Film Notes: The Lives of Others

Tonight I saw "The Lives of Others" a German film (original release date March 2006) that shows how the secret police, the Stasi, of the former East German Democratic Republic spied on its citizens, compromising, if not ruining their sense of purpose and moral integrity, especially if they were writers and artists. The basic rule to follow is either play along with the secret police, or if not, then face the prospect to not play at all--face silence, neglect, imprisonment, relegation to the margins of the society, and for some artistic death is tantamount to spiritual death, and they commit suicide.

This film won 7 Deutscher Filmpreis awards and the American Academy Award for best foreign film. This is quite a dark film, relieved with some humorous scenes on occasion, but dark in showing how everyone becomes morally compromised in the net of a society founded on mistrust. A lighter look at the East German past is available in the film, Good Bye Lenin (2003).

There are two heroes to the film, not heroes in a monumental, but on a mundane level, who both act when their sense of conscience prompts them to act in a humane way. First, there is the playwright and writer Georg Dreyman, a darling of the state, who writes plays made to order for the socialist government, and in the opening scenes of the film, we see scenes of what looks like a play that focuses on the heroism of a woman laborer in the factory. But a Stasi officer in the audience, Gerd Wiesler, senses something is amiss in the play, even though it seems on the surface to adhere to all the conventions expected of it. And actually it turns out that Wiesler indeed has an acute sense for ferreting out subversion however subtle its hints: he senses it's not the play itself that is the problem, but what it reveals about the director--that he would dare allow a friend, a director who had been punished, jailed for subversion, direct it. This is evidence enough that Dreyman is himself drifting in the direction of subversion.

Ironically, Dreyman regards this act as a simply a gesture of kindness to a friend in need, and not as a political act in any sense. But Gerd's hunch that something is amiss with the reliable writer of state is shared by the chief of the intelligence, who is also in the audience, and Dreyman's apartment is promptly wiretapped. All his conversations are recorded by Wiesler and his associate in the attic above it. Ironically, however, Gerd finds nothing suspicious to report: Dreyman remains a loyal servant for the state; at a party with friends, he dismisses an accusation by his director friend that someone at the party is a secret police informer.

What pushes Dreyman over the edge to question his allegiance to the state and dissent against it is the mistreatment of his friends at the hands of the secret police. His girlfriend, Christa Marie Sieland happens to catch the eye of the chief of the secret police, and the chief cannot resist the temptation to force himself on her sexually, a fact which shakes up Dreyman when he learns about it. This abuse of power, and then the suicide of his former mentor and director who has been silenced by the state pushes him over the edge. He decides to write an article about suicide in East Germany and how the government doesn't publish any statistics on it.

Gerd, who has been listening in on Dreyman, also begins to doubt the state and its ideals he has served selflessly and loyally. The fact that the chief of the secret police has sexually forced himself on Dreyman's girlfriend causes him to question his own institution, the more so because he must leave out his chief's vile practice out of the official transcripts of what Dreyman and all his friends and associates said or did. Gerd realizes that the secret police is corrupt and morally bankrupt. To provide some context, we are told it's 1984, and in only another five years the Berlin Wall will fall, and in the intervening years the hold of the corrupt regimes in Eastern Bloc states like East Germany will begins to unravel.

To say more about the film's plot would give it away. The theme of the film is how loyal servants of the corrupt regimes in the police and arts begin to sense the moral bankruptcy of their government and state are moved to act against it. The quality of the film itself is made with intentionally grainy film in many shots, as if it were made using the available film technology of the 1980s. (If you don't know what year a film is made, you can usually discern if it was made some time in the mid-90s or later by the higher quality of its resolution and color range, thanks to digital production.) Also, the film is generally sombre in its use of color: often the action takes place in night, or in dimly lit rooms, interrogation rooms and eavesdropping rooms. Gerd's apartment room looks like an ascetic cell of a monk with its bare furnishings and absence of any art on the walls. There is not much sunlight in this world, and the weather outside is overcast and a perpetually barren and cold late fall or early spring.

The chief actors--Dreyman, Gerd, Sieland--are first rate. I can't recall the last film that moved me so much but in such a subtle manner with its powerful message. Personally, the film reverberated very strongly, prompting me to ask myself whether I haven't allowed myself to stray too far from engaging in more work that I find meaningful to me. It also made me think about the fact that other former Communist satellite states and Soviet republics have not reckoned with the past as in East Germany; that is, as the epilogue scenes in The Lives of Others shows, the secret service files were not opened to citizens and historians and researchers.

Film Notes: Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" (1994; dvd 2004 )

Watching the special edition version of Tim Burton’s biopic film, “Ed Wood” (1994), which came out in late 2004 on dvd was quite moving and entertaining to me. Though the director of B-movies Ed Wood has become the epitome of this film gencre, and his name synonymous with inept, bad film making, Burton's film offers a decidedly sympathetic and idealistic portrayal of this zany, cult director of B-classic films (Glen or Glenda, Plan 9 from Outer Space). Burton focuses not so much on the films themselves, but on how Wood managed to make them despite operating on a shoestring who made makeshift films on the fly and cheap. Burton in his commentary states that he regards Wood as a folk artist, that is, someone who was not educated in the medium nor that skilled in it, yet who had a distinctive and likable style, which has led to his becoming a cult hero among some film buffs today.

Despite Wood's lack of connections, despite his limitations as a film director, still amazingly he managed to find financial backers to produce his films. In one case, he even finds a group of Baptists to fund his film, as long as he agrees to star one of their members in his film, change its title, and join the church for good measure. It was Wood’s vision, his belief in himself—delusional and misguided, to be sure--his indefatigable effort in the face of rejection, criticism, and flat out failure, which allowed him to succeed—if by that we mean—make a film, no matter how shoddy and disjointed.

That quality makes Wood into a likable rogue, but he is more than that. For while he misled or simply deceived his financial backers, he also cared about other people: he gathers together a group of cast off and misfit actors and characters, who he befriends and discovers, to make his films, most notable of all, the aged and forgotten Bela Lugosi. In fact, the film’s most touching relation is Wood’s concern for the Lugosi. Martin Landau, who played the part of Lugosi, received an Oscar for best supporting actor.

To be yourself in the face of disapproval and rejection—that’s the most moving impression I took away from this film. After all, it’s a universally shared sense of sympathy we all have for the underdog and misfit. Surprising was just how Wood dealt with his crossdressing, in particular his predilection for wearing women’s angora sweaters—he made a film about it in 1953! Predictably, the film wasn’t screened, and its producer shocked and angered by just what Wood had done with his purported take on the Christine Jorgenson story of the first recorded sex change by an American from male to female, which was what the film was supposed to be about. But personally, I conjecture, Wood by making this film overcame his own nemesis, his own hidden, dark secret, his desire to crossdress, thus perhaps gained the confidence to believe in himself and not back down from any obstacles. And he didn’t. He continued making films and then writing books until he died, prematurely, from a new nemesis—alcohol, which unfortunately relegated him to the furthermost margins of B-film-making and hack writing.

Another moving aspect of Burton’s film is how Wood manages to assemble a group of misfits around himself to make his films. First, he finds Crispin, the tv medium; then, Tor, the giant wrestler, finally, Vampira, the tv movie show hostess. Just how he joins the group we don’t see, but there is also Bunny, the fey bon vivant, and, of course, Lugosi. The culmination of the group’s success occurs when they all go see the film premier of “Plan 9 From Outer Space.”

As in all of Burton’s films, the carefully created sets are a pleasure to see beginning with the opening credits of the film, which allude to images from Wood’s films.