Totalitarianism on Screen: The Art and Politics of The Lives of Others

3. Communist Moral Corruption and the Redemptive Power of Art

3 CommunIst moral CorruPtIon and the redemPtIve PoWer of art Carl Eric Scott The Lives of Others, written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck , is a masterpiece of filmmaking that shows how pervasively the German Democratic Republic, through its secret police the Stasi, spied upon its own citizens. The film tells the story of the partial moral redemption of a dedicated Stasi captain, Gerd Wiesler, through his unexpected encounter of artistic beauty in the lives of two artists he has been assigned to monitor, the playwright Georg Dreyman and his lover, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland. Through his audio surveillance of Dreyman’s apartment, Wiesler becomes intrigued by the friendship, love, and artistry he finds therein. He eventually tries to save these artists from the surveillance operation he is in charge of managing, and he does so even after Dreyman really does engage in antiregime activity. Why does Wiesler thus risk his life and turn against the East German regime? In a key scene, he is deeply affected when Dreyman plays a beautiful piano composition upon learning of the suicide of his dear friend and artistic collaborator, the director Albert Jerska. Donnersmarck has indicated that this scene was the germ of the entire film: his idea for the story came in reaction to Vladimir Lenin’s explanation of why he deliberately avoided listening to music, and especially his favorite Beethoven piano sonata, the “Appassionata,” on the grounds that it would make him too soft for his revolutionary duties.1 What would happen, Donnersmarck wondered, if the situation were in a sense reversed, if a man dedicated to Lenin’s ideology were forced by circumstances to truly listen to a powerful piece of music, and 57 58 Carl Eric Scott more generally to truly encounter art and the artistic way of life? Could art break through the ideological hardening? Donnersmarck obviously believed that, in certain circumstances, it might have been able to do so. And so he began work upon a screenplay exploring this possibility. It would appear, given only this synopsis and these observations, that the film is basically a testament to the redemptive power of art. However, the story concerns not merely Wiesler’s transformation but also the possible moral corruption of the artists he is spying upon. While this theme of moral corruption is most vividly portrayed in the character of Christa-Maria, this essay particularly explores how the film considers the theme in Dreyman. I argue that Wiesler and Dreyman come to enact a reciprocal rescue of one another from the communist moral corruption peculiar to their particular stations. Communist Moral Corruption No serious investigation of communism can neglect considering what Alain Besançon, the author of a book-length essay comparing Nazism and communism , calls communism’s “moral destruction.” He says the following about how this destruction developed in the Soviet Union: At first, a significant portion of the population welcomes the teaching of the lie in good faith. It enters into the new morality, taking along its old moral heritage. . . . Hating the enemies of socialism, they denounce them and approve of having them robbed and killed. . . . Inadvertently, they take part in the crime. Along the way, ignorance, misinformation, and faulty reasoning numb their faculties and they lose their intellectual and moral bearings. . . . Life . . . became grimmer, more dismal. Fear was everywhere and people had to fight to survive. The moral degradation that had been subconscious to that point now crept into consciousness. The socialist people, who had committed evil believing they were doing good, now knew what they were doing. They denounced, stole, and degraded themselves; they became evil and cowardly and they were ashamed. In comparing Nazism with communism, Besançon concludes that the latter brought about a “more widespread and deeper moral destruction,” even if Communist Moral Corruption and the Redemptive Power of Art 59 the former probably brought crime to a greater “level of intensity.” What is this moral destruction that both ideologies unleashed? By moral destruction, I do not mean the breakdown of mores in the sense of the age-old grumbling of the elderly as they examine the mores of youth. Nor do I wish to pass judgment on this century compared to others. There is no philosophical reason to believe that man was either more or less virtuous during this period. Still, communism and Nazism set out to change something more fundamental than mores—that is, the...