Sunday, July 29, 2007

There Will Come A Time—

An actor named Ulrich Mühe died last Sunday.


Sometime during the first five years of this century a writer-director working on his first feature film, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, decided that Ulrich Mühe would play the character named Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in that film, Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). Because he played that character, Ulrich Mühe's name will appear on lists of award-winning movie actors for as long as those awards are given out and he will be seen as long as movies are ported to whatever medium in that era guarantees their continuing availability to potential viewers.

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) will be released on DVD on August 21st. I'll post my full review here sometime fairly soon after that provided I and here are still here.

My mini-review: I'd estimate that thus far I've seen somewhere close to one thousand movies released during this century. Right now, it's my favorite of the lot.

William F. Buckley went even further in his assessment when he reviewed it here. Alistair didn't go so far as either of us when he (an assumption) reviewed it here.

R.I.P. Ulrich Mühe. You'll be celebrated...and missed.

1 comment:

John J. Coupal said...

Ulrich did a magnificent job in his role.

Anyone who wonders what the East German Stasi was capable of doing must see that film.

It's amazing that - with all the Leftists in Hollywood - the film still won the best foreign picture award this year.