Talk:The Lives of Others

message: While the libel controversy is relevant to the film and therefore this article, I question whether it deserves to be mentioned in the first section.  It is not "basic information" about the film and ought to be placed in a different section more toward the end of the article. -A user  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.58.35.159 (talk) 02:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Libel controversy

message: Why was Wiesler initialy suspecting Dreyman? Because he profilled Dreyman as an arrogant person who could easily turn against the regime, or because he was seduced by Christa-Maria?
:Wiesler was simply obeying orders at first. But he was also (unlike the other "officials") an idealist who really believed in his job, even tho it clearly brought him no personal reward. The cafeteria scene was instructive: when Wiesler and his boss sat at the "enlisted men's" table, and the boss suggested moving away to the Officers' table, Wiesler declined, saying "Socialism has to start somewhere" Feroshki 02:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wiesler was at first suspicious of Dreymann but probaby he would have been suspicious of anyone. It was Gubritz that praised Dreymann but then, sensing the ministers attitude, parrots what Wiesler said earlier. The minister applauds him for that and derides the attitude Gubritz voiced earlier (unknown to the minister). Wiesler starts the surveillances idealistically and only gets disillusioned later. Str1977 (talk) 02:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Motivation 

message: Does this story have any basis in reality? For example, was the Spiegel article a fake? Brutannica 00:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There was a Spiegel cover in mid-1989 that was very similar to the one shown (minus the noose, as it was about problems in the GDR in general). I'll see if I can dig it up... ProhibitOnions (T) 09:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Basis?

message: Are there any german speakers who 'got' the telephone joke?  It was translated as 'what's the difference between hoenecker and a telephone?  None - hang up and try again.'  82.109.222.194 (talk) 12:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The pun is in the word "wählen" (literally "to choose"), which has a double meaning: dialing a telephone number and electing a politician, for you "choose" both, what telephone number you want to have and what politician. "Hang up and dial again" - "Hang up" (the telephone - the politician) and "choose" ("elect" the politician, "dial" the number) "again."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.221.66 (talk) 13:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The "telephone" joke

message: Did anyone notice, that the guy behind Wiesler in the "steam cellar" , who tells Wiesler of the Fall of the Wall, was the same character who told the "Sun" joke earlier in the film; and was presumably demoted for his "poor attitude". This was a nice touch of detail Feroshki 02:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IIRC, even at the lunchtable he said he worked in "Department M", which is where Wiesler was told he was being sent to.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amcalabrese (talk • contribs) 16:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The "Sun" joke

message: While it is clear that Christa was an unwilling partner to the Minister, it was also noticeable that he was able to "pat her behind" surreptiously even at the beginning of the film ( in the foyer of the theatre!), which suggests that they were involved in some liasion even before the film begins....if this is the case, it changes the plot slightly, and the current Article suggests the Minister is motivated by some merely future plan to Possess her...  Any comment ? Feroshki 02:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: when did the Minister/Christa relationship begin ? 

message: In the plot description it says that she threw herself in front of the truck, but to me it seemed like an accident, and happened because she was in a rush to get away?
Krang 08:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: to me, definitely suicide or whatever. SECProto 03:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: She definitely wanders into the street, realising the truck too late. No suicide. Str1977 (talk) 02:04, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It looked like an accident to me and this is probably picky on my part (or maybe quite justified) but I thought Christa's death was the one and only weak scene in the movie. I wish the director had created a "precedent" for the truck, meaning, that in the early scenes, such as when Georg plays football with the children on the street, that a similar truck had driven by thus leading the viewer to believe there was a supply center nearby and that such traffic was common. Her running into the street, at the climax, and being hit by the truck seemed very arbitrary. I love this movie though. : ) Philosopher2king (talk) 22:56, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christa-Maria 

message: "She also relies on Hempf to supply her with prescription drugs to which she is addicted." I disagree with this. The minister ordered his driver to shadow her, the driver notes she makes a visit to the dentist. Presumably the visits are frequent enough to raise questions and make the drug connection.Feldercarb (talk) 01:33, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Drugs

