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{if:"匆忙写的，没有edit,，有语法问题或拼写错误请见谅，才B+ 连A都没拿到。翻译随后跟上。
The Legend of Rita (German title: die Stille nach dem Schuss) is a German film, released in 2000, directed by Volker Schlöndorff. The film tells the story of Rita Vogt, a member of the extreme left wing terrorist group, Red Army Faktion (RAF). She is responsible for bank robbery, breaking into a prison to rescue her partner and killing a policeman when she is on exile in France. She then finds her place in East German, where she is provided with a new identity by the Stasi. Rita decides to stay in East Germany although her partners decide to leave, because she believes East Germany is the country where her political ideal is fulfilled. Barbara was released in 2012, directed by Christian Petzold. In the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in 2012, where Christian Petzold was awarded the Silver Bear for the Best Director. The protagonist, Barbara Wolff, is a doctor who used to work at The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the oldest and most prominent hospital in East Berlin. She is transferred, in fact demoted, to a clinic in a small village in Northern East Germany and makes the Stasi watch list, because she expressed her wish to go to the West. In village she meets Andre, a doctor at the clinic she works at. He is supposed to watch Barbara and report her activities to the Stasi agent in the village. Also, she meets Stella, a girl who was detained at the Torgau Juvenile Workhouse for unknown reason, Barbara’s former patient, for whom Barbara sacrifices her opportunity to run away to the West. The Legend of Rita and Barbara are both post-reunification German film about the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and they both attempt to challenge the conventional west-centric discourse of the memory of the GDR in media with different approaches. East Germany is also stereotypically presented as simply Stasiland, no freedom of speech, failed political system, economically and socially backward. Even though Schlöndorff tried to avoid the conventional West-triumph-over-east narrative, the
Legend of Rita still taps into many East German stereotypes. On the other hand, Barbara reconstructs a more realistic GDR in colour and presents a more complex set of characters in the former socialist state.
The Stasi is commonly seen as the dominant ruling power over the East German people. The East German people are simply seen as the victims of the state apparatus. The most well-known film about the former East Germany is the Lives of others, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It also had won numerous awards elsewhere, including Deutscher Filmpreis for the best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor. The Lives of the Others sets paradigm of the public discourse of the former GDR. It is so successful because the film reconstructs the former East Germany as dark oppressive country in which people have no freedom of speech. The streets seem dark and grey. Donnersmarck uses extra-diegetic soundtrack frequently to create the oppressive and unpleasant environment of GDR and guide the thought of the audience further into seeing the GDR as the oppressive force over the population. The Lives of the Others harshly criticize the former East German socialist regime, and clearly demonstrate the simplistic binary of the state as the perpetrator and the free-loving people as the victim. Additionally, the narrative of the Lives of the Others exudes optimism towards the reunification in 1989. (Cooke 2011)
The end of socialist regime marks the liberation of people, including the artists. Dreyman’s new play featuring an African-German actress marks the progress in anti-racism. The Lives of the Others emphasizes the Stasi as the powerful tool of the state machine overseeing and controlling the people all the time. Their networks is ubiquitous in East German society
and the people do not have any chance to resist. Every step taken in East Germany is observed by the Stasi. If anyone shows any signs of faithlessness to the state, he or she will be punished immediately. The Stasi is the ruthless and effective enforcer of the will of the state (Moeller and Lellis 2012). The Legend of Rita and Barbara tackle the popular negative discourse of GDR history not by denying the brutality of the Stasi but by highlighting not only the oppression of the state apparatus but also the revolutionary political ideal and a place where love is possible in spite of the state oppression (Pinfold 2014).
Although, West Germany is presented as the Promised Land in the Lives of the Others, Rita and Barbara, eventually willingly surrender their opportunity to live in West Germany. West German society is not at the centre of the stage in either the Legend of Rita or Barbara, however both films allude some facts of West German society. In the Legend of Rita, Rita’s first of three stories takes place in West Germany and in Barbara, the interaction between East and West can be seen through Barbara’s West German boyfriend and his business partner.
