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

6. The Lives of Others, Good Bye Lenin! and the Power of Everydayness

6 the lIves of others, good Bye lenIn! and the PoWer of everydayness James F. Pontuso At first viewing, The Lives of Others and Good Bye Lenin! could not be more different. Good Bye Lenin! is a fanciful, lighthearted, and sometimes poignant journey into a world lost forever as the result of the collapse of communism. The Lives of Others is a realistic and chilling account of the lengths to which the ruling Communist Party went to keep that world from failing. Although The Lives of Others highlights the dark and menacing side of tyranny, both it and Good Bye Lenin! reveal a striking feature of post-totalitarian regimes— the Communist Party’s dependence on “everydayness” as a mechanism of rule.1 The movies illustrate the power of everydayness to envelop people so fully in the activities of daily life that they have little time or inclination to object to their political or social system. After all, communism survived long after most people had lost faith in its ideals. As Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn argues, “If no one believes and yet everyone submits, this demonstrates not the weakness” of a political system “but its frightful . . . power.”2 Surprisingly, both films also show the limits of the artificially manufactured and party-manipulated everydayness and highlight the extraordinary influence of a deeper, more subtle, and complex form of interaction that truly governs the relationships between people. The Problem Raised by The Lives of Others As we know from the various analyses in this book, The Lives of Others is about a loyal and effective Stasi operative, Hauptman Gerd Wiesler, who 137 138 James F. Pontuso is assigned to spy on Georg Dreyman, a well-known GDR playwright, and his live-in-lover, Christa-Maria Sieland, one of East Germany’s foremost actresses. The issue raised by this chapter is why Wiesler comes to identify with the people he is watching. It is not exactly clear why a dedicated state security agent would switch sides and oppose the government he has worked so long and hard to support. Was Wiesler an idealist disgusted by the Communist Party’s abuse of power? Was he still a loyal communist who could not stomach the instruments of party rule misused for personal, prurient motives? Had he come to realize that the whole system of communist leadership had been besmirched by egocentric, careerist bureaucrats? Or was his conversion more personal? Perhaps he compared his sterile, soulless life of commitment to the cause with the vibrant, loving relationship of Sieland and Dreyman. Storyline—Good Bye Lenin! Good Bye Lenin! takes place primarily during the exhilarating and unsettling period in East Germany just as the Berlin Wall falls. It is a story about the high hopes and shattered promises of communism. The movie relates the life of Alex Kerner, who we see initially in 1978 as a Pioneer (the communist version of a Boy Scout), proudly celebrating the first East German astronaut to fly in space. The scene switches to 1989. An older, longhaired, bohemian Alex is in a crowd of street protesters. He has become one of the GDR’s discontented and dispirited young persons characteristic of the late communist era. When his mother, Christiane, who is passing by, sees him in a melee between police and demonstrators, she collapses on the street. Alex is arrested but released by the authorities so that he can attend to his critically ill mother. At the hospital he discovers that she is in a coma after suffering a severe heart attack. Alex is particularly attached to his mother because of the trauma she experienced in 1978 when her husband—Alex’s father—abandoned the family. She was so distraught that she fell mute and had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She awakened only to Alex and his sister Ariane’s desperate pleadings. Christiane thereafter is a changed person, or at least seems to be. She becomes a loyal communist, throws herself into building socialism, and enlists her children, friends, and coworkers into the everpresent social, cultural, and political activities provided by the party to elicit citizen participation. The Power of Everydayness 139 Now, in 1989, Christiane remains in a months-long coma while communism collapses in Central Europe, the Berlin Wall is torn down, the GDR disappears,andEastandWestGermanyvotetoreunite.Unexpectedly,Christiane awakens, but in a much weakened state. Doctors warn that any shock might kill her. Alex believes...