The secret to filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's work is his secrets. His knack for amassing them may unlock the style of his debut feature film, "The Lives of Others".
March 5, 2007 (Press Release) --
The secret to filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's work is his secrets. His knack for amassing them may unlock the style of his debut feature film, "The Lives of Others," which won seven Lola Awards in Germany before picking up the Oscar for best foreign language film at last weekend's Academy Awards ceremony.
Donnersmarck opens the film in East Berlin in 1984. He shows how the Stasi (Staatssicherheit) covertly observed citizens in the German Democratic Republic.
Working long shifts alone in an attic, Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) listens through microphones hidden in the apartment of playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck.) He overhears lovemaking and piano-playing. The lives of these others alter his life. He makes up key details in his reports. He keeps certain secrets. Years later, these lies earn him a dedication in a novel titled Sonata For a Good Man.
"I was shaped by listening to my mother's friends pouring their hearts out to her," reveals Donnersmarck during a recent interview in Chicago. "As a child it was always a matter of great interest to hear what people were telling her." His father was a Lufthansa Airlines executive who relocated the family often, so Donnersmarck always had to find new listening posts.
In their house in Brussels, a dumbwaiter linked the first and third floors. "I figured out if I stuck my head very far into the elevator shaft I could actually hear almost like through perfect microphones what my mother was talking about with her friends down in the living room.
"I always had an intense psychological interest in people's problems, almost a morbid interest," he admits. "This was from an early age onwards. I never had the idea that people didn't have problems. I knew what they were." In Frankfurt, the 11-year-old Donnersmarck once skipped his bus stop to keep listening to two old people.
"We're all voyeurs," he observes. "The thing is, we have different levels of skill at being a voyeur. People are in shock about the Stasi and how they listened in on people. If you had an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter had one, would you use it or wouldn't you? Of course you would. Especially you, as a journalist. You're a curious person. You're a professional voyeur. As am I. That's what we do. That's who we are.
"The great joy is observing something -- being able to wiretap that confessional booth. That's what I want to give people in the theater. I want to give them the feeling that what they're seeing is completely unobserved."
Donnersmarck wanted to give viewers that invisibility in "The Lives of Others" when rehearsing with his actors. He went so far as to banish the crew from the set, so the actors could work unobserved.
Source: http://www.msn.com
Donnersmarck opens the film in East Berlin in 1984. He shows how the Stasi (Staatssicherheit) covertly observed citizens in the German Democratic Republic.
Working long shifts alone in an attic, Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) listens through microphones hidden in the apartment of playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck.) He overhears lovemaking and piano-playing. The lives of these others alter his life. He makes up key details in his reports. He keeps certain secrets. Years later, these lies earn him a dedication in a novel titled Sonata For a Good Man.
"I was shaped by listening to my mother's friends pouring their hearts out to her," reveals Donnersmarck during a recent interview in Chicago. "As a child it was always a matter of great interest to hear what people were telling her." His father was a Lufthansa Airlines executive who relocated the family often, so Donnersmarck always had to find new listening posts.
In their house in Brussels, a dumbwaiter linked the first and third floors. "I figured out if I stuck my head very far into the elevator shaft I could actually hear almost like through perfect microphones what my mother was talking about with her friends down in the living room.
"I always had an intense psychological interest in people's problems, almost a morbid interest," he admits. "This was from an early age onwards. I never had the idea that people didn't have problems. I knew what they were." In Frankfurt, the 11-year-old Donnersmarck once skipped his bus stop to keep listening to two old people.
"We're all voyeurs," he observes. "The thing is, we have different levels of skill at being a voyeur. People are in shock about the Stasi and how they listened in on people. If you had an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter had one, would you use it or wouldn't you? Of course you would. Especially you, as a journalist. You're a curious person. You're a professional voyeur. As am I. That's what we do. That's who we are.
"The great joy is observing something -- being able to wiretap that confessional booth. That's what I want to give people in the theater. I want to give them the feeling that what they're seeing is completely unobserved."
Donnersmarck wanted to give viewers that invisibility in "The Lives of Others" when rehearsing with his actors. He went so far as to banish the crew from the set, so the actors could work unobserved.
Source: http://www.msn.com
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