Barbara’s boyfriend, Jörg, is a businessman from West Germany, who frequently travels across the border with his business partner. He and his partner comes into East Germany with their Mercedes, nice suits and ties, which distinguish them from the local East Germans, who drive Trabis and have to wait for years after they order it. He comes to the East to visit Barbara twice in the film. During the first visit, when Barbara and her boyfriend are meeting in the wood, the business partner of her boyfriend, Gerhard has conversation with a local East German. The local man shows curiosity of the Mercedes and that indicates the lack of variety and poor quality of East German car. Later when Barbara’s
boyfriend returns to the car, Gerhard imitates the East German in sarcastic voice: “is that a Mercedes, how much do they cost, how long did you have to wait, we waited eight years for ours and that wasn’t bad” and ask Barbara’s boyfriend: “was is it at least worth it?” This scene shows that the West German feel they are superior to the East because of the economic development.
In spite of its poor performance and quality, the Trabant, produced by VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Saxony, is distinctive symbol of the extinct former GDR. Various models of Trabants in different colours are collected in a Trabi museum in Berlin 25 metres away from Checkpoint Charlie. In Dresden, people today can experience relive the life of a former East German by driving a Trabant themselves. The Trabant is indeed the people’s car in East Germany. The Trabant incorporate more cultural and political nuance in the Legend of Rita in the context of Ostalgie. Rita spends the last of her West Deutschmark on a Trabant as part of her integration process into the East German society.
The second rendezvous between Barbara and her boyfriend took place in a hotel. Barbara sneaks into the hotel room from the window, where they stay and discuss their future. In the hotel room they hear exaggerated sex noise from Gerhard’s room. Her boy explains that Gerhard has met a girl, Steffi, and he said he loves her. Barbara points out the nature of their relationship immediately: “Because she can’t follow him.” She meets Steffi when her boyfriend and Gerhard go out to attend a meeting in the restaurant. She says to Barbara:
Steffi: “If he marries me, do you think they’ll let me leave?”
Barbara: “I don’t think so.”
Steffi: “Do you know your stuff about this?”
Conversation implies that Steffi is unaware of the nature of her relationship with Gerhard. Gerhard used presents in exchange for sex with Steffi. To Barbara, the romantic connection does not exist between Steffi and Gerhard. The relationship between them is simply a trade between sexual intercourse and presents. Yet, Gerhard is not completely honest in this relationship. He claims that he loves Steffi and that makes Steffi dream about one day Gerhard will marry her and take her out of the GDR. It is unlikely he genuinely falls for an East German girl, because he talks about the East with contempt when Jörg comes back from his meeting with Barbara in the wood recently. Steffi is amazed by the variety of jewelry in the catalogue, which are unavailable in East Germany at that time. Thus, Gerhard, a businessman from the West, has the chance to exploit the gullibility of the young East German girl and the lack of variety of goods in East Germany. During Barbara’s conversation with Steffi, she looks reluctant while Steffi shows her the catalogue with ostensible excitement on her face. The capitalist consumerism is not what she wants in her life. Moreover, just before Jörg leaves for the meeting, he proposes “what Petzold regards the key sentence of the whole film”:
Jörg: “Once you’ve come over, you’ll be able to sleep late.”
Barbara: “Why is that?”
Jörg: “I earn enough, you won’t need to work.”
The conversation between Jörg and Barbara is important in the narrative of the film is because it makes Barbara reconsider her wish to go to the West. She realises that going to the West may mark the end of the medical career which she devotes herself into and is her identity. Barbara had an accomplished and fulfilling career in East Germany. Although
she is reassigned to a small clinic, she once worked at the famous Charité hospital in Berlin. Consumerism, fear for change in her professional life and the growing affection toward Andre contribute to her decision to stay in East Germany at the end of the film.
Petzold uses Chic’s at Last I’m Free as then ending theme of the film. The connotation of the song is open to different interpretation; it could possibly mean that Stella finally escapes, or a more likely explanation would be Barbara has the freedom to choose where she lives on her own will. Schlöndorff, in The Legend of Rita, also addresses the freedom of choice and at the same time justify people’s resentment to the government in the East and why Rita is more motivated to be a good East German citizen than her peer at the factory. In the scene Rita and Tatjana having a conversation after work by the window, Tatjana asks Rita:
Tatjana: “Don’t you regret coming here?”
