Wolfgang Becker knew that punchlines work best when they target collective emotions. The director of “Good Bye, Lenin!” has now died at the age of 70.
It is a fairytale farewell, one that takes place almost silently. Suspended from a helicopter, the torso of the Lenin monument floats through the skies of Berlin-Mitte. The cleared revolutionary has stretched his right hand forwards in encouragement.In Wolfgang Becker's film Good Bye, Lenin! an East German mother has slept through the fall of the GDR because she was in a coma for months. Now her son tricks her into believing that she is still living under real socialism. So that she doesn't suffer another heart attack.
The only problem is that reality keeps getting in the way of the illusion. The tragicomedy starring Katrin Sass and Daniel Brühl became a hit and was the most successful German film of 2003 with more than six million viewers. It was shown in 64 countries and received the French César and the Spanish Goya, both as “Best European Film”. Wolfgang Becker had a flair for the right timing and knew that a punchline hits best when it targets collective emotions. With him, a touch of Lubitsch returned to German cinema. The London ‘Times’ called Good Bye, Lenin! the ‘funniest film from Germany for a century’.
Success With The Graduation Film
Becker was born in Hemer, a small town in northern Sauerland, in 1954. Before moving to the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), he studied German, History and American Studies at the Free University. His dark graduation film Butterflies caused an international sensation and was honoured with a Student Academy Award, the Student Oscar.Wolfgang Becker then worked in television. In 1994, together with fellow directors Tom Tykwer and Dani Levy and producer Stefan Arndt, he founded the production company X Filme, which, following the example of United Artists, developed into one of the most important creative centres of German film.
In love with the street musician
The title of Becker's first feature film, which he shot for X-Filme in 1997, was to become a proverb: Das Leben ist eine Baustelle (literal translation: Life Is a Building Site; english film title: Life is All You Get). The episodic drama follows an anti-hero played by Jürgen Vogel as he drifts through Berlin. He loses his job in a meat factory, fears that he has contracted HIV from his girlfriend and finally falls in love with a street musician, played by Christiane Paul.Becker was considered a perfectionist obsessed with detail. He was unwilling to make artistic compromises. So it took him twelve years - apart from a contribution to the episodic film Deutschland 09 - after his triumph with Good Bye, Lenin! to return to the cinema in 2015 with Ich und Kaminski (Me and Kaminski). The art industry satire is based on a novel by Daniel Kehlmann and stars Daniel Brühl as a pompous critic who wants to write a tell-all book about an old painter. Becker recently shot his film Der Held vom Bahnhof Friedrichstraße (The Hero of Friedrichstrasse Station) about a mass exodus from East Berlin, based on the book by Maxim Leo.
“In the absence of suitable scripts, I prefer to wait until I have a script in hand that feels right for me,” the director said in an interview. “I always try to find films that I can represent one hundred per cent.”
Wolfgang Becker died on Thursday, 12 December 2024, after a serious illness, but nevertheless unexpectedly, according to reports. He was 70 years old and is survived by his wife Susanne and daughter Rike.
12/2024