Says a Stasi interrogator in the 2006 film "The Lives of Others." The "humanistic system" was East Germany.
I just watched for the first time, on the urging of my son John, who warned me that it was about to leave the Criterion Channel. John chose that movie as the best movie of 2006, noted on his blog about the best movies from 1920 to 2020.
William F. Buckley Jr. said it was "the best movie I ever saw."
The director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, got the idea for the movie from Maxim Gorky's description of a conversation he had with Lenin about music:
And screwing up his eyes and chuckling, he added without mirth: 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!
In the movie, a character quotes Lenin — about Beethoven's "Appassionata" —"If I keep listening to it, I won't finish the revolution."
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His movie Never Look Away, inspired by the life of German artist Gerhard Richter, is also very much worth seeing.
It's a great film. I bought a copy a few years ago and I watch it at least once every year.
I feel like we used to have fewer activists, but now that colleges and universities see themselves as activist factories, we're overrun with them. Even in the 60s [and perhaps I'm wrong], the true believers in various causes had time for other amusements, and often those amusements, particularly music, were seen as part of the movement. Over time, however, the hypocrisy of such enjoyment became unbearable, lest they not finish the revolution. Now, since literally everything is part of the problem, the activists truly can't enjoy anything, so why bother. The revolution is all that matters.
A must-see inspiring movie is Sophie Scholl: The Last Days, based on actual transcripts of her interrogation and trial after the arrest of Sophie and her brother Hans, members of the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance group, when they got caught distributing pamphlets on campus.
Best movie I have ever seen about the East German system. Florian von Donnersmark said that he had relatives in the East that his family would visit from time to time. As a child he was shocked at the brutal authority that the border guards asserted against his mother, who was a very big figure in his life. He knew from the way they treated her, and her reaction to it, that the East was brutal and soulless. Hence his idea for the film.
Could a Stasi man have his soul awakened by listening in to the lives of others who in their own narrow way were trying to keep their humanity alive? It is a beautiful, hopeful film with superb performances by Ulrich Muhe (who lived and performed in the East until the wall fell), Sebastian Koch, and Martina Gedeck.
I have two generic toasts that I offer at dinner parties: To Liberty and then To Art. This movie makes the argument that they are related in the human soul.
Extremely good movie, Lives of Others.
Run Lola Run. Visceral but also cerebral. S/b right up AA's alley.
It's a GREAT movie. the Ludovico Technique in “A Clockwork Orange”, should be used to make everyone watch it. Irony is what we live for.
Lurker21--I totally agree. Althouse should love it with her art background.
It was a great movie. I think back on it often over the last few years. Particularly during covid when our own neighbors or school officials or strangers in a store felt compelled to 'turn us in' for not wearing a mask or for not getting the vaccine. I see it regularly in how people are removed from jobs, turned in by other fellow employees, for not having 'correct think'.
It's amazing how easily people will fall into working with the State to turn in their own neighbors, friends, family. A totalitarian state depends on it.
I loved the quote you selected from Lenin, who was a mean sonofabitch. "...though in the ideal we are against doing any violence to people." Yes, of course. They all tell themselves that.
I found boring and cliche-ridden.
yes, that was a Very Good movie (that i watched 'cause your son mentioned it: thanx!)
The Only Downside, it that i had thought it was about Germany in (about) the '70's..
but, it turns out; it's about America (and the Whole world) in the mid to late 2020's
If people, would Just Realize;
that true patriotism comes from mindlessly and blindly OBEYING The State in Every thing and Every way,
Things would be MUCH easier for our guards and (more importantly) our Masters
The State OWNS us. We EXIST To Serve
The best movie I have seen in many years. Admittedly, I haven't seen many. But it's so meticulous. The Stasi agent who catches a woman watching him breaking into the apartment next door and says "If you say anything about this, your daughter can kiss her university slot goodbye"; the guy who tells a feeble joke about Honecker and ends up in the same opening-mail gig as the protagonist.
Even in the 60s [and perhaps I'm wrong], the true believers in various causes had time for other amusements, and often those amusements, particularly music, were seen as part of the movement.