Rita: “I’ve always been left politically. I didn’t have a lot of options. I used to be a waitress.”
Tatjana: “Funny, you come here voluntarily and I want nothing more than to get away.”
Rita: “This is how it is, here and there.”
Tatjana: “I’d like to see that with my own eyes. Maybe I’d even come back, then I’d be here on my own will.”
This conversation is indicates that people in East Germany do not have the liberty to have their own political opinions, but it also implies that the western system is not necessarily superior to the socialist model in East Germany. Freedom is not simply moving to the West or the West annexing the East, but the ability to make choices.
Schlöndorff dealt with the political issue between East and West with great amount of political sensitivity. He challenges the image of the former GDR as a failed political experiment but as a socialist utopia. A Strong anti-capitalist message is delivered in the Legend of Rita. Schlöndorff intends to upset the accustomed view of the GDR as failed political system and question the commonly accepted western system that triumphs over the East. Rita herself is left-wing political. Unlike Andreas Baader in the film the Baader-Meinhof Complex, who appears a violent egocentric extremist, Rita is well aware of the political motivation behind her radical actions in the West Germany. In the beginning of the film, Rita’s monologue states that her intention is to abolish injustice as well as the government. Politics were war throughout the world. She has Karl Marx’s bust and books of iconic revolutionary figures, such as Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. Moreover, she is more anti-capitalism than pro-violence. This is demonstrated in the scene she has a heated debate with her partners when they are on exile in France. Although she shot the policemen who pursues her in France, she did that involuntarily because she was trapped in the underground parking lot. The political message intended in the Legend of Rita is delivered directly through Rita is speech in front of a group of workers after the wall came down. She believes that East Germany is a place everyone is equal; People will not be fired or kicked out of their apartment, the socialism in East Germany was a great attempt and a revolution, it is supposed to be a world that is not ruled by money and people should have faith in their political system. Her speech incorporates the social and economic issues in the former East Germany post-reunification. Many people, who worked within the socialist system, lost their jobs as the system collapsed. Rita is portrayed as the personification of the political ideal she holds. During nearly decades between early 1970s and 1989, Rita
did not age at all, thus it can be interpreted she is more an epitome of socialist ideals rather than a realistic human being. Rita is also a more devout socialist than any local East German in the film. She is rewarded “für vorbildliche sozialistische Arbeit” (for exemplary socialist work), and she is disappointed that the East Germans do not understand the political concept of the GDR (Moeller and Lellis 2012).
Pessimism toward the reunification is expressed in the Legend of Rita, as the reunification marks the end of utopia. If Rita represents her political ideals, the death of Rita at the end of the film symbolizes the end of political ideal. From the German title of the film, die Stille nach dem Schuss (the silence after the shot), this message is implied, yet it is lost in the English translation. After the reunification, the two German states became one, and Rita’s real identity is exposed. She is then wanted on both sides of the disappearing border. With the retort of the German national anthem, Tatjana is brutally pushed against the wall by a group of policemen when she is trying to find Susanne (Rita’s first alias). The authority and brutal law enforcement still exist although the Stasi is disbanded as the former East Germany being absorbed by the West. The film ends with Rita being killed when she was trying to ride across the border as the retort of German anthem plays again.
As opposed to the Legend of Rita, Barbara is almost apolitical. The former GDR is set as the background of the love story of Barbara. The absence of political manifestation makes room for the multidimensionality of characters in Barbara and a different experience of the history of GDR. Debbie Pinfold states that Petzold breaks down the perpetrator v. victim binary in which the GDR is remembered by the public. This binary mindset is account for the success of the Lives of the Others, in which the GDR is cleanly
divided into the state as the perpetrator, represented by the Stasi officers and government officials, and the artists and people as the victim.
