Stasi Also Developed Quite University Of Californ

Please follow the introduction carefuly , there are 3 assignments.

Before you begin, please watch the movie Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The Lives of Others (Links to an external site.)(2007) First.

Question 1: In his essay Brockmann makes a reference to Friedrich Schiller’s aesthetic theory and writes: “In his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), Friedrich Schiller had proclaimed that ‘there is no other way to make the sensuous man rational than by first making him aesthetic,’ that is, that ordinary human beings can be elevated into extraordinary ones only by confrontation with great art” (p. 614-15). Please respond to these two questions (together about 250 words):

1. How does this reference to Schiller relate to this sence https://uci.yuja.com/V/Video?v=1164787&node=4294951&a=1373455414&autoplay=1from the film The Lives of Others?

2. Brockmann considers such Schillerian trust in the power or art deeply problematic for the depiction of a Stasi officer like Gerd Wiesler . Based on your own viewing of the film: for what reasons do you agree or disagree with Brockmann’s assessment?

Question 2: In his talk https://www.ted.com/talks/hubertus_knabe_the_dark_secrets_of_a_surveillance_state/transcript#t-39271 , the historian Hubertus Knabe describes the methods of the East German Secret Police (Stasi) and emphasizes especially the method of Zersetzung (11:30-13:30): “The Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it’s described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally “biodegradation.” But actually, it’s a quite accurate description. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn’t try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions. Detaining someone was used only as a last resort. For this, the Stasi owned 17 remand prisons, one in every district. Here, the Stasi also developed quite modern methods of detention. Normally, the interrogation officer didn’t torture the prisoner. Instead, he used a sophisticated system of psychological pressure in which strict isolation was central. Nearly no prisoner resisted without giving a testimony. If you have the occasion, do visit the former Stasi prison in Berlin and attend a guided tour with a former political prisoner who will explain to you how this worked.”

Choose a scene from the film The Live of Others that represents the method and/or the effects of Zersetzung either especially well or frustratingly insufficient in your analysis. Explain your choice of scene and your assessment in about 250 words.

Question 3: Take a look at this early scenehttps://uci.yuja.com/V/Video?v=1164785&node=4294948&a=1969615235&autoplay=1 from the film The Lives of Others. How does this scene introduce the theme of observation and establish and foreshadow the main narrative and conflicts of the film? (500 words)