With a foreword by John le Carre 1984 East Germany Captain Gerd Wiesler a loyal member of the secret police is assigned to spy on the playwright Georg Dreyman The flat is bugged & Wiesler begins to listen in to the daily
- & nightly -activities of the playwright & his actress-girlfriend But when he discovers that the surveillance has been instigated by the Minister of Culture's desire for Dreyman's girlfriend rather than the playwright's political views Wiesler begins to question his own loyalties As he continues to listen in he finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed in the couple's lives & the gap between his professional duty & personal integrity starts to widen This hugely influential film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck whose screenplay is published in English for the first time is as relevant
- or even more so
- now in the wake of Edward Snowden & the Wiki Leaks revelations as it was when it won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Further contents Introduction by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; ' Appassionata The Idea for the Film' by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck'; an essay by Sebastian Koch (' Georg Dreyman'); an interview with Ulrich Muhe by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; ' Wiesler's Change of Heart' an essay by Manfred Wilke; full film cast & crew credits Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck the writer & director of The Lives of Others was born in Cologne in 1973 & grew up in New York City Brussels Frankfurt & West Berlin He studied Russian Literature in Leningrad before obtaining an MA from Oxford & a Diploma in Film Direction from the University of Film & Television in Munich