Sure, it was part of the youth culture, the adversarial culture, the radical critique. But the students of the day also had a love for the Marx Brothers and Humphrey Bogart and maybe a few other rebellious icons from the past.
Rebellion and the youth culture and the cult of the critical, disillusioned outsider all became part of the mainstream culture. They aren't really adversarial anymore. They've been co-opted by the established order.
Maybe Generation Zed or whatever young people are now became so cynical about everything out there that the only response they felt was available to them was to become single-minded, grimly determined, humorless and heartbreakingly naive.
When the millennials were young, they liked Barney and anything so stupid and insipid that their parents couldn't enjoy it "ironically" or pretend that it was cool and take it away from them.
The star, Ulrich Mühe, had been an East German actor who had participated in protests and had trouble with the Stasi himself. He was also ill during the filming and died of cancer shortly after the film was released. All that added up to a very fine performance.
"Theatre was the only place in the GDR where people weren't lied to. For us actors it was an island. We could dare to criticise." -- Ulrich Mühe
sounds like the new dhs political officer for dezinforma, in cuba there was the little tail, that told you to dismiss any opposition journal like the diario de la marina, you could say orwell mimed o'briens lecture to winston smith, based on these experience, also rubashov in darkness at noon,
Haven't felt at ease sitting on a removable seat cushion since I first saw it.
"If you say anything about this, your daughter can kiss her university slot goodbye." My wife grew up in the Eastern Blok. Her mother was told by her teachers that if she had my wife baptized she would never be able to go to college. I have no doubt that there are many in the US today who would be OK with that sentiment.
I watched the movie several years ago. It was OK. It was not the best movie I ever saw.
Real American said...Over time, however, the hypocrisy of such enjoyment became unbearable, lest they not finish the revolution. Now, since literally everything is part of the problem, the activists truly can't enjoy anything,
The 60’s radicals had a sense of humor. Today, you can never risk being seen as not caring, which means never dropping the outrage. At least not on camera.
Ulrich Muehe's performance in that movie is right up there with the most amazing I've seen. The subtlety, and how he could show the audience just a little while concealing so much.
But I have to admire Ulrich Tukur's skill in playing the loathsome, self-serving Lt. Col. Grubitz. I hated the character, but the performance was brilliant. The ruthlessness, the petty enjoyment in terrifying 2LT Newbie, telling him he was just messing with him, and then destroying his career anyway; the glee at having figured out how you get people like Dreyman never to write again.
I read he played John Rabe in a movie about Nanking. Still need to see that one. It doesn't look like fun, but I should still see it.
I can't believe the Prof, a law prof and cinephile, never saw this one. One of a few foreign classics I'd watch again.
Maybe soon.
I thought the movie was excellent. One of those movies that sticks with you. As someone mentioned above, the joke in the cafeteria scene stands out. You can find it on YouTube.
Sadly, the Stasi are now just regular citizens with cell phones and Twitter accounts. Whenever I eat out with a fellow conservative, it's instinctive for us to look around occasionally, to see if someone is listening. That scene in the movie reminded me of the genuine paranoia that permeates this country.
There are so few truly good movies about Communism (putting aside the ones that romanticize it, like Reds). Before The Lives of Others, the movie that most helped me understand the nature of Communism was The Killing Fields. But even that movie had a subtle anti-American perspective, as if we were responsible for the Khmer Rouge. And it ended with the song Imagine - gag on that irony.
When you're done with that, read "The Joke" by Milan Kundera.
I watched that movie a few years ago based upon the recommendation of one of your commenters. I can’t remember who it was, mockturtle maybe? I’m so glad I did. My husband enjoyed it also.
On our 2019 Elbe river cruise, our Wittenberg tour guide--probably in his 60s-- told us that he had only had menial work under the Reds because he was a Christian (presumably Lutheran). Up the river a few days later the guide in Dresden--probably fifty-something--told us that as a Catholic she had not been allowed to attend university.
She said that she was arrested for protesting in '89, and mistreated: put in stress positions, denied food and water or access to toilets, u.s.w. Pointed to the Polizei HQ as we passed, and commented that many of the men who abused them then were senior policemen now.
