MARCH
13, 2007 --
Thanks
to Google," LPR found a TIME magazine article,"Comrade
Scarpia," about a modern dress version of Puccini's "Tosca," staged
in Cleveland in 1957, with
the action taking place in an unnamed country behind the Iron Curtain.
In this version, Scarpia was the head of the secret police--Tosca (whose first
name is Floria) was played by Beverly Sills.
Now, the German writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, with his
award-winning "The Lives of Others" has given us an expanded modern
version of the Puccini opera (based, in turn, on the 1887 play, "La Tosca" by
Victorien Sardou, with Sarah Bernhardt in
the title role.) Scarpia is now the East German culture minister, Cavarodossi--
the playwright George Dreyman, Tosca -- the actress Christa-Maria Sieland --
and Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler in the much expanded role of Spoletta.
Victor Grossman, in the online Political Affairs, which calls itself "Marxist." dismissed
the film as a politically-correct vehicle in today's world and defended East
Germany as a place where there was full
employment, free child care and health coverage for all. Most reviewers, however,
have praised this movie.
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"The Lives of Others" got
the Oscar, last month, for best foreign language film and LPR wonders if
Hollywood meant to signal that its liberal bias does not go so far as to
support state restrictions on art.
LPR has seen reports, online, that Jenny Grollmann, an East German actress (d.
2006) informed to the Stasi (security police) on Ulrich Muhe (Capt. Wiesler),
her husband of six years.
In "The Lives of Others." Muhe plays a Stasi captain who persuades
actress Sieland (Martina Gedeck) to inform on Dreyman (Sebastian Koch).
LPR expects that this film will increase interest in German movies and German
actors. LPR does not expect, however, that the film will prompt inquiry in the
media how freedom activists, behind the Iron Curtain, regarded the protesting
left in the west.
(BTW -- March 11 is a key date in the movie; LPR happened to see the film on… March
11 -- as LPR saw "Breach," on February 18, the day (in 2001) when
Robert Hanssen was arrested (same day as Dale Earnhardt was killed at Daytona). |
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