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good bye, lenin! movie analysis
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Good Bye Lenin! is the coming of age story of a young man as he struggles with his own psychological and moral growth while trying to protect his ill mother from the shock of learning that the Berlin wall has fallen. The movie was released in 2003, but is set from October 1989 to roughly a year later highlighting the time period just before the fall of the wall and the social, political, and economic changes that happened in Germany as a result of unification. Good Bye Lenin! is set in East Berlin, and was filmed mainly at the Karl-Marx-Allee in Eastern Berlin, and in an apartment building near Alexanderplatz. The film’s subject matter is portrayed through the juxtaposition of dramatic and sad moments against moments of comedy and satire which makes the genre classification of ‘tragicomedy’ the most appropriate. The story of Good Bye Lenin! focuses on the life and growth of a young man, Alex (played by Daniel Brühl) as he, his girlfriend Lara (Chulpan Khamatova), and his sister Ariane (Maria Simon) attempt to shield their mother (Katrin Saß) from learning that the East German state has dissolved. It is in this context that Alex must come to terms not only with his mother’s failing health, but also with his own identity in a rapidly changing space. In order to protect his mother Alex re-creates the GDR for her, but his portrayal does not exactly depict the ideals of the former socialist state. Instead, this ‘new’ GDR reflects Alex’s own personal beliefs and opinions of how he wants the state to be. Therefore, the parallel universe Alex creates in Good Bye Lenin! is an idealized representation of East Germany created in order to protect himself from the tragedy of losing his mother and to help him come to terms with a new world orde...
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...ex seeks the comfort of a timeless present by idealizing the socialist state of his childhood, which in his mind will prolong the inevitability of his mother’s death. In the end of the film Alex’s final goodbye is both a tribute to his mother and to his country. He creates one final broadcast that ‘describes German unification as a collective show of support for socialism rather than capitalism’ (Doughty, 38). Alex realizes that the GDR he created for his mother is the one he wished to have. Through this realization Alex is able to let go of the space he has created for himself to protect his identity because he understands that letting for of this state and moving forward does not mean he has to forget everything in his past. He now understands that he can maintain a link to his personal past, and his mother, but is still able to move forward in a unified Germany.
The Break Out of the Revolution in Germany in 1848 There were a numerous external and internal factors behind the 1848 revolutions in Germany. Externally, changes in the international climate and political upheaval in Austria provided German nationalists with an avenue of opportunity to cease power. Internally, the growth of German nationalism and liberalism coupled with the acute financial and food crisis of 1847 created an atmosphere fit for revolutionary activity. Between 1815 and 1847, the Great powers reduced the importance of nationalism and liberalism in order to maintain the ideals set about at the Treaty of Vienna of peace, order and stability within the balance of power. The Great powers installed Austria as the ‘reactionary henchman’ of Europe.
The continuation of the violent anti-Jewish riots that had plagued the Russian Empire in post-Revolutionary Russia forced the response of prominent communist party leaders. Both Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik party and head of the Soviet state, and Leon Trotsky, leader of the Bolshevik army, formulated responses that attempted to promote the ideas of communism through condemnation of the attacks. However, the content of these responses varies in a way that reflects both their differing backgrounds with communism, and reveals their distinct purposes in responding to anti-Jewish violence. A comparison of Lenin’s speech “On Anti-Jewish Pogroms” and Trotsky’s “A Word to the Ukrainian
On March 3, 1918 Russia lost 1/3 of its fertile farm lands, 1/3 of its
“Stalin is the Lenin of today,” said a popular propaganda slogan of the thirties and the forties. The situation has changed drastically since that time; people’s opinion of Stalin has changed in light of the new facts that came out during the course of history. One of such influencing factors was the “secret” speech given by Khrushchev during the Twentieth Congress of KPSS. This speech, however, does not give a real picture of either Stalin or Lenin: Khrushchev denounces the idolization of Stalin but supports the cult of Lenin. He also does not pay attention to Stalin’s deeds that do deserve to be criticized (from an non-Communist point of view), but looks sharply onto something that Stalin should be thanked for. Khrushchev puts Stalin in opposition to Lenin and fails to recognize that those leaders were in many ways similar.
