more on the power of Art

so the director was thinking about this quote by Lenin and thought, what if Lenin could have been forced to listen to the Appassionata just as he was getting ready to smash in somebody's head? and he (the director) then wondered whether he could create a dramatic situation in which Lenin had to listen to the Appassionata because he was really trying to listen to something else. an image popped in his head of a man in a depressing room, with earphones, "expecting to hear words that go against his beloved ideology, but actually hearing a music so beautiful and so powerful that it makes him re-think (or rather: re-feel) that ideology."

and here we have the beauty of one of the two major themes i see in the movie: the power of Art to push us toward the better. Plato says that when we see something beautiful, we are reminded of a divine Beauty that we are trying to pursue. i love that the director says re-feel instead of re-think. this is what i was talking about in relation to principle. i think this is what Lewis would call the chest in Abolition of Man (see my comment on the previous post, about the value of the waterfall). if our gut represents our instincts/natural reactions/feelings and the head represents extreme rationality, there exists between the two the principle of the chest-something between thinking and feeling and actually much deeper than either. it's so appropriate though, that he corrects himself to say re-feel rather than re-think because Art (especially music) very often doesn't make us think, it makes us "feel." but it's so powerful that it can change our thinking.

principle

Is the true essence of ideology the dominance of principal over feeling?

I want to believe that principal can have feeling as well. What does a principle really mean if it does not have feeling? Are feelings so inadequate that they can not defend a principle? Are there not different types of feeling? I think I can believe in a principle and yet part of the reason I believe in it is from a deep-rooted feeling connected to it. Yet, maybe this is ideology: that principles must dominate feeling. I see in this the conflict of between the idealist and the realist- let's say that a person want a revolution. While this person may ideally want his/her revolution to be non-violent, the economic and social conditions are so bad and the government so oppressive that the revolutionist believes violence is the only solution. in other words, ideally s/he wants a peaceful revolution because s/he does not want people to be hurt (especially his/her own people) but realistically, there is no other way than violence.
i do not like this situation and it's because i do not like the principle behind it. i do not like the principle that violence can bring about effective and positive change. do violent means really bring peaceful ends?
i would side with Martin Luther King, Jr.-he brought about a revolution with non-violence. is he an ideologue? perhaps in a different sense. or, perhaps he was and the director (or Lenin) was just wrong: i would never call MLK's Love a feeling, that kind of Love, the kind of Love he believed in was a principle. But in fact it did dominate feeling-who could have rotten eggs thrown in their face and not feel like punching the thrower? the feeling of the civil rights activists certainly had to be dominated by their principle. their feeling (instinct) was violence, their principle was love. what was Lenin's principle? he believed it was necessary to smash heads...perhaps his fault lies in mistaking what Music made him feel as "feeling." maybe what Music made him "feel" was in fact, a principle.

Art

"It wasn't my intention to make a film 'about the GDR.' I was in my first year in film school, in late 1997. I was listening to a Beethoven piano sonata, and suddenly i remembered what Lenin had said about the 'Appassionata' to his friend Maxim Gorky. He said that it was his favorite piece of music, but that in the interest of finishing his revolution, he did not want to listen to it any more, because it made him want to 'tell people sweet stupid things and stroke their heads' in times when it was 'necessary to smash in those heads, smash them in without mercy.' I find that to be a terrifying quote. It shows so clearly how any ideologue has to shut out his feelings altogether in order to pursue his goals. Suddenly, in that moment, I understood that this was the true essence of ideology: the total dominance of principle over feeling. It became clear to me that one of the biggest challenges in life is finding the right balance between principle and ideology when confronted with a moral choice. Lenin had chosen one extreme: all principle, but in a way, his statement was also a beautiful testament to the humanizing power of Art."
-this is the director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, in an interview posted on Sony Pictures' official website for the movie...

I am overwhelmed by this bit of text alone. I agree that this quote is terrifying-it is terrifying because he says what he wants to do, and it is something beautful, but what he actually does, and thinks necessary, is ugly. It is terrifying to think that a person would reject the beautiful for something ugly. At the end, von Donnersmarck is correct, terrifying though it may be, is it a testament to the humanizing power of Art. The director's choice of words is interesting here, interesting that by using the word 'humanizing' he identifies himself as someone who believes that what makes us human is beautiful-that to be human is to choose the beautiful over the ugly. The 'Appassionata' humanizes Lenin because it makes him want to stroke people's heads instead of smash them. Von Donnersmarck testifies to the part in all of us that is good; and says it is that part which makes us human, and the ugly part of us must come from something else? I question this because I am unsure of my interpretation but I feel sure that the use of that word 'humanizing' is important. I'm not sure if the original interview was in german.
I will end this post and make a new one about ideology. What do you think about Lenin's quote and the power of Art?

welcome

to a discussion for Lives of Others. when i got the idea to do this, my friend said "why don't you just get people together for a discussion?" while i agree that person-to-person anything is better than sitting in front of a computer, reason one for a blog is because i have found it difficult to "get people together;" reason two is because people can post at any hour at any time; reason three is post-ers can now invite their friends that i may not know, to discuss the movie; reason four is because this can be more long-lasting, etc, etc.

the movie is just so wonderful that i wanted to write and talk about it. and i know others feel the same. now, a note on technology: since Blogspot switched their format, i need to relearn how to format the blog so please bear with me. at the moment you can only post comments but i want everyone to be able to make actual posts. this may be impossible but i'm going to investigate. so for now you'll have to be comment-ers instead of post-ers but keep checking back. and feel free to help me if you know this better than me.
that's all for now. suggestions are welcome. more to come.