%0 Journal Article
%T The Lives of Others: re-remembering the German Democratic Republic.
%A Margaret Montgomerie
%A Anne- Kathrin Reck
%J Image and Narrative : Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative
%D 2011
%I Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
%X : In the period since the popular uprising of 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany, a range of representations of the GDR have emerged and gained popularity with audiences in the former GDR and the West. This article will investigate the ways in which three films, Good bye Lenin! (Becker, 2003, Germany) , The Lives of Others  (von Donnersmarck,  2006, Germany) and Mrs Ratcliffe¡¯s Revolution (Eltringham, 2007, UK) recall the East German past, invoking memories, or the sense of memory, through an articulation of the detail of the everyday lives of ordinary people. These films are immersed in the discursive practices associated with ¡®Ostalgie¡¯, a term coined to characterise the critical, often humorous nostalgia for the life and style of the former East.  The article will also explore the use of references to state coercion and surveillance which draws on a set of representational tropes and which continue the West¡¯s Cold War representation of the paranoid and intrusively watchful state.   R¨¦sum¨¦: Depuis le soul¨¨vement populaire de 1989, la chute du Mur de Berlin et la r¨¦unification de l'Allemagne, toute une s¨¦rie de repr¨¦sentations culturelles de la RDA sont devenues  tr¨¨s populaires, tant ¨¤ l'Ouest qua dans l'ex-RDA. Cet article analyse la mani¨¨re dont trois films, Good bye Lenin! (Becker, 2003, Allemagne) , La vie des autres  (von Donnersmarck,  2006, Allemagne) et Mrs Ratcliffe¡¯s Revolution (Eltringham, 2007, GB), ¨¦voquent les souvenirs de l'Allemagne de l'Est et comment la m¨¦moire (ou le sentiment de la m¨¦moire) s'articule ¨¤ la mise en sc¨¨ne de certains d¨¦tails de la vie quotidienne de gens ordinaires. Ces films plongent dans les discours nostalgiques associ¨¦s au concept d' "ostalgie", une forme de nostalgie critique et souvent empreinte d'humour de la vie et du style de l'ex-RDA. Cet article analyse aussi la repr¨¦sentation des contraintes et de la surveillance exerc¨¦es par l'¨¦tat, qui prolongent un imaginaire venu de l'¨¦poque de la Guerre froide et de ses id¨¦es sur un appareil d'¨¦tat parano de et obs¨¦d¨¦ de contr le social.
%K ¡®Ostalgie¡¯/ nostalgia for East Germany
%K film
%K collective
%K cultural
%K surveillance state
%U http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/147