HGW XX/7

I just saw "The lives of others" - I am still in awe of this film. In the mid 90's I went to East Berlin and always wondered how life there would feelfor the inhabitants of those grey houses in the decaying city. With this movie I was given the chance.

The slow changing personality of the tough Stassi man HGW XX/7 was what made the movie. Through his spying on an artist couple he was introduced to classical music, literature and love.

In the interview on the DVD bonus scenes with the screenwriter and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck(who was also philosophy major in Oxford)he discussed the movie's messages.

One Messages: Was a bit of hope in humanity. The one thing that is worth thinking about that in life there is always an axis upon which you have to position yourself, on one extreme of that is principle and at the other end is feeling and you have to decide for yourself whether you are a person of complete principle or a person of feeling. Both extremes are probably wrong. You are confronted with a moral choice, and you say, no i will not do this, no i do not do things like that out of principle or whatever feels right for me at this given moment i do, both positions are wrong probably. The boring middle is where the truth lies. But we have to be aware of that if you are a person of complete principle then you are like Lenin who says i have to fight for communision so i will shut out any feeling that i have for beautiful music or from enriching encounters with people. I think it is always important to keep that window for feeling open and to allow the feeling to come in to some extent and at the same time not to lose track of principles because they are important in guiding us in moments of moral termoil.

The reference to Lenin and music was the starting idea for his film. The quote by Lenin : I don't want to listen to my favorite music Appasionata by Beethoven anymore because it makes me want to stroke peoples' heads and tell them nice things and I have to smash in those heads to accomplish my revolution.

An extreme example of a person shutting out their humanity and going by principle...his concept was what if he could have Lenin be forced to listen to the Beethoven's Appassionata and thereby change the course of history things and this he does through the Stassi character HGW XX/7 in his film.
A link to Beethoven's Appassionata - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNlyxn2Y4_E
The music that could have changed Lenin.