message: Did anyone else find the pretext of writing a piece in early 1985 for the occasion of the GDR's 40th anniversary (which would be 7 October 1989) a little premature? If I were a Stasi agent, this would probably set off bells, although this does not appear to have been the reason this was included; however, when this was mentioned in the film I initially assumed the setting had moved forward a few years. Perhaps the pretext of the anniversary should at least be mentioned in the text. ProhibitOnions (T) 12:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really.  They were taling about writing a play, not an article.  So it could have teken time to write then stage, cast etc., until finally it was ready.  --Amcalabrese 16:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  see my comment above; is it a co-incidence that playwright's birthday is also 5 years out (he was apparently born in 1939 but said to be celebrating his 40th birthday in 1984)? Sock puppet2005ad (talk) 11:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: 40th anniversary of the GDR?

message: I read this article and decided that obviously Spoiler tags should be applied. I see that someone has now removed them and wonder why they were removed. "A spoiler is a piece of information in an article about a narrative work (such as a book, feature film, television show or video game) that reveals plot events or twists." The Plot section in this article covers a lot more than the 'basic' plot, giving away all the 'twists' contained within the film itself. I think tags should be applied, or the article re-written so that it simply covers the plot without giving too much away. Any further thoughts on this... Stephenjh 04:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the Wikipedia policy page, see Wikipedia:Spoiler. Steffen Heinrich -- 87.187.37.201 (talk) 21:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Spoiler Tags

message: Amazon interview - he talks about the inspiration for his film (ie. Lenin and Beethoven.) JAF1970 (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Interview with Donnersmarck

message: One unresolved issue. How did the GDR Govt. got its hands on the ORIGINAL article that sucessfully made  the trip to Der Spiegel? Did it have spies in the magazine? This issue is not explained in the film.
Answer: This is explained. In the scene where Grubits talks to a superior on the phone, he says that they have a "IM" ( = Informelle Mitarbeiter = a "Part Time Spy") at Der Spiegel. They talk very fast and You might likely miss it, but it is there.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.159.103 (talk) 16:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Good question

message: The plot is pretty detailed, so why does it miss the entire encounter with the prostitute in the protagonist's apartment and its affects? -62.219.107.28 (talk) 01:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Interestingly, notice that both characters have variations of the same first name. Would be interesting, but it's not the case. The one is called Georg and the other Gerd, which is an abbreviation of Gerhard. Those are quite distinct names and have no common root; the only thing the have in common is letters, and them accidentally.--2001:A61:3AE8:B601:68F5:8CA3:CADC:11D0 (talk) 18:58, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing elements in the plot 

message: What is the background music playing in the pub?  Is it East German pop music? -Rolypolyman (talk) 04:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I was able to track it down through the English narration track.  It's "Wie Ein Stern" (Like A Star) by Frank Schöbel, from 1972. -Rolypolyman (talk) 21:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Music in the pub

message: The criticism on the article is rather weak. Correct me if I am wrong but: "... as when a dissident confronts the minister of culture and doesn't seem to face any consequences for it. Zizek also says the character of the playwright is simply too naive to be believable." It's not accurate. The friend he is referring to is, I think Karl (I can't remember) but it is said in the film that he has lost his privileges to travel to the East side for lectures. After Christa tells Georg about it he says something like "what could he expect after talking to them like that." 
Other points such as "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." Are, well, too subjective to  be significant. Witty and interesting yes, but nothing that would merit hard criticism to be included in this wiki.
Whaddaya all think? ***philosopherking 3/23/08  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.105.163.162 (talk) 22:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism Section 

