Colour Concept: Mise-en-scene in Das Leben der Anderen

Das Leben der Anderen is a film rife with history. The geographical and historical area that we see in it – East Berlin under the DDR - was notoriously dark. It’s probably for that reason that director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has used colour as a device so much in the film. But what does he use it for, and what does he say through colour in the film?

Painting his places

One of the main things colour does is this film is distinguish atmosphere attached to characters and places. The very first scene in the film is set in Hohenschönhausen – the Stasi’s famously brutal prison in Berlin. Not only are we introduced to the atmosphere of this blood-curdling building without any background music, but without any significant colour either.

The walls are grey; the guard’s uniform is grey; the prisoner is dressed in a sickly greyish yellow outfit; the lighting even gives the impression that their skin is grey. The only glimpse of real colour we get is from the red light signalling another prisoner crossing the hall. Manipulation of scenery aside, Henckel von Donnersmarck’s colours here wouldn’t have been too far from the truth. On visiting the prison, you will see that it’s completely devoid of any colour and that the rooms are inexplicably bare – all part of the intimidation and torture that Hohenschönhausen was about. This first scene is a festival of humdrum colours, and it represents the Stasi perfectly.

Characters by Colour

Henckel von Donnersmarck’s main characters – Stasi Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler and culture-loving writer Georg Dreyman – are the opposite ends of one very odd scale, and our director shows us just how different they are through colour. This is true throughout the film, but for the sake of comparison, the scene, which has become known in the classroom as the Sonata Scene, is particularly useful. In this scene, the director has used jump-cuts between Wiesler at his equipment in the attic, and Dreyman at the piano in his apartment to show the diversity between characters. What becomes obvious as the camera flicks between protagonists is the massive difference in colours which surround them both. If we take a look at the breakdown of colours in a still from each room in this scene, it’ll become clearer.

This is a still of Dreyman as he plays the Sonata. It doesn’t seem to bright and cheery does it? Considering Dreyman has just found out about the death of his close friend and former co-worker Albert Jerska, it’s only natural. Let’s look at the flip side of the coin.

That’s a still of Wiesler in the attic, doing his "Uberwachung" thing. It mightn’t seem too terrible: it’s not completely dark after all. However, if you compare the breakdown in colour of the two stills, the contrast is obvious.

Dreyman’s surrounding colours aren’t exactly exciting, but when you put them next to Wiesler’s, it’s like comparing the Antarctic to the Caribbean. Wiesler is given a dreary surrounding scale of dark grey to – you guessed it – light grey. Not forgetting, of course, the daring brown and silvery purple on the end there. You get the picture: his colours are boring and cold. Why? Because he, as a character, is cold. He lives alone; his only friend is his boss; his only hobby is his job; up until this point he’d do anything to punish the “enemies of the state”. You wouldn’t call him the life of the party, would you?

Compare this to Dreyman’s colours. They might not be bright and colourful, but they are undeniably warmer, for similar reasons. He spends his time surrounded by his friends; within the first 30 minutes of the film he’s already thrown two parties; he has a longstanding girlfriend; but his one true love is culture. He’s infinitely livelier than Wiesler – and so we see in Henckel von Donnersmarck’s choice of colours. 

The grass is greener

One final thing Henckel von Donnersmarck uses colour for in the film is to represent ideas. This is particularly true during the scene of Jerska's funeral. 

Here's the colour breakdown of the still to the right.

If you consider the colour breakdowns we've already seen in comparison with that of this scene, the difference is obvious. For a funeral scene you would generally expect dull colours and blacks, but this is quite the opposite. While it might not be a melange of bright yellows and reds, this is possibly the brightest and most natural composition of colours throughout the film. You will also notice that the only greys in the still come from the soviet-style apartment blocks in the background. So why has Henckel von Donnesmarck chosen to make the funeral the brightest part? Why has he made the apartments - a place of life - the most desolate colours? If you listen to Dreyman's monologue, you'll see.

"Sie kennt keinen Blutrausch, sie kennt keine Leidenschaft, sie kennt nur das Sterben. Das Sterben der Hoffnung."

"It's nothing to do with bloodlust, nothing to do with passion, it has only to do with death. The death of hope."

The people's lives, Henckel von Donnersmarck makes it seem, were utterly devoid of any hope. In fact, their only hope lies in death. The fact that Jerska's funeral is so generously coloured is the director's way of showing us how hopeless and desolate the lives of DDR inhabitants were. Jerska lives his life in general misery after his work ban, and only through death does he reach a brighter place. And as ever, the apartment blocks in their hushed but impacting grey represent the ever-present Stasi intimidation.

King of Colours?
So how successful is our director in representing the time period through colour and mise-en-scene? It's not up to me to make the final ruling, but if you want my opinion, he deserves a medal. His colouring is not so radical that the scenes look unnatural (I'm look at you, Jeunet), yet not so delicate as to be unnoticeable or not convey his message properly. So in my eyes, it's hats off to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck for top effort.