The subtle dynamic relations of power grant complexity of characters in Barbara. In the first scene of the film, Barbara comes to work by bus. Although she arrives early, she sits in front of the clinic to smoke a cigarette and would not enter the workplace. Andre and the Stasi officer, Schütz, watch her from the window on the second floor. The position of the characters indicates the power relations at this moment. Barbara is a new doctor in the village who has been recently demoted from the most prominent hospital in Berlin and she is in a new place where she knows no one. Barbara is placed on a relatively powerless position in this scene, when she is watched unawares by Andre, a doctor who has already integrated into the village and is supposedly collaborating with Stasi, and a Stasi office, who represent state authority and power over people (Pinfold 2014).
Barbara’s vulnerability is exhibited in the scenes, which show she is visited by the Stasi officer. She is visited twice in her apartment throughout the film. The process of the visits includes not only questioning and going through her belongings, but also cavity search. She is thoroughly searched when she comes home late and after Stella escapes from the Torgau Juvenile Workhouse. According to the time when the Stasi officers come to Barbara’s place, then time she comes home and her relationship with Stella is watched and reported to the Stasi by the superattendant at her apartment and Andre or other colleagues. Barbara is forced to stand against the wall in her own home while Schütz sits amidst Barbara’s clothes on the floor and other Stasi agents carry on they search and investigation. Barbara’s vulnerability peaks during the second visits of the Stasi agents. When she hears the agent who conducts cavity search knocking on the door, Schütz asks her to open the
door without any emotion, she begs Schütz in shivering voice, yet Schütz remains emotionless and the cavity search carries on subsequently.
However, the relation of power reverses in the film when Barbara goes to Schütz’s to look for Andre, while he attends Schütz’s sick wife in bed. Barbara comes in uninvited when Schütz sits vulnerably in the room. His vulnerability is exposed to Barbara, the woman whom he once inflicted terror upon, when he is being watch by Barbara emotionlessly from a distance. Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Lives of the Others works with mechanical efficiency. His function as an agent of oppression is enforced through the presentation of the absence of a personal life. Unlike Wiesler, the character of Schütz is enriched with a family life besides his profession as a Stasi agent. Schütz carries both occupations as man, who is capable of love and feelings, and a functional Stasi agent when he carries on missions at Barbara’s apartment.
Furthermore, cultural reference is used in Barbara to recreate a relatively more authentic experience of GDR and enrich the characters in Barbara with complexity. I Andre in Barbara is an admirer of art. He attempts to connect with Barbara through discussing Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp. He also enjoys literature and music. When Barbara comes to his apartment, he has photographs and paintings of different style hanging on his wall, and a piano standing in the living room. Instead, the Lives of the Others presents GDR as a cultural wasteland where the only artworks allowed are those that praise the regime (Fisher 2013).
The Legend of Rita has a conclusively pessimistic ending as the protagonist, who is the personification of socialist ideals, is shot dead in the end of the film with two lines of text appearing on the screen: “Alles ist so gewesen. Nichts war genau so.” (This is how
everything was, more or less). Unlike the Legend of Rita, Barbara has an open ending and it raises more questions than it answered. The film ends with Barbara returning to the hospital breathing heavily after sending Stella off to Denmark. There is no dialogue between Barbara and Andre in the hospital. Many questions are left to the audience, such as how will the relationship between Andre and Barbara develop after she missed Mario’s operation and is suspected for assisting a fugitive from the Torgau Juvenile Workhouse escape the country. In conclusion, both the Legend of Rita and Barbara challenge the public narratives of the history of the former GDR set up and reinforced by the Lives of the Others with different approaches. The Legend of Rita arouses sympathy for the protagonist and the end of political ideals that Rita upholds. The film challenges the common image of GDR as a political failure and presents the ideals as brave and revolutionary. Barbara, on the other hand, focus on the complexity of East German society other than politics. The film reconstructs the GDR in colour and warmth with elaborated complexity of characters and enriching cultural references. It does not only challenge the familiar narrative of the GDR history as simply Stasiland but also avoids the conventional discourse of GDR as an extinct political system and recreate the individuality of the memories of professional and personal lives in the former East Germany with the foregrounding of Barbara’s love story. And through Barbara’s narrative, the people who once lived in GDR is more than a collective object to the oppression of Stasi in the history, but a group of individuals who have their very own stories."<>"" && "匆忙写的，没有edit,，有语法问题或拼写错误请见谅，才B+ 连A都没拿到。翻译随后跟上。