Identified within this study is the argument that whilst many of Lenin’s theories and practices were continued under Stalin, many were in fact developed and extended to new levels, possibly reflecting different motives: what Pipes refers to as Stalin’s ‘personality of excesses’. Although for many years, numerous historians including both members of the Western school of thought (such as Pipes), along with the official Soviet historians of the time believed that Stalin was the natural heir of Lenin, opinions have changed with time. As more evidence came out of Stalin’s mass atrocities, the Soviet historians soon began to see Stalin as the betrayer of the revolution as Trotsky had always maintained, and in an attempt to save Lenin’s reputation, they were also keen to point out how Lenin himself was unsure about
Hitler’s invasion of Russia Over the course of history, two major invasions of Russia have taken place and resulted in failure. Those two invasions ended in the failure of the invading parties. The first invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte will be mentioned briefly to provide additional information on Russian resources. The Second invasion, which took place during World War II, is the invasion pushed by Adolf Hitler. His invasion is a prime example of how Russia’s geography, lack of proper preparation, and underestimating the enemy, caused victory for Russia.
what to grow and how quick to grow it and how much to give to the
In addition Alex lives in a society which lacks individualism and opposition. Under the strict governmental rule ordinary citizens are deceived end benumbed by TV and drugs. Moreover books and newspapers are hardly read, theatres and cinemas rarely visited. Everything is done to prevent normal subjects from thinking.
Likewise, Hitler moved to the capital of Austria, Vienna, as a young man and developed his beliefs from political movements. There, he was influenced by German racist nationalism and anti-Semitism which would be evident later on in his career. Both men, though they grew up on different sides of the world, spent their early lives in countries they left to pursue other goals, had abusive fathers and impoverished childhoods, and gained their political interests in different countries when they journeyed to the capital cities of their countries of origin.
Lenin: Visionary or Extremist Vladimir Lenin was a leading member of the Bolshevik Party, as well as a major player in global events during and after the Russian Revolution. As a key player in the political arena during events leading up to and past World War I, Lenin’s rise to power is of unparalleled significance. He changed many things, both in Russia and across the globe. While many view him as a monstrous figure, there are still several results of his reign that can be seen as good, at least in the long run.
The Succession of Lenin After Lenin's death in 1924, there was a struggle between the leading. Bolsheviks to succeed Lenin as leader of the USSR? In the end, it is. emerged as a contest between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. There were several reasons why it was Stalin rather than Trotsky who succeeded Lenin, and it is these I shall be exploring in this essay.
Karl Marx 's famous; The German Ideology opens with a detailed summary on the Hegelian tradition 19th century idealist German philosophers. The Hegelian philosophers focused on consciousness. Marx distinguishes from himself with earlier historians, particularly Hegel, who insisted on the predominance of the idea in their understandings of history. Consciousness is considered to be from the beginning a social product and remains so as long as men exist. Karl Marx distinguished several theories on the creation of consciousness enabling mankind to better understand the society that they are a part of. He defined consciousness as the knowledge of knowing something; which was created by humans in order to understand their environment in which
In this analysis I will be identifying key points in Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s political pamphlet “What is to be Done?” in such a way as to identify the historical context, relation to political and ideological elements with current times, and showing how this document has enhanced my understanding of worldly events.
In describing the setting, the general locale is the prison in the coldest part of Russia- Siberia, geographically but socially depicting the social circumstances in the prison, but draws analogies to the general social, political and economic circumstances of Russia during the Stalinist era (form 1917 revolution up to 1955). The symbolic significance of the novel and the film (genres) reflects experiences, values and attitudes of the Russian society. The genres reflect the origins of the Russian social disorders and massive counts of political misgivings which watered down real communism in Russia. We are constantly reminded of the social and cultural heritage and originality of Russian ethnic groups through those different levels of meanings
Lenin's Contribution to Marxism up to 1905 and the Consequences Karl Marx was a German philosopher who wrote the Communist Manifesto, which encouraged workers to unite and seize power by revolution. His views became known as Marxism and influenced the thinking of socialists throughout Europe in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Marx believed that history was evolving in a series of stages towards a perfect state - Communism. These stages started with Feudalism - with the aristocrats controlling politics. Next would come Capitalism - with the bourgeoisie in control of politics.