Sounded familiar.
hhardin said...
I found boring and cliche-ridden.
**************
As do we, you.
As it happens I was perusing my DVDs to find something to rewatch a half hour ago. Great movies for me tend a little more whimsical, and some action films that aren't dreary formulas
Stranger than Fiction (2006)
Eagle vs Shark (2007)
Harry Brown (2009)
Mr. Right (2015)
Bad Words (2013)
The accountant (2016)
Danny Deckchair (2003)
The Guard (2011)
Ghost Town (2008)
In a Day (2006)
The Foreigner (2017)
Get Smart (2008)*
Live Die Repeat (2014) (Edge of Tomorrow)
Last Chance Harvey (2008)
Closed Circuit (2013)
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
The Intern (2015)
In Harmony (2015)
* a nice point outside of the gags
There are many good standard romcoms but they're standard romcoms as well.
I saw that movie when it came out. It was quite an attention grabber then. It was a (and probably still Is a) stunning and crisp story about a world that we only imagined.
I haven't seen it since, but its stressful feel is hard to get rid of.
I call it a masterpiece. The socialism depicted in the movie depicts the goals and motivations of socialists and leftists everywhere, at all times.
rhhardin's list of movies is the saddest thing I've ever seen. Expand your horizons, friend.
On a related theme, Bridge of Spies -- the Spielberg movie with Tom Hanks, going back to the Francis Gary Powers U2 incident -- was also very good, I thought. More mainstream so most have probably already seen it; maybe I'm ready to take a second look at it.
wait a Minute!! People, Don't y'all SEE what is missing here?
WHERE is Robert Cook's view? He is STRANGELY absent. I WANT to hear His Views on this!!!
i WANT to hear Him say: "well, only a radical rightist would think the Stasi are leftists
“ I can't believe the Prof, a law prof and cinephile, never saw this one. One of a few foreign classics I'd watch again.”
In recent years, I haven’t watched that many movies. I kind of have to force myself. I can appreciate them though.
Tom Hanks had a nice speech in Bridge of Spies, namely on what makes us all Americans, and it's that we agree to the rules, and the rules are the Constitution. If you don't do that, you're not an American; if you do, you are. In putting down a CIA agent wanting inside dope on his client.
Hanks himself apparently didn't believe it but the speech was insightful. Apply to people who don't like free speech, or drawing cartoons of the prophet.
"a character quotes Lenin — about Beethoven's "Appassionata" —"If I keep listening to it, I won't finish the revolution.""
American progs share the sentiment, and go Lenin one better: listening to his music is not just antievolutionary but an act of white supremacy. Who will make the movie about the wokeification of the American arts establishment?
“The Lives of Others” is available on AMZN Prime for $2.99.
Other than the icepick, how was the movie, Mrs. Trotsky?
“I found boring and cliche-ridden.”
Shorter Hardin, “No tits!”
I have rewatched the post-wall sequence in the last scenes a number of times on YouTube. So moving.
Bringing "Lives" into the present, the Biden regime is creating the Ministry of Truth. But since that title is already taken the Department of Homeland Security is calling it the "Disinformation Governance Board"
RLR was mentioned. The director and for a time the lover of its star Franka Potente was the director Tom Tykwer. Tykwer has an active intelligence and the capacity to put interesting stories together.
I re-encountered his work fairly recently in Babylon Berlin. Sometimes the 26 episodes rise to greatness, but they are always interesting. I like the dynamics very much of this extract.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30PPdLTLlko
One of the attractions for movie buffs on our '19 trip was the bridge in Potsdam used for "Bridge of Spies." Since my wife and I hadn't seen the movie (maybe someday) the lore wasn't of that much interest to us--just a delay in getting to Sans Souci.
The locals apparently had to be bribed and cozened to allow the movie crew to close the bridge for . . . however long. It made for enormous detours, but hey, it was A Spielberg/Hanks Movie!
I enjoyed the classroom lectures about interrogation techniques, which described in detail, step by step, how to take anyone, innocent or guilty, and produce the desired result of finding them guilty. Seemed a bit unfair, but hey, it produced the desired result. Every time. Guaranteed. Who can argue against such a successful process?
