SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your film has received 11 category nominations for the German Film Prize. The winners are to be announced on Friday evening. Are you nervous?
Henckel von Donnersmarck: I have the dubious gift of being able to switch off my nerves until the actual event. But as soon as I'm sitting in the award ceremony, I will probably feel pretty sick. At the moment I feel fine, but I know I won't later.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: For a relatively alternative film, "The Lives Of Others" has been very successful, attracting over 800,000 viewers so far. Why has it gone down so well in Germany?
Henckel von Donnersmarck: Maybe because it deals with a serious topic, but it doesn't try to be pedagogical. It doesn't preach, but just attempts to tell a story in an interesting way without an agenda.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The film may have a serious theme, but from an aesthetic point of view it is also very beautiful.
Henckel von Donnersmarck: It was very important for me to make a visually appealing film. When I go to the cinema as a viewer, I always want to see something beautiful. Even if the film deals with very tough topics. It took a long time to try and find what the essence of the beauty of the former East German state (German Democratic Republic, or GDR) was. I spent about six months with my production designer trying to analyze its colors and shapes. So I was really pleased when East Germans said the film portrayed exactly how things looked back then. Of course not everything was as beautiful as it is in the film, but we still tried to create something authentic.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The result is a certain fascination for the style of the period. On the other hand, though, the film isn't drenched in what Germans call "Ostalgie," or nostalgia for East Germany, which we've seen in films like "Goodbye Lenin."
Henckel von Donnersmarck: Over the last few years East German films have presented a very weird view of the GDR. German cinema has tended to portray the GDR as this funny place with quirky weird characters, which no one takes seriously. The menacing aspects of the state, such as the Stasi or the border troops, are just portrayed as amusing. That is really very different to what I experienced at the time. I remember an atmosphere of great fear, and of great mistrust. You have to tell the whole story of the GDR by showing the terror, as well as people's good sides and the beautiful aspects of the country.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It seems to be a more nuanced look than the view we have had of the GDR in recent years.
Henckel von Donnersmarck: It is certainly a very different look. I really liked "Goodbye Lenin." I thought it was really very entertaining and, as a comedy, it was pretty nuanced too. But it is now time to highlight the negative side of the regime.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In your film, you do see that dark side of the GDR. To what extent do you think eastern Germany is now more able to face up to its Stasi past than it has been in the past?
Henckel von Donnersmarck: That is indeed now starting to happen. It's a topic that until now has been swept under the carpet, even though, back in 1991, Germany made the courageous decision to open the Stasi files. The system was made up of 100,000 registered employees and 200,000 informants and no one knew who those 200,000 informants were. So far, less than 10 percent of the Stasi files have been opened, which means that over 90 percent of those files have not even been read. I think that shows you how difficult Germany has found it to deal with this part of its past. Luckily though, as a result of the film, the number of people coming to see their files has doubled.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: One of the people who looked at his own file was Ulrich Mühe, who plays the Stasi officer in the film. It was only then that he found out that his wife at the time had been a Stasi informer. The case attracted massive publicity in Germany. Why was that?
Henckel von Donnersmarck: Both Ulrich Mühe and his wife were very famous actors in the GDR. In their own way they were probably the East German equivalent of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. He found out from the files that she had been registered with the Stasi for 10 years, the entire period that she was married to him, without him knowing. She now claims the Stasi forged these documents so that they would look good having such a famous actress as an informant. But that is nonsense. Saying the Stasi invented the files is a standard line of defense that many suspected informants have used successfully in German courts. The Free University in Berlin analyzed her Stasi files and came to the conclusion that those 500 pages could not possibly have been forged.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: That must surely have provided good publicity for the film?
Henckel von Donnersmarck: I'm not so sure. People are willing to accept fiction more easily than fact and are put off if everything gets a bit too real. Box office sales certainly haven't shown an increase or anything as a result of this. I'm just very glad that I opted to tell a fictional story within an authentic framework, because people can open themselves to that more easily than a true story.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: This month you are taking the film to Cannes where it will probably get picked up by an international distributor. Will the film appeal to non-German viewers?
Henckel von Donnersmarck: I hope so. The whole world was torn apart by communism in the 20th century and I think Germany has a special responsibility to tell that story. After all, this is the only country that was literally torn apart by communism in such an extreme way. I think these experiences have a certain amount of relevance to the whole world.
Interview conducted by Damien McGuinness
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