DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN(The Lives Of Others) C:\Users\hp1\Downloads\Video\The Lives Of Others Trailer HD.mp4

Monika2011EME61Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University

• In 1984, East Berlin. The population of the GDR is kept under strict control, by the Stasi, East German Secret Police.

• Its force of 100,000 employees, and 200,000 informants safeguards the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its declared goal : “To know EVERYTHING “

• Stasi officer Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman. Wiesler and his team bug the apartment, set up surveillance equipment in an attic and begin reporting Dreyman's activities.

• Dreyman had escaped state scrutiny due to his pro-Communist views and international recognition.

Storyline

• Wiesler soon learns the real reason behind the surveillance: Minister of Culture Bruno Hempf covets Dreyman's girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland, and is trying to eliminate his rival.

• Though a loyal communist and supporter of the regime, Dreyman becomes disillusioned with the treatment of his colleagues by the state. Weilser too, while monitoring Dreyman, undergoes transformation and is disillusioned.

• Weisler helps Dreyman in publishing an article on Suicides in East Germany, by not mentioning his activities in his surveillance reports.

• Dreyman, after the fall of Berlin Wall, discovers about Weisler, and thanks him by writing a book dedicated to Gerd Weisler.

Storyline continued…

• Complete surveillance, denial of privacy.• Censorship of anti-communist (anti-state) political views.• Denial of movement out of East Germany to non-conformists.• Arbitrary arrests and detention.• Torture :

oSexual ExploitationoIntellectual oppressionoMental torture

• No freedom of :oThoughtoExpressionoDevelopment of Personality

Human rights violations

•Statesmen/ bureaucracy favored practice of laws.•Unequal practice of laws for those in power and those in not.•No freedom to practice one’s job of interest.

Human rights issues

Article 3.Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 9.No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 12.No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 18.Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

UDHR articles (Portrayed violations)

Article 19.Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.(2)No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 22.Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.(1)Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

UDHR articles continued…

Article 27(2)Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 29(2)In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

UDHR articles continued (2)…..

Extra-ordinary Scene

• ..\Downloads\Video\The Lives Of Others (eng-subs) - 2 - Exposing Moral.mp4

• In words of Jerska ( a char from the movie, director , blacklisted by the Govt.)“ What is a director if he can’t direct? He is a projectionist without a film, a miler without corn. He is nothing. Nothing at all.”• By oppressing a person’s intellect and expression, the

person is killed inside. Only the body remains. The dead mind easily ends the life of the body.

Conclusion

• The oppression of mind is as fatal as the choking/smothering of breath.•Mental torture is worse than physical. •When a person’s thoughts are censored, what they are

forced to wager is their talent, their very lives, even their souls.

Conclusion continued…

• A life so intensely monitored, is the same as life in prison.• By controlling the activities of the writers/artists ( who act as

spokes persons of the citizens), the state can control the thoughts of the entire nation.• By censoring the right to question the state, the state achieves

complete oppression. The motto of the state shifts to the welfare of the powerful from the common good.• When invested with ultimate authority, the states-men do what

pleases them, and all in the name of common good

Conclusion continued… 2

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