Many screenwriters attempt to use cinema to give history a human face, but few have done this as well as German screenwriter Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. His first feature, The Lives of Others, explores the culture of East Berlin during the Cold War, and is a Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee.
After studying in Leningrad and Oxford, von Donnersmarck found his calling in the movie business, with an apprenticeship under Richard Attenborough for 1996’s In Love and War. At the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film in Muchen, he made a number of his own short films before leaving the program to start work on The Lives of Others (ironically, the Hochschule awarded him a diploma for the completion of the film).
The Lives of Others takes place in East Berlin over a span of seven years, beginning in 1984 and continuing to detail the effects of the 1989 falling of the Berlin Wall. It tells the story of a Stasi secret police captain assigned to spy on “the lives of others,†and explores the impact of these actions on the captain’s own ideals, and on modern German culture. “To me, what was important was not to lose myself in historical details, but to tell a story about real people with an emotional viewpoint,†say von Donnersmarck.
To learn more about this internationally acclaimed movie and its writer-director, visit http://www.sonyclassics.com/thelivesofothers.
Sound Off: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is garnering praise for his work detailing the lives of people striving to live in a Socialist East Berlin. Somehow, he manages to depict the period as an emotional story rather than an historical one. Is it more effective to provide a straight historical account of an event, or to provide a more intimate take on the repercussions of these events for individual lives? Talk back in the comments section!
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