I pair The Lives of Others with Absence of Malice. When I think of one, I think of the other. One is invasive government; the other is invasive media. Absence of Malice really shows how destructive the media can be while feeling very comfortable about themselves. We've never had a movie about the Twitter/Facebook people who destroyed lives by banning but I've always pictured them as like the reporter Sally Fields plays.
I can recall some agitprop anti-Commie movies with Bond villains and grandiose evil deeds, but, so far as I can recall, this is the only movie that details the nuts and bolts of how how a totalitarian state is run and how it relentlessly grinds its participants down. The criticism that the movie is dull is valid, but dullness was both a tool and a goal of Stasi operatives. Boredom with an undercurrent of apprehension....I suppose East Germany wasn't quite as nasty as the Nazi state, but neither was it an alternative to fascism. The totalitarian impulse exists in both the left and the right. There's not that many good movies about the totalitarian impulse as it exists on the left. That's what so distinguishes this movie.
"maybe I'm ready to take a second look at it."
Would it help?
Visited the Stasi museum in Leipzig about a decade ago. Really interesting. Had all sorts of Bond like spy equipment on display and also was in the actual building where there's such a sad history (and a records room for people to look up their portfolio).
What stuck with me the most was the description of their common tactics to not openly oppress people but to just subtly make it seem like they had the worst luck and things in their life just never worked out. Extremely effective as direct persecution evokes a sense of martyrdom, but long term inability for things to work out works its way deep into a person's sense of self.
“Barbara” is another great film about the world of constant surveillance and informers in East Germany, 1980. With Nina Hoss, a magnificent actress.
It is a great movie. If anyone doesn’t like it, that alone should justify...uh, never mind.
In 1980 I was permitted to travel to Lithuania, then captive to the USSR. It was a limited tour group of civil engineers and urban planners, with the purpose connecting with their peers in Vilnius and sharing ideas. We were nearly always accompanied by InTourist guides.
My wife was born in America, but had close relatives in Vilnius. We were allowed to travel alone, without the group, to visit them. But we were followed, at a distance. At one point, our driver did some quick turns and lost the tail car, which was one of cheap, ordinary variety. Within minutes an expensive sedan pulled up close behind us, and stayed there, following closely on our bumper, until the regular tail car caught up and resumed surveillance.
I counted at least 5 agents being employed to keep close tabs on me that day. I never realized I was so important.
You can't imagine the subtle horrors of living under communism until you've seen it. The Lives of Others is great, but the reality is much more.
Yeah, Buckley used his influence to get a guy off who kidnapped, raped, and stomped a teen's brain to bits as she walked home from a girlfriend's house. He was found washing her blood off his clothes. After Mr. Elite pseudo-conservative sprung this animal by demonizing decent police, the animal publicly announced that he had snookered Buckley and went back to pulling women off the street and violently assaulting them. He was caught after one victim escaped.
Even Norman Mailer apologized after his pet murderer was sprung and killed again. Buckley refused to apologize, and National Review employees, spineless wonders that they are, are forbidden to discuss this.
I hope both the patron and murderer are burning in hell.
so why not call it a vast network of NeighborhoodWatch? soon coming to near me everywhere
what marks/makes the difference? - belief in something called privacy!
Heinlein wrote about his trips (I think there were more than one but I may be misremembering) to the USSR with his wife in the '70s. She took the time to learn Russian before they went - her eighth language or something like that. Of course they were "given" Intourist guides to "improve their holiday."
He wrote that the way to "win" on a trip to a totalitarian country where you can expect everything you hear and see and experience to be a lie is to get more from it than your handlers intended. He gave tips (learning Russian being the most time-consuming) to help other would-be tourists to the USSR "win." And he cautioned his readers that at any point, they might end up disappeared (and described his and his wife's closest call).
He was very Left in his youth. Then he thought about what it all meant and became a "hard Right reactionary" critic of the (soft and hard) Left, because of what the subsuming of the individual within, and in order to serve the needs of, the State does to the human spirit.