The Legend of Rita (German title: die Stille nach dem Schuss) is a German film, released in 2000, directed by Volker Schlöndorff. The film tells the story of Rita Vogt, a member of the extreme left wing terrorist group, Red Army Faktion (RAF). She is responsible for bank robbery, breaking into a prison to rescue her partner and killing a policeman when she is on exile in France. She then finds her place in East German, where she is provided with a new identity by the Stasi. Rita decides to stay in East Germany although her partners decide to leave, because she believes East Germany is the country where her political ideal is fulfilled. Barbara was released in 2012, directed by Christian Petzold. In the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in 2012, where Christian Petzold was awarded the Silver Bear for the Best Director. The protagonist, Barbara Wolff, is a doctor who used to work at The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the oldest and most prominent hospital in East Berlin. She is transferred, in fact demoted, to a clinic in a small village in Northern East Germany and makes the Stasi watch list, because she expressed her wish to go to the West. In village she meets Andre, a doctor at the clinic she works at. He is supposed to watch Barbara and report her activities to the Stasi agent in the village. Also, she meets Stella, a girl who was detained at the Torgau Juvenile Workhouse for unknown reason, Barbara’s former patient, for whom Barbara sacrifices her opportunity to run away to the West. The Legend of Rita and Barbara are both post-reunification German film about the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and they both attempt to challenge the conventional west-centric discourse of the memory of the GDR in media with different approaches. East Germany is also stereotypically presented as simply Stasiland, no freedom of speech, failed political system, economically and socially backward. Even though Schlöndorff tried to avoid the conventional West-triumph-over-east narrative, the
Legend of Rita still taps into many East German stereotypes. On the other hand, Barbara reconstructs a more realistic GDR in colour and presents a more complex set of characters in the former socialist state.
The Stasi is commonly seen as the dominant ruling power over the East German people. The East German people are simply seen as the victims of the state apparatus. The most well-known film about the former East Germany is the Lives of others, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The film won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It also had won numerous awards elsewhere, including Deutscher Filmpreis for the best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor. The Lives of the Others sets paradigm of the public discourse of the former GDR. It is so successful because the film reconstructs the former East Germany as dark oppressive country in which people have no freedom of speech. The streets seem dark and grey. Donnersmarck uses extra-diegetic soundtrack frequently to create the oppressive and unpleasant environment of GDR and guide the thought of the audience further into seeing the GDR as the oppressive force over the population. The Lives of the Others harshly criticize the former East German socialist regime, and clearly demonstrate the simplistic binary of the state as the perpetrator and the free-loving people as the victim. Additionally, the narrative of the Lives of the Others exudes optimism towards the reunification in 1989. (Cooke 2011)
The end of socialist regime marks the liberation of people, including the artists. Dreyman’s new play featuring an African-German actress marks the progress in anti-racism. The Lives of the Others emphasizes the Stasi as the powerful tool of the state machine overseeing and controlling the people all the time. Their networks is ubiquitous in East German society
and the people do not have any chance to resist. Every step taken in East Germany is observed by the Stasi. If anyone shows any signs of faithlessness to the state, he or she will be punished immediately. The Stasi is the ruthless and effective enforcer of the will of the state (Moeller and Lellis 2012). The Legend of Rita and Barbara tackle the popular negative discourse of GDR history not by denying the brutality of the Stasi but by highlighting not only the oppression of the state apparatus but also the revolutionary political ideal and a place where love is possible in spite of the state oppression (Pinfold 2014).
Although, West Germany is presented as the Promised Land in the Lives of the Others, Rita and Barbara, eventually willingly surrender their opportunity to live in West Germany. West German society is not at the centre of the stage in either the Legend of Rita or Barbara, however both films allude some facts of West German society. In the Legend of Rita, Rita’s first of three stories takes place in West Germany and in Barbara, the interaction between East and West can be seen through Barbara’s West German boyfriend and his business partner.
