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An Homage to Ulrich Mühe, enter here
November, 5,2007.
Hi, dear Montse!
I'm aware of the huge floods that took over in the south of Mexico this
last week, and hope you and your family are well and safe...and a small bit of news on DLZ series, it's confirmed Gesine Cukrowski
won't play anymore in the series, she feels no sense in continuing after Uli's death...for all the "affection, friendship
and respect "towards her deceased partner... I think she got a very beautiful and honorable decision, and I feel deep
respect for her...interesting how ZDF and Nova Company are trying to keep the series at any cost, but there's a general
thought among the public that the newer seasons will be much weaker...why don't they just create another completely
new series around the work of forensic pathologists? it would be better for Christ sakes... now, they will have to kill
Kolmaar and J. Summer together, ha,ha,ha...let's say, in a car crash or something like that... and poor commissioner Hoffer
can shed a pair of tears,kick them into their graves, then go take a big ice cream and start clearing murder cases with
new partners...poor Jorg Gudhzum (woa, can't spell his name...), wonder where they are going to find actors with the same
talent caliber and charisma to play alongside him...
Now, bye for now and take care!
Sil
Hi, Montse! Hope you're fine!
Just some news about Ulrich, last sunday at Berlin's Schaubuehne
( I guess it's a theater...) a nice ceremony in hommage to Ulrich took place, and lots of friends ,colleagues,family and fans
were there to say goodbay to him(make a search on"gedenkfeier für Ulrich Mühe" and you'll find lots of articles about it...
and,
if you're searching for his movies and DLZ episodes, there's a lot of stuff up on e-mule for download...and a good site for
download from german tv is onlinetvrecorder.com, it's a german site, you can download movies and series from german tv for free(and it's all legal...),you just need to register
and learn how to use the site(it's very easy)...but you must have broadband, and a good codec pack(with the classic media
player, for instance) installed on your computer, to see .avi files...
Now, I'm a bit shocked because it seems
the DLZ series will continue...without its main character!!! and they're going to kill (notice, KILL!!!!) R. Kolmaar and just
put some new guy in a new role...I find it disgusting,horrible and totally disrespectful to Uli and the fans of the series,
to say the least...it's like killing Ulli again, in a certain sense...let's kick him into the coffin,bury it, go take some
ice cream and then solve another murder case...totally insensitive and disrespectful, but what we can expect from
these people, in show bussiness it's all a matter of money, forget the respect and genuine affection...and you know,
the episodes being showed right now are a massive success on german TV, the last one was number one of audience,and
to think they are older episodes already showed a couple of years ago...but I guess people are watching them because
of Ulrich, of course...I have no idea how the german tv viewer will react to the idea of keeping the series without its leading
actor and the main role of Kolmaar...
Byee!!!
Sil
Dear Montse, Just wanted to write to you about the honorary citizenship conceded by Grimma to
Ulrich this past weekend, during the song festival which happens there every year ,always by the second weekend of August.
Ulrich was the patrone for the fest, now the new patrone is Anna Maria Mühe...she went there with her brother Andreas,
to receive the hommage(honorary citizen) for her father...See here: http://www.vanityfair.de/articles/kultur/anna-maria-andreas-muehe/2007/08/11/02690/There's something really sad about the eyes of the two youths, and the article says it was very hard to hold back
the tears when they showed a small clip of Uli on the big screen, from last year's fest, talking and singing... Susanne didn't
go there, I'm very concerned about her, I hope she's finding all support she needs, and also their two little children... Just
now I found out the name of Uli's second child from his first marriage, it's Konrad... never seen his pic, but my love
goes to him the same... And Uli's in the cover of Stern magazine, there's an extensive article about his life,full
of beautiful pics, you should buy the magazine if you see it, it's worthwhile... Awkward our situation
as fans,concerning our own feelings, don't you think? Uli wasn't our relative, but oddly we feel like some endearing
relative went away forever, and this realization really hurts...and to think we never met him personally...what do you think,
since you work in psychology field, the complex feelings of loss that fans share when one of their favorite artists is
gone... Well, he was getting lots of offers of work from Hollywood, we will never see him working in those movies...and
I now wonder about his ZDF series, do you think they are going to replace him? Or simply shut down the series, leaving to
the public to make up their own last episode into their minds...I really don't see how an actor like Uli can be replaced...You
know the reairing of the old episodes was a huge hit( read it on quotenmeter.de and on odeon site), the episode just the friday before his death(when the news about his illness went public) and
the two episodes aired the friday after his death got massive audiences in Germany...I do think the public loved him
and also the series...what do your german friends say? I wonder when ZDF will be airing the special episode The Friend
from Bangkok,it's the last one Uli filmed just before last Christmas...it's his last work in Der Letzte Zeuge, and I actually guess
it's also his last work in front of the cameras... Well, bye for now, take care, and save a prayer for Uli and his
beloved ones ! I hope you are OK ,despite all the sadness around... Sil
watch "der letzte zeuge" new episodes
watch the 79 Oscars ceremony, the moment when "das leben der anderen" win the prize.
