I found it convincing. He was a by-the-rules guy. He believed in what he was doing. When he saw that he was not helping in the advancement of an ideal, but was just helping a guy get laid, and helping a colleague get a promotion, his own internal sense of right and wrong came to the fore.
It was believable. The script was great how it tackled Wiesler on two fronts -- one, as kc said, he realizes this assignment was inherently corrupt, plus I think you could see his enlightment about his "friend" Grubitz as the latter called out the young party member at the cafeteria. Two, he's privvy to the private behavior and actions of his subject, and still finds Dreyman to be an exemplary human being. It was touching how he hugged himself to sleep while Dreyman and Christa-Maria did the same, and how he stole Dreyman's book to contemplate his work. It was as though he realized what all he missed in his own life as a public servant.
Still, it was heroic on his party to fight the system -- he would have known better than most what the consequences could be.
Yes, cl, the theft and enjoyment of Dreyman's Brecht book was moving and important. Brecht was a Marxist who would have been appalled at the things done in Marx's name (like the atrocities done in Jesus' name). The Communist Party has nothing to do with Marx, just like Fundamentalist Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus. Wiesler was an actual Socialist (he did not believe in special privileges for himself), and I think he found that Dreyman's liberalism bore more resemblance to the socialist ideals he admired than the Party's self-serving totalitarian machine. He appreciated what Dreyman said Lenin said about Beethoven's Apassionata (it's distracting beauty) and the Brecht book and Christa's talents.
The change of heart was problematic. The East German regime had never even had any ideals to be corrupted. It was imposed by a brutal foreign occupation for the benefit of Russians not Germans. The rhetoric was cynical propaganda from day one. Wiesler was old enough that he would have been in the war, so he couldn’t have arrived in the 1980s as a socialist earnestly working for the Stasi. He would have known that his job was nothing more than repressing the people so that a power elite could maintain its status. Early in the film we see him behaving this way: when he arrives to bug Dreyman’s flat, he has read the files on all the neighbors so that he can instantly, and commandingly, threaten them with detailed punishments if they tip off Dreyman.
But unlike his boss, the status seeker, Wiesler seems to be the capable technician. He has dedicated himself to competence in his work even though he knows—if he reflects on it—that it is not an honorable job. His ethic is a very narrow one. But even if dormant, he is capable of introspection and is susceptible to art. So suddenly finding himself in the middle of the lives of good artists who are decent people even though they live in a very difficult world, he changes.
Kc, does the viewer need to be cultured? Everybody is going to know about Beethoven and have heard some of his music. But Brecht? Is it important to know what sort of artist he was? Or does the film itself provide enough context?
DW, I don't know that the audience has to be cultured per se. It's a German language film and I'm assuming that most Germans would know who Brecht was and what he was about, even if they hadn't read anything by him. Like a reference to Hemingway or Steinbeck or some other American literary icon in an American movie would say something to us, even if we had never read it.
That's basically what I was getting at with this question, dw. One reviewer said that when living under a repressive Communist regime, it was possible to combine two of these attributes -- personal honesty, sincere support of the regime and intelligence -- but not all three.
10 comments:
I found it convincing. He was a by-the-rules guy. He believed in what he was doing. When he saw that he was not helping in the advancement of an ideal, but was just helping a guy get laid, and helping a colleague get a promotion, his own internal sense of right and wrong came to the fore.
It was believable. The script was great how it tackled Wiesler on two fronts -- one, as kc said, he realizes this assignment was inherently corrupt, plus I think you could see his enlightment about his "friend" Grubitz as the latter called out the young party member at the cafeteria. Two, he's privvy to the private behavior and actions of his subject, and still finds Dreyman to be an exemplary human being. It was touching how he hugged himself to sleep while Dreyman and Christa-Maria did the same, and how he stole Dreyman's book to contemplate his work. It was as though he realized what all he missed in his own life as a public servant.
Still, it was heroic on his party to fight the system -- he would have known better than most what the consequences could be.
... er, on his part.
Yes, cl, the theft and enjoyment of Dreyman's Brecht book was moving and important. Brecht was a Marxist who would have been appalled at the things done in Marx's name (like the atrocities done in Jesus' name). The Communist Party has nothing to do with Marx, just like Fundamentalist Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus. Wiesler was an actual Socialist (he did not believe in special privileges for himself), and I think he found that Dreyman's liberalism bore more resemblance to the socialist ideals he admired than the Party's self-serving totalitarian machine. He appreciated what Dreyman said Lenin said about Beethoven's Apassionata (it's distracting beauty) and the Brecht book and Christa's talents.
The change of heart was problematic. The East German regime had never even had any ideals to be corrupted. It was imposed by a brutal foreign occupation for the benefit of Russians not Germans. The rhetoric was cynical propaganda from day one. Wiesler was old enough that he would have been in the war, so he couldn’t have arrived in the 1980s as a socialist earnestly working for the Stasi. He would have known that his job was nothing more than repressing the people so that a power elite could maintain its status. Early in the film we see him behaving this way: when he arrives to bug Dreyman’s flat, he has read the files on all the neighbors so that he can instantly, and commandingly, threaten them with detailed punishments if they tip off Dreyman.
But unlike his boss, the status seeker, Wiesler seems to be the capable technician. He has dedicated himself to competence in his work even though he knows—if he reflects on it—that it is not an honorable job. His ethic is a very narrow one. But even if dormant, he is capable of introspection and is susceptible to art. So suddenly finding himself in the middle of the lives of good artists who are decent people even though they live in a very difficult world, he changes.
Kc, does the viewer need to be cultured? Everybody is going to know about Beethoven and have heard some of his music. But Brecht? Is it important to know what sort of artist he was? Or does the film itself provide enough context?
DW, I don't know that the audience has to be cultured per se. It's a German language film and I'm assuming that most Germans would know who Brecht was and what he was about, even if they hadn't read anything by him. Like a reference to Hemingway or Steinbeck or some other American literary icon in an American movie would say something to us, even if we had never read it.
I found the change of heart jarring at first, but I accepted it quite quickly.
I guess I don't know enough about history to have a problem believing that he believed in socialist ideals.
That's basically what I was getting at with this question, dw. One reviewer said that when living under a repressive Communist regime, it was possible to combine two of these attributes -- personal honesty, sincere support of the regime and intelligence -- but not all three.
Who was that reviewer? That's a brilliant statement.
As per Wikipedia, it was Slavoj Zizek of In These Times.
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