Barbara’s boyfriend, Jörg, is a businessman from West Germany, who frequently travels across the border with his business partner. He and his partner comes into East Germany with their Mercedes, nice suits and ties, which distinguish them from the local East Germans, who drive Trabis and have to wait for years after they order it. He comes to the East to visit Barbara twice in the film. During the first visit, when Barbara and her boyfriend are meeting in the wood, the business partner of her boyfriend, Gerhard has conversation with a local East German. The local man shows curiosity of the Mercedes and that indicates the lack of variety and poor quality of East German car. Later when Barbara’s
boyfriend returns to the car, Gerhard imitates the East German in sarcastic voice: “is that a Mercedes, how much do they cost, how long did you have to wait, we waited eight years for ours and that wasn’t bad” and ask Barbara’s boyfriend: “was is it at least worth it?” This scene shows that the West German feel they are superior to the East because of the economic development.
In spite of its poor performance and quality, the Trabant, produced by VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Saxony, is distinctive symbol of the extinct former GDR. Various models of Trabants in different colours are collected in a Trabi museum in Berlin 25 metres away from Checkpoint Charlie. In Dresden, people today can experience relive the life of a former East German by driving a Trabant themselves. The Trabant is indeed the people’s car in East Germany. The Trabant incorporate more cultural and political nuance in the Legend of Rita in the context of Ostalgie. Rita spends the last of her West Deutschmark on a Trabant as part of her integration process into the East German society.
The second rendezvous between Barbara and her boyfriend took place in a hotel. Barbara sneaks into the hotel room from the window, where they stay and discuss their future. In the hotel room they hear exaggerated sex noise from Gerhard’s room. Her boy explains that Gerhard has met a girl, Steffi, and he said he loves her. Barbara points out the nature of their relationship immediately: “Because she can’t follow him.” She meets Steffi when her boyfriend and Gerhard go out to attend a meeting in the restaurant. She says to Barbara:
Steffi: “If he marries me, do you think they’ll let me leave?”
Barbara: “I don’t think so.”
Steffi: “Do you know your stuff about this?”
Conversation implies that Steffi is unaware of the nature of her relationship with Gerhard. Gerhard used presents in exchange for sex with Steffi. To Barbara, the romantic connection does not exist between Steffi and Gerhard. The relationship between them is simply a trade between sexual intercourse and presents. Yet, Gerhard is not completely honest in this relationship. He claims that he loves Steffi and that makes Steffi dream about one day Gerhard will marry her and take her out of the GDR. It is unlikely he genuinely falls for an East German girl, because he talks about the East with contempt when Jörg comes back from his meeting with Barbara in the wood recently. Steffi is amazed by the variety of jewelry in the catalogue, which are unavailable in East Germany at that time. Thus, Gerhard, a businessman from the West, has the chance to exploit the gullibility of the young East German girl and the lack of variety of goods in East Germany. During Barbara’s conversation with Steffi, she looks reluctant while Steffi shows her the catalogue with ostensible excitement on her face. The capitalist consumerism is not what she wants in her life. Moreover, just before Jörg leaves for the meeting, he proposes “what Petzold regards the key sentence of the whole film”:
Jörg: “Once you’ve come over, you’ll be able to sleep late.”
Barbara: “Why is that?”
Jörg: “I earn enough, you won’t need to work.”
The conversation between Jörg and Barbara is important in the narrative of the film is because it makes Barbara reconsider her wish to go to the West. She realises that going to the West may mark the end of the medical career which she devotes herself into and is her identity. Barbara had an accomplished and fulfilling career in East Germany. Although
she is reassigned to a small clinic, she once worked at the famous Charité hospital in Berlin. Consumerism, fear for change in her professional life and the growing affection toward Andre contribute to her decision to stay in East Germany at the end of the film.
Petzold uses Chic’s at Last I’m Free as then ending theme of the film. The connotation of the song is open to different interpretation; it could possibly mean that Stella finally escapes, or a more likely explanation would be Barbara has the freedom to choose where she lives on her own will. Schlöndorff, in The Legend of Rita, also addresses the freedom of choice and at the same time justify people’s resentment to the government in the East and why Rita is more motivated to be a good East German citizen than her peer at the factory. In the scene Rita and Tatjana having a conversation after work by the window, Tatjana asks Rita:
Tatjana: “Don’t you regret coming here?”