The good german article. 22/02/07
“The Lives of Others”
Directed by Florian Henckel
von Donnersmarck
Now playing at Angelika Film Center
18 West Houston St. (212-995-2000; angelikafilmcenter.com)
Their eyes were watching
A new film reveals the crimes of East Germany’s infamous secret police
Hagen Keller. Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics
Ulrich Mühe plays a Stasi officer trained to spy on East German
citizens in “The Lives of Others.”
By Rania Richardson
Surveillance is a weapon in “The Lives of Others,”
a political thriller based on historical events in East Germany just prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s debut feature revolves
around the world of the communist secret police, known as the Stasi, who monitor every potential dissident in order to crush
the remotest hint of opposition. Artists and writers are their key targets because of their free spirits and their capacity
to influence public opinion.
The fictional story follows a committed Stasi officer, Captain
Gerd Wiesler, who becomes disillusioned with his covert mission and undergoes a quiet transformation as he monitors a renowned
playwright and his actress girlfriend. He records their creative plans, personal struggles, intimate conversations, even their
lovemaking.
Earlier this month Henckel von Donnersmarck sat down with
an international group of journalists to talk about the film. Towering at 6’9, he was loquacious in discussing his first
feature, recently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
“I actually know the Cold War very well because it
happened every evening at our dinner table. I can’t remember a single peaceful conversation about politics in our home,”
he said, explaining that his mother’s sympathies were with East Germany, while his father, an executive at Lufthansa,
supported the West. Born in Cologne in 1973, the writer/director grew up in New York and West Berlin and studied at the National
Institute in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and Oxford University before attending the Munich Film Academy.
“I was the first Western student from a non-socialist
country,” he said referring to the Institute in Leningrad, where he encountered surveillance first hand in 1991, at
the cusp of the dissolving of the Soviet Union. “The KGB guy got excited that now he really had a target! So he made
an effort of keeping me totally shadowed, which was pointless because there was nobody interested in that anymore at all.
He was just still in that habit. I felt very deeply honored by his interest,” the director added with a smile. Years
later, he ran into that same KGB operative and learned that he had become a real estate dealer.
Henckel von Donnersmarck’s memories of communist Russia
informed the look of “The Lives of Others.” “The colors of the Eastern Bloc were different. People always
say it was gray, gray, and gray. Colors weren’t as bright and shiny. The colors of the Trabant cars were all washed
out. Why couldn’t you make a red car red and a blue car blue, and not this kind of weird turquoise where you feel like
they just gave it one coating?” he said, describing the standard socialist vehicle. “Even the red of the national
flag was not red enough — it had a slightly orangey touch to it.” A chemist who explained that certain color patents
were not available in the East validated his observation. Thus a drained palette became his “color concept” for
the film.
The director spent several years researching the atrocities
of the Stasi and the politics of the era to add to his impressions from childhood, when his family would visit relatives in
the East. An eye-opening event came when his mother was held for hours and strip searched during a routine border check
Ulrich Mühe, cast as the Captain who has a crisis of conscience,
had his own memories as a victim of Stasi espionage. As a star of East German theater, he found out from his declassified
files that four members of his trusted theater group had been planted to spy on him. More shockingly — echoing a plot
line in the film — his wife of six years was a registered informer throughout their marriage.
According to Henckel von Donnersmarck, “The Stasi
had known that he was going to be a big star even before he knew it. He was a very talented actor with a special magnetism,
so the Stasi positioned him for his military service at age 18 at the Berlin Wall with the order to shoot people who had crossed
from the East to the West. They said to him very clearly, ‘If you do not shoot to kill, you will not be allowed to study
acting and become an actor.’ But if he did shoot to kill he wouldn’t have been able to become an actor either
because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. His body found a solution by collapsing on service with stomach ulcers
at age 18 which had to be operated on so he was then dismissed from serving the second half of his service.
Despite the wide acclaim the film received in Germany, the
publicized details of Mühe’s experiences were met with mixed reaction. “Half the press branded him a hero, the
other half thought he shouldn’t air his dirty laundry in public,” Henckel von Donnersmarck said, reinforcing the
subject’s polarizing nature. |
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| Congratulations Ulrich Du bist unser gut actor!! |
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| Ulrich, Florian Henckel und Quiring Berg |
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Stasi film in European awards win |
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The Lives of Others revolves around a secret police officer
| A film about a secret policeman in the
former East Germany has taken top prize at the European Film Awards in Warsaw.
The Lives of Others - or Das Leben Der Anderen - beat Spanish production Volver by Pedro Almodovar, although this still
came top in five categories.
These included best director for Almodovar, top actress for Penelope Cruz plus the people's choice award.
Oscar-winning film-maker Roman Polanski also returned to his Polish homeland to collect a lifetime achievement award.
'Changed my life'
The Lives of Others is a drama about how East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, destroyed the lives of ordinary people.
Ulrich Muehe won the best actor trophy for his portrayal of a policeman who becomes engrossed in a playwright and his girlfriend,
both of whom he is spying on.
Director Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, who also won the best screenplay, told the audience it meant a lot to win the
award in Poland, "since my father was born in this country". |
"Das Leben der Anderen" will be present on the AFI festival
in los Angeles.
This october Los Angeles have a big festival called AFI fest, thousands of foreigner movies
and other from american industry will be show.
On this fest we can see "the life of others" (Das leben...) and other documentals, this fest
is presented by Audi.
Das Leben Der Anderen Official Site
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