5th - Liam Lacey and Rick Groen, The Globe and MailThe Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
- 5th - Owen GleibermanOwen GleibermanOwen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
, Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture... - 7th - Christy Lemire, Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
- 7th - Tasha Robinson, The A.V. ClubThe A.V. ClubThe A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
- 8th - A.O. Scott, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
(tied with Michael ClaytonMichael Clayton (film)Michael Clayton is a 2007 American drama film written and directed by Tony Gilroy, starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and Sydney Pollack...
) - 8th - Kyle SmithKyle SmithKyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....
, New York PostNew York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
Libel suit
Donnersmarck and Ulrich Mühe were successfully sued for libel for an interview 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 that Mühe's former wife denied the claims, although 254 pages' worth of government records detailed her activities.Proposed remake
In February 2007, Sydney PollackSydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
and Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....
announced a deal with The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company is an American film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after the brothers left the then-Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979...
to produce and direct an English-language remake of The Lives of Others. Minghella died in March 2008 and Pollack died less than three months after Minghella's death.
Literature and music
- Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: Das Leben der anderen. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-518-45786-1
- Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck: Das Leben der anderen. Geschwärzte Ausgabe. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-518-45908-2
- A piano sonataPiano sonataA piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...
("Sonata for a Good Man") is used as the main transformation point of the StasiStasiThe Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
Agent Gerd Wiesler. In the film, the score doesn't carry the name of the composer, as it is original music written for the film by Gabriel YaredGabriel YaredGabriel Yared is a Lebanese composer, best known for his work in French and American cinema.Born in Beirut, Lebanon, his work in France included the scores for Betty Blue and Camille Claudel. He later began working on English language films, particularly those directed by Anthony Minghella...
. - A text by BrechtBrechtBrecht is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises the towns of Brecht proper, Sint-Job-in't-Goor and Sint-Lenaarts. On January 1, 2006 Brecht had a total population of 26,464...
, "Memory of Marie A", is quoted in the film in a scene in which Wiesler reads it on his couch, having stolen it from Dreyman's desk. - The poem "Versuch es" by Wolfgang BorchertWolfgang BorchertWolfgang Borchert was a German author and playwright whose work was affected by his experience of dictatorship and his service in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. His work is among the best examples of the Trümmerliteratur movement in post-World War II Germany...
, is set to music in the film and played as Dreyman writes the article about suicide. Borchert was a playwright whose life was destroyed by his experience being drafted into the Wehrmacht in World War II and fighting on the Eastern FrontEastern Front (World War II)The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
.