Rita: “I’ve always been left politically. I didn’t have a lot of options. I used to be a waitress.”
Tatjana: “Funny, you come here voluntarily and I want nothing more than to get away.”
Rita: “This is how it is, here and there.”
Tatjana: “I’d like to see that with my own eyes. Maybe I’d even come back, then I’d be here on my own will.”
This conversation is indicates that people in East Germany do not have the liberty to have their own political opinions, but it also implies that the western system is not necessarily superior to the socialist model in East Germany. Freedom is not simply moving to the West or the West annexing the East, but the ability to make choices.
Schlöndorff dealt with the political issue between East and West with great amount of political sensitivity. He challenges the image of the former GDR as a failed political experiment but as a socialist utopia. A Strong anti-capitalist message is delivered in the Legend of Rita. Schlöndorff intends to upset the accustomed view of the GDR as failed political system and question the commonly accepted western system that triumphs over the East. Rita herself is left-wing political. Unlike Andreas Baader in the film the Baader-Meinhof Complex, who appears a violent egocentric extremist, Rita is well aware of the political motivation behind her radical actions in the West Germany. In the beginning of the film, Rita’s monologue states that her intention is to abolish injustice as well as the government. Politics were war throughout the world. She has Karl Marx’s bust and books of iconic revolutionary figures, such as Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. Moreover, she is more anti-capitalism than pro-violence. This is demonstrated in the scene she has a heated debate with her partners when they are on exile in France. Although she shot the policemen who pursues her in France, she did that involuntarily because she was trapped in the underground parking lot. The political message intended in the Legend of Rita is delivered directly through Rita is speech in front of a group of workers after the wall came down. She believes that East Germany is a place everyone is equal; People will not be fired or kicked out of their apartment, the socialism in East Germany was a great attempt and a revolution, it is supposed to be a world that is not ruled by money and people should have faith in their political system. Her speech incorporates the social and economic issues in the former East Germany post-reunification. Many people, who worked within the socialist system, lost their jobs as the system collapsed. Rita is portrayed as the personification of the political ideal she holds. During nearly decades between early 1970s and 1989, Rita
did not age at all, thus it can be interpreted she is more an epitome of socialist ideals rather than a realistic human being. Rita is also a more devout socialist than any local East German in the film. She is rewarded “für vorbildliche sozialistische Arbeit” (for exemplary socialist work), and she is disappointed that the East Germans do not understand the political concept of the GDR (Moeller and Lellis 2012).
Pessimism toward the reunification is expressed in the Legend of Rita, as the reunification marks the end of utopia. If Rita represents her political ideals, the death of Rita at the end of the film symbolizes the end of political ideal. From the German title of the film, die Stille nach dem Schuss (the silence after the shot), this message is implied, yet it is lost in the English translation. After the reunification, the two German states became one, and Rita’s real identity is exposed. She is then wanted on both sides of the disappearing border. With the retort of the German national anthem, Tatjana is brutally pushed against the wall by a group of policemen when she is trying to find Susanne (Rita’s first alias). The authority and brutal law enforcement still exist although the Stasi is disbanded as the former East Germany being absorbed by the West. The film ends with Rita being killed when she was trying to ride across the border as the retort of German anthem plays again.
As opposed to the Legend of Rita, Barbara is almost apolitical. The former GDR is set as the background of the love story of Barbara. The absence of political manifestation makes room for the multidimensionality of characters in Barbara and a different experience of the history of GDR. Debbie Pinfold states that Petzold breaks down the perpetrator v. victim binary in which the GDR is remembered by the public. This binary mindset is account for the success of the Lives of the Others, in which the GDR is cleanly
divided into the state as the perpetrator, represented by the Stasi officers and government officials, and the artists and people as the victim.