"so why not call it a vast network of NeighborhoodWatch? soon coming to near me everywhere"
I talked once to a guy who had gotten out of communist Viet Nam, he said "at least if somebody stole your bicycle, you would have it back in an hour."
Even in the 60s [and perhaps I'm wrong], the true believers in various causes had time for other amusements, and often those amusements, particularly music, were seen as part of the movement.
Advantages and privilege and the revolt against them had something to do with it. Early SDS was very much a White guy thing. Clever, sophisticated young rebels were going to replace the old, boring, provincial guys in cheap suits who were running things. Those rebels saw themselves as cool and irreverent and willing to laugh at how things were. Everybody wanted to be Bogart or James Dean or later, Jack Nicholson.
As time passed though, the contradiction between the idea of revolution from below and the leadership of young men from the top and middle of the social system became apparent. Feminism also made itself/herself felt. So before the radical movement of the 60s had exhausted itself, the young rebels began to feel guilty and the stragglers who remained in the movement might find themselves having to go through struggle sessions to reconcile themselves to the idea that African-Americans might actually be the revolutionary vanguard and the leadership of the movement.
There still was comedy and satire, but it was a lot darker and more bitter.
Even in the 60s [and perhaps I'm wrong], the true believers in various causes had time for other amusements, and often those amusements, particularly music, were seen as part of the movement. Over time, however, the hypocrisy of such enjoyment became unbearable, lest they not finish the revolution. Now, since literally everything is part of the problem, the activists truly can't enjoy anything, so why bother. The revolution is all that matters.
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow...
If you liked Never Look Away, I can recommend The German Lesson, based on Siegfried Lenz's now classic novel. In a more subdued vein, but with a similar theme, there is Andrzej Wajda's Afterimage from Poland.
What is Youtube so afraid of? Election integrity?
YouTube Bans Video Featuring Conservative Expert on Voter Fraud
"...I had thought it was about Germany in (about) the '70's..
but, it turns out; it's about America (and the Whole world) in the mid to late 2020's"
OMG, don't be so ridiculously melodramatic!
There was a New Yorker article 2 or 3 years ago about the director. I think he was 28 or so when he made the movie; it was his first.
Gee, Ann, now you might understand that Trump was in the ultimate fight against this. And was making progress fighting it on behalf of you.
A film well-known amongst we, the typewriter aficionados.
I got to check what I haven’t seen from RHs list.
Thanks
Moneyrunner said...
Bringing "Lives" into the present, the Biden regime is creating the Ministry of Truth. But since that title is already taken the Department of Homeland Security is calling it the "Disinformation Governance Board"
If that's not chilling, nothing is.
I want to see how the left is going to defend this.
A good friend told me that there's a line in the credits which essentially translates as a disclaimer - "There was never a Stasi who showed an ounce of kindness" my paraphrase.
Also, the book is purchased at the Karl Marx Buchhandlung (Bookstore).
Terrific movie - I think about it frequently.
What is the name of your...
My what?
..ball. What's the name of your ball?
"Bringing 'Lives' into the present, the Biden regime is creating the Ministry of Truth. But since that title is already taken the Department of Homeland Security is calling it the 'Disinformation Governance Board'
If that's not chilling, nothing is."
I find this far more chilling.
"Gee, Ann, now you might understand that Trump was in the ultimate fight against this. And was making progress fighting it on behalf of you."
Oh, please.
I know Trump is the all-purpose savior-king for all sorts of disgruntled people, but he did nothing to halt or even mitigate the oppression and violence of over-aggressive, hostile, militarized, often botched and unConstitutional policing in the USA.
All Trump did was bumble Magoo-like into the Grift Train that is late-imperial DC, without a long apprenticeship in ass-kissing and donor-fellating as proper future presidents are supposed to serve.
The professional poligrifters of both wings of the Permawar Uniparty have been springing from their closets ever since, and that's enough of a service for any loud, boorish NYC millionaire in my book.
Certain things were clarified by his tenure in office.
This comment, it's not very good.
VPS: I read the screenplay was inspired by a writer's experience, but the he demanded his name be removed from credits because he disapproved of the portrayal of the Stasi agent.
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