message: Hi folks. Out of couriosity (I just wanted to know how people that don't speak German percieve this film) I read the article. However this sentence is absurd:
:The film succeeded in Germany despite a widespread contemporary reluctance in the country, particularly in its films, to confront the totalitarian excesses of the East German state.
It is not true that nowadays Germans don't get confronted or don't want to be confronted with the totalitarian past in the GDR in films or other media. You hardly can't miss the topic in public life since reunification. Previous to "Das Leben der Anderen" were several cinema films about the GDR e.g. Berlin Sonnenalle, Goodbye Lenin, beside numerous (!) documentaries and movies in public and private television not to mention books, news paper and magazine articles, speeches, public debates, lawsuits, museums... Sure there are some vocal people that want to silence the past but although they won some lawsuits, the overall reaction was an even enforced public debate and interest on the topic (just recently there was a prominent and widely discussed lawsuit in which a former Stasi agent lost against an exhibition on the Stasi and such public interest was not different previous to this film). So I am a bit puzzled by the claims of the both sources  (the sub title "A forbidden topic captivates nation" is clueless at best) and . However there definitely was a debate on "Das Leben der Anderen". But it was completly different than suggested by the article. Thi film was mainly critizised as not cruel enough for reality and as too positive on the Stasi. People mainly were upset that the film suggests that there might could have been a Stasi agent in reality that protected his target person (such a couraged behaviour of a Stasi agent is not known up to know). So people feared that this could be percieved as yet another "Good bye Lenin" (which sometimes was percieved as romanticism of the GDR). This was the single true controvery about the whole film and not that someone wants to silence the past. Ok so what do I want? I'd suggest to remove the above quoted sentence and not to use the Boston Globe article as a reliable source. —Preceding signed comment was added by Arnomane (talk • contribs) 20:52, 22 May 2008, but its signature was removed while fixing wiki markup errors.
:I have to agree with this, anyone who has ever spent any time in Germany knows this sentence is absolute rubbish and that basically the sources don't know what they're talking about. 85.228.208.58 (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have for now taken care of this issue by simply deleting aforementioned sentence as it is not sourced and anyways way to far reaching to be sourced with a movie review. Janfrie1988 (talk) 04:15, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some strange sources 

message: * I didn't pick up on Hempf supplying drugs; why would she need Hempf when she had her dentist?  
* the frames of Hempf's giant white backside imply that more than kissing went on in the car; in the director's commentary, he makes it clear he didn't wish the scene to end with the conventional ambiguity about what more went on, and actually wishes he had left in another 12 frames of the giant white moon
* in the director's commentary, the director explicitly states it's not entirely clear that this was a willful suicide, and offers it up as a metaphor to the fall of the GDR: part accident, part suicide
MaxEnt (talk) 05:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what's not clear; Hempf was providing her drugs because as minister he had access to them and knew she was addicted. Her dentist may have been more scrupulous than Hempf who, after all, wanted to control her. What's weak about the synopsis? Philosopher2king (talk) 23:27, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Synopsis weak

message: sued for libel for an interview in which Mühe asserted that his former wife informed on him while they were East German citizens[1] through the six years of their marriage.
what the hell is this trying to say? I'm confused! 154.5.52.172 (talk) 10:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: weird sentence

message: I have to agree with the IP that we do need some German language sources dealing with critical reception, however I disagree that popular English-language reviews are irrelevant, this is the english wikipedia.  --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 06:26, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The other problem here is that the reception as described here is too focused on the explicitly political aspects of the film, which are obviously more apparent to non-Germans. If you dig beneath this, you simply have somebody trying to do what he thinks is his job, until the demands on him become too contradictory. 85.228.208.58 (talk) 14:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: 85.228.208.58, the original discussion took place more than a year ago. To respond to you, though, there should be an assessment of The Lives of Others as a film as well as an assessment of the film's historical and political treatment. It may help to separate the two. For example, "Criticism" should not be under the "Critical reception", but perhaps be its own "Historical accuracy" or "Historical analysis" section. Erik (talk | contribs) 14:55, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critical Reception 

message: Would it not be usual in Germany to refer to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, after the first mention, as Henckel?  (The German Wikipedia is no help, as it never omits even his forename.) —Tamfang (talk) 06:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: de:Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck refers to him as Donnersmarck after the first mention. Qwfp (talk) 08:08, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  long name, short name 

