Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
As I was watching The Lives of Others, impressed by the stoic face and the internal performance of Ulrich Mühe, I could not help but think what would it be like if it were an American film. The film is about the struggle of a Stasi agent who is observing a prominent playwright who is the boy friend of the actress coveted by a powerful minister. On the outset it seems similar to Coppola’s The Conversation, wherein Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert. While the reason and outcome of these two characters are different, much of both films deal with the process of surveillance. The Conversation focus quite a lot of its time on the technology and methods of surveillance, through these external materials the character of Harry Caul is constructed. While the same technique is used in The Lives of Others, it does not linger on the external materials. What it relies on instead are the subtle performance of Mühe and the subtext in the conversation between characters. Very little about Mühe’s character Wiesler or any of the Stasi agents are explained. By the way they acted around each other, their relationship and the structure of their world is implicitly communicated to us. Any deviation from this structure is therefore unmistakable since we “comes to understand” this structure through our observation. The same is true with Wiesler. We “come to” see what kind of upright loyal believer of the East German regime. When he hears “Sonata for a Good Man” and cried, it is nothing less than a shock. While the scene is almost entirely motionless, particularly comparing with the frantic style of The Conversation, the contrast between this Wiesler and the previous one is huge, like the distance between 0 and 1. From this point on, there is no melodrama, no explosion of emotion, just a good man making a good decision under impossible conditions. In an American film, there would be a lot of hand banging and probably the destruction of a few mirrors. This is not to say one is superior to the other, but a different in emphasis. Typically in American films, the interests are in the character with empathy the goal. It therefore not only allows but also requires as much audience access to the story and the emotions of the characters. The Lives of Others the interest is in the thinking rather then the emotional journal of the character. It is therefore not empathy that is required but that we understand the reasoning behind the actions. Interestingly, we require a lot less information to accomplish this understanding. It is as if the director believes that if we, the audience, would act as the ‘good man’ and come to the same conclusion as Wiesler if we can just watch the story unfold. Like “Sonata for a Good Man,” it is kind and calm, saying that a good man is not about drama and heroism but the moral decision and actions. We thus do not empathize with Wiesler but stand with him in the end. With that result, Donnersmarck’s film is successful and effective indeed.
posted by Unknown at 11:28 p.m.
4 Comments:
I put my thoughts about The Lives of Others in my blog here. Briefly I thought the film lagged whenever the Wiesberg character was offscreen. Still, overall it was fascinating.
A couple of questions (with spoilers, I hope you don’t mind): at the beginning of the film Wiesberg makes a big point about obtaining a sample of each subject’s sweat, and then bottling the scent “for the dogs”. Did that make any sense to you? It seemed to me that it was something the film intended to return to later, but never did; I actually thought that a payoff for that point might have been cut out of the film. And when would it have been necessary to use dogs? I know they were paranoid about people trying to escape to the West, but if someone gets that far, the Stasi will not be sending its tracking dogs into West Germany.
Another question, did you find it odd that West German citizens would travel to the East so relatively freely? I would have thought they’d be afraid of not being allowed to return.
In the one scene where the writers do their ‘test’ of whether the flat is bugged, and say that they are smuggling the guy out beneath the seats of the car, Wiesberg is about to call it in, and then says something like “no, just this once”. What was his reason for letting it pass? At first I thought that Wiesberg suspected it might be a test, but later he seemed completely surprised that the one guy they were supposed to have smuggled out was still in East Berlin.
Last question, what did you think of the multiple epilogues?
The director was there when I saw the film but I couldn’t stay for the Q&A because I had to run off to another film. But then the projector broke down 20 minutes into the other film, so I wished I had stayed.
Mathew, unless there is some significance (like there is a case where the Stasi actually collected sweat) that we both missed, I think you suspicion that the payoff being drop is a good guess. It could also be an gesture to the absurdity of the situation. The whole thing about it is unclear.
I think the "just this once" case is the first crack of Wiesberg, the first time he breaks from his loyalty and first step of the "good man." He is still uncertain, or not wanting to admit to himself of his change. He did not suspect that it was a test and that becomes the root of the tragedy that comes later.
I am not sure if I know what you mean by the multiple epilogue.
it seems to me that the following was the purpose of revealing to the audience early on that the chair had a feature to collect the smell of the sitter:
later, when we see christa-maria sit in the chair, it creates two things, 1. in the audience, a feeling of a hightened sense of danger for christa-maria, and 2. dramatic irony -- we know what feature the chair holds (as well as what her crying means versus her becoming upset), but she does not.
after that, we follow wiesberg taken to the chair; this time, he, too, knows what feature the chair contains, but he also knows (and his interrogator, having witnessed wiesberg's lecture in the beginning, knows-that-wiesberg-knows) which emotional responses during interrogation imply guilt, and which innocence (crying and calm versus anger).
i disagree that the payoff was cut out; i believe the increased intensity of these scenes was the payoff.
also, i don't think the man from Speigel "came and went relatively freely" into and out of east germany -- it was discovered later on that he had used a fake name, and obviously went out of his way to "shake" the stasi from his trail, seeing as how they lost track of him before he arrived at the georg's apartment.
lastly, i believe the reason why wiesberg allowed the action to pass "just this once" (which of course was not just that once) was because it was after his significant inner change -- after the play of "sonata for a good man". early on, he, like the minister, is enchanted by christa-maria, and jealous her devotion to georg (certainly all the while knowing that he is not "satisfying" her, as they understand it), and so they feel even more justified in attempting to establish his downfall (while believing themselves heroes for their desire to save christa-maria). but once wiesler has surveyed the couple significantly, and heard them share their troubles, heard georg play that piece, knowingly heard him choose to overlook her infidelity -- he begins to love the couple as a couple, and overcomes his envy. he has already gone from seeing socialism as the "right side" to seeing what the couple strives for, the way in which they function, as the "right side," and that is also why later when he is asked if he is still "on the right side," he is able to, after an exceptionally brief hesitation, answer, honestly, "yes".
In response to the orginal post --
I am very impressed and interested by your comparison of The Lives of Others with The Conversation, a film I have not yet seen. I also agree that it likely would have been handled very differently if it had been an "American film," in the general use of the term (as surely there must be notable exceptions to the implications of the term), and what I believe I loved best about it was the way in which the story was told in such a "European sensibility".
However, I do not fully agree with your comment on the characters' journeys being through "thoughts" as opposed to "emotions". I think you had it when you commented on externals and actions, however, as my view was that it was directed with what is more commonly scene in theatre directing as opposed to film directing -- a focus on external actions revealing internal changes, rather than the words of the characters explaining all of the inner changes to the audience... which I feel is more common in American film -- something like un underestimation (at least I hope) of the audience's ability to figure out for themselves the inner changes that must have occurred leading to the changes in character values as demonstrated through action.
I am grateful to have stumbled upon your blog while searching the browser (perhaps I should inform you it is the number-one return when one searches for "Sonata for a Good Man), and I look forward to watching The Conversation so that I, too, may enjoy the similaries and contrasts.
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