The subtle dynamic relations of power grant complexity of characters in Barbara. In the first scene of the film, Barbara comes to work by bus. Although she arrives early, she sits in front of the clinic to smoke a cigarette and would not enter the workplace. Andre and the Stasi officer, Schütz, watch her from the window on the second floor. The position of the characters indicates the power relations at this moment. Barbara is a new doctor in the village who has been recently demoted from the most prominent hospital in Berlin and she is in a new place where she knows no one. Barbara is placed on a relatively powerless position in this scene, when she is watched unawares by Andre, a doctor who has already integrated into the village and is supposedly collaborating with Stasi, and a Stasi office, who represent state authority and power over people (Pinfold 2014).
Barbara’s vulnerability is exhibited in the scenes, which show she is visited by the Stasi officer. She is visited twice in her apartment throughout the film. The process of the visits includes not only questioning and going through her belongings, but also cavity search. She is thoroughly searched when she comes home late and after Stella escapes from the Torgau Juvenile Workhouse. According to the time when the Stasi officers come to Barbara’s place, then time she comes home and her relationship with Stella is watched and reported to the Stasi by the superattendant at her apartment and Andre or other colleagues. Barbara is forced to stand against the wall in her own home while Schütz sits amidst Barbara’s clothes on the floor and other Stasi agents carry on they search and investigation. Barbara’s vulnerability peaks during the second visits of the Stasi agents. When she hears the agent who conducts cavity search knocking on the door, Schütz asks her to open the
door without any emotion, she begs Schütz in shivering voice, yet Schütz remains emotionless and the cavity search carries on subsequently.
However, the relation of power reverses in the film when Barbara goes to Schütz’s to look for Andre, while he attends Schütz’s sick wife in bed. Barbara comes in uninvited when Schütz sits vulnerably in the room. His vulnerability is exposed to Barbara, the woman whom he once inflicted terror upon, when he is being watch by Barbara emotionlessly from a distance. Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Lives of the Others works with mechanical efficiency. His function as an agent of oppression is enforced through the presentation of the absence of a personal life. Unlike Wiesler, the character of Schütz is enriched with a family life besides his profession as a Stasi agent. Schütz carries both occupations as man, who is capable of love and feelings, and a functional Stasi agent when he carries on missions at Barbara’s apartment.
Furthermore, cultural reference is used in Barbara to recreate a relatively more authentic experience of GDR and enrich the characters in Barbara with complexity. I Andre in Barbara is an admirer of art. He attempts to connect with Barbara through discussing Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp. He also enjoys literature and music. When Barbara comes to his apartment, he has photographs and paintings of different style hanging on his wall, and a piano standing in the living room. Instead, the Lives of the Others presents GDR as a cultural wasteland where the only artworks allowed are those that praise the regime (Fisher 2013).
The Legend of Rita has a conclusively pessimistic ending as the protagonist, who is the personification of socialist ideals, is shot dead in the end of the film with two lines of text appearing on the screen: “Alles ist so gewesen. Nichts war genau so.” (This is how
everything was, more or less). Unlike the Legend of Rita, Barbara has an open ending and it raises more questions than it answered. The film ends with Barbara returning to the hospital breathing heavily after sending Stella off to Denmark. There is no dialogue between Barbara and Andre in the hospital. Many questions are left to the audience, such as how will the relationship between Andre and Barbara develop after she missed Mario’s operation and is suspected for assisting a fugitive from the Torgau Juvenile Workhouse escape the country. In conclusion, both the Legend of Rita and Barbara challenge the public narratives of the history of the former GDR set up and reinforced by the Lives of the Others with different approaches. The Legend of Rita arouses sympathy for the protagonist and the end of political ideals that Rita upholds. The film challenges the common image of GDR as a political failure and presents the ideals as brave and revolutionary. Barbara, on the other hand, focus on the complexity of East German society other than politics. The film reconstructs the GDR in colour and warmth with elaborated complexity of characters and enriching cultural references. It does not only challenge the familiar narrative of the GDR history as simply Stasiland but also avoids the conventional discourse of GDR as an extinct political system and recreate the individuality of the memories of professional and personal lives in the former East Germany with the foregrounding of Barbara’s love story. And through Barbara’s narrative, the people who once lived in GDR is more than a collective object to the oppression of Stasi in the history, but a group of individuals who have their very own stories."<>"暂时没有网友评论该影片"}{end if}