THE LIVES OF OTHERS in Risky Business
by Andre Soares
"The nugget of the idea behind [Das Leben der Anderen / The Lives of] Others came to the writer[-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck] in 1997 when he was a desperate first-year student at Munich Film School. The deadline was looming to deliver his 12th proposal to his film professor, who demanded that his pupils hand in 14 original treatments in the first eight weeks. Lying on the floor of his aunt’s house, listening to a Beethoven piano sonata, Henckel von Donnersmarck feared that his imagination had run dry. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt under so much pressure in my life,’ he recalls. He thought about Russian revolutionary Maxim Gorky, who said he couldn’t listen to Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’ because he had to smash heads."
That’s Anne Thompson in her Hollywood Reporter column "Risky Business." Thompson interviewed writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose highly successful Das Leben der Anderen / The Lives of Others will surely get a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nomination.
This past Sat., Dec. 2, Das Leben der Anderen was named Best European Film by the European Film Academy. Additionally, Henckel von Donnersmarck won the Best European Screenwriter Award, and star Ulrich Mühe, who plays a spy for East Germany’s feared state police, the Stasi, took the Best European Actor Award.
Earlier this year, Das Leben der Anderen also won seven Lolas, Germany’s version of the Oscars.
As I’ve stated in previous posts, I didn’t care for Das Leben der Anderen. In a comment posted on Thompson’s blog, I express my view that Henckel von Donnersmarck failed to fully develop the psychological, political, and dramatic implications of his thriller-cum-melodrama.
That said, I must admit that I’m — as usual — in the minority.
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BBC Four World Cinema Awards 2006
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National Board of Review Awards - 2006
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