message: I deleted a part of the introduction that tried to establish that there is/was "a widespread [...] reluctance [...] to confront the[sic!] totalitarian aspects of the East German state". Firstly, it might be an interesting topic for discussion if and inhowfar tbis is the case but it is certainly no encyclopedic statement. (How is "widespread" defined here - have there been surveys? How does said reluctance manifest itself?) Additionally, I think this assumption is a lot too far-reaching to establish in a sub-clause in this article and present it as a fact when it is only attributed to a single source. Lastly, and most importantly, said source does not in any way back up this claim. The NYT article (which mind you is a movie review not a sociological analysis) merely states that other movies, such as Good Bye Lenin! "provoked a bizarre wave of nostalgia for life before the Berlin Wall was breached". Creating nostalgia for people's life in a state and there being a "widespread contemporary reluctance" to confront said states' totalitarian aspects are two different things. We also lack a source for the movies Sonnenallee, Good bye Lenin, Kleinruppin Forever and JVA being a notable part/symptom of said (equally unsourced) reluctance. 
I think it is okay to have something on the topic of Life of Others being a counterpoint to a recent Ostalgie trend in Germany in the article but it has to be sourced and avoid far-reaching and as is unsubstantiated sociological explanations. Janfrie1988 (talk) 04:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV and poor grammar/style in introduction 

message: I just deleted a few words from this section which were both unncessary and also not supported by the original salon.com source. For those who don't want to hunt through the source, salon.com said:-
::In an interview included in the press notes for “The Lives of Others,” von Donnersmarck says that Mühe himself learned, after the wall came down and Stasi records were made available to the public, that his then-wife had spied on him and other actors in the early ’80s. She has denied the claims, despite 254 pages’ worth of government records detailing her activities
In other words, the source for the wife's denial is (currently) salon.com, rather than (unreferenced) "press notes" or indeed Donnersmark. Anything else needs new sources. Hope all clear now. Cistercian (talk) 14:38, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Libel section 

message: Do people think that the long, incoherent and unoriginal quotation from this person has any interest or value? Would understanding and appreciation of the film be in any way reduced if the whole quotation was deleted? 
--Hors-la-loi 22:13, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Daniel Ellsberg? 

message: In my opinion, this entire section needs to be removed. There is no verifiable connection between "The Lives of Others" and Edward Snowden's actions or motivations. If anyone wants to make such a connection using reliable sources, it should be made in the Wikipedia article on Snowden, not in the article for this film. By the way, the quote from Carrie Rickey was cherry-picked from a derisive piece on Snowden by Sheila Weller in the Washington Post titled "What should Edward ‘I’m a brave martyr but I wanna go home’ Snowden do now?" The section containing the quote is subtitled "Maybe pick different movies to watch on your laptop."  This strikes me as beneath Wikipedia's dignity to use as a source. --Ailemadrah (talk) 05:27, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove section titled "2013 mass surveillance disclosures"? 

message: This section only contains tweets from various famous people (actors, athletes etc.) about the film, which in my view do not offer additional value to the reader (most of them only tell us how great person x found the film). Furthermore, I think tweets are basically self-publications and therefore not valid sources for wikipedia. 
Because of this reasons, I deleted the section. It was reverted away with the reason, that other films also contain twitter reactions (e.g. "The Tourist"). I don't want to start an edit war, therefore I would like to put this up to discussion. 92.206.25.201 (talk) 15:02, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section "Cultural reception" with twitter reactions

message: Under the section Production the quote following "Gorky recounted a discussion with Lenin" is not cited. I checked the article connected with the next available citation, but it does not appear in this article, so needs further referencing. Parts of that paragraph do appear in the article, but not as is written in the Wikipedia article. The paragraph, as a whole, should be cited from elsewhere, assuming it is accurate. 174.103.231.69 (talk) 09:06, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncited 

message: Unless you consider mail being leaflets, free news papers and such. Older versions of the article had a different wording and I believe "mail" is not the right word. It's a fine but very important difference. No former stasi agent (especially if he worked in the letter opening steam room) would be allowed to work at the german post and handle letters. So he is displayed as a broken/discarded man at the bottom that cannot get a real job in the new system, instead working as something that is considered to be a part time job or something for people that cannot get any different one. 92.195.99.17 (talk) 22:23, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wiesler is not delivering mail. 

message: I removed a section titled "Arab Palestinian conflict" added on May 7 2015. The section was largely irrelevant and certainly too detailed. If someone else thinks its should be restores, I believe a more abbreviated and accurate sentence should replace it (doesn't quite merit its own section). Shilton (talk) 20:01, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant section 

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thread_title:  External links modified