That thing transcended the rest of the movie. I laughed so hard... What an image. I wonder when the idea for that hit whoever had it. It wouldn't surprise me if someone had that first, and they built the movie for it. Inspired.
The OP wasn't saying whether or not it was real. That isn't the point. Whether it was an actual statue or CGI the image is still hilarious and powerful.
The film quotes several movies in various scenes, and I guess Fellini sure had a part in the statue scene, however, Fellini already inspired a "transcending statue moment" in "Landscape in the Mist" (Angelopoulos, 1988), see here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096288/. I guess the director's intentions are closer to Angelopoulos' film. Too bad YouTube took the scene down, but this is a really magical one.
Perhaps I was the only one who saw this a tragic scene. You can feel the angst between Lenin, reaching out for a shred of the dignity ignominously destroyed. The saddest part of the film for me.
Soviet time joke about those statues were (at first there were sitting Lenin statue, then standing). So joke was - he was standing, now he stood up, soon he's going to leave :)
If you've been ill, unconscious and totally cut off from news for a long time, you may not be thinking in that coolly logical way. She is really alone when this happens and probably still a bit dazed by her illness. Sometimes people will go to great lengths to avoid drawimg obvious conclusions of what's right under their noses. As for her believing Denis' fake tv newscasts - well, yeah, that's not totally realistic but why should it be? The telecasts really belong with the high points of the film, I laughed so hard at the point when Denis says over real news footage of the fall of the Wall that "West German workers escaped, fighting their way into the Workers' republic". Beautiful! This kind of faked or beefed up news is actually all around - anyone who's been following the Iraq war with open eyes will realize that much of the reporting of war and politics around it is of very questionable value.
By the way (yeah, you're probably aware of this, CITF) the event of Saddam's statue being torn down "by the Iraqi people" in April 2003, after the Americans had entered Baghdad - which that scene in Good Bye, Lenin! would bring to mind with most of us now - is highly contested; there's much to suggest it was a staged event and not a popular, spontaneous outburst by the freed Iraqi opposition. Check out the documentary Control Room for this; it's about the "news war" before and during the Iraq campaign. Highly illuminating.
Imagine the magnitude of the fact that the Iron curtain was gone, in just a metter of weeks. I was in my teens at the time and I clearly recall how impossible it seemed before 1989 that the eastern bloc would crumble that quickly.. The idea of a restored Germany just didn't count; just about everyone counted on that Europe would stay divided for a very long time.
I agree it's an ingenious scene though - and sad, a bit shattering: it captures the moment.
I think they explained on the audio commentary of the German DVD that the problem was they weren't allowed to fly a real or even fake statue of that size through Berlin, so they had to make it CGI. Or was it that it was too windy on the day they wanted to shoot it? Anyhow, I'm quite sure I remember it wasn't a money issue.
I also didn't think this was a hilarious scene and I can't understand why anyone would see it as such. This is the eponymous scene of the movie, the statue represents a whole system of ideas that has defined the world these people have lived their lives in so far, and now this world is gone forever, waving a final good-bye. I found it deeply moving - and I don't even have communist leanings.
I also didn't think this was a hilarious scene and I can't understand why anyone would see it as such. This is the eponymous scene of the movie, the statue represents a whole system of ideas that has defined the world these people have lived their lives in so far, and now this world is gone forever, waving a final good-bye. I found it deeply moving - and I don't even have communist leanings.
^ Well said. I agree with this. For me this was one of the saddest moments of the film.
"Couldn't care less" = "don't care at all" "Could care less" = "care at least a little" reply share