S2E12.5: The Lives of Others
🕑 Added 2022-11-16 23:00:06 +0000 UTCThis week, Alice takes us to the GDR as we watch our first-ever German-language movie, a movie that poses the question: What if a Stasi guy got into a parasocial relationship with the people he is assigned to monitor?
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THE WINTER OF CONTENT
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Kill James Bond is hosted by Alice Caldwell-Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com and https://twitter.com/killjamesbond
Comments
Christine Pizan
listening to this inspired me to watch the movie again, its been too many years i love da cerebral hour
Totally Useless
The former leaders getting out of a luxury car in the end reminds of the Soviet “The End of Eternity” adaptation.
JoeNotCharles
Wow, I fell behind somehow. Now that I've finally listened to this one, I think Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" would be a good companion piece. It hits a lot of the same themes (and even character beats) but from a capitalist "money leads to power" angle. (Dying to find out how Equilibrium works as a companion piece, though - I barely remember that movie.
Maladapted
My father was an American GI in west Germany between 1984 and 87. He is estranged due to severe abuse and mental illnesses, both related and unrelated to the cold war era propaganda and being in the army. He used to tell me about sneaking across the wall to punk shows and bars to spread dissident information and listen for information. I don't really believe him, but he did wake up having panic attacks in German a few times and used to use interrogation tactics similar to the first scene you discuss on me and my siblings as kids. Lots of repeating question and reading fake tells, gaslighting, sleep deptevation comparing stories between kids and keeping us sat for hours.Its very funny to take a sober view of the cold war hysteria and paranoia that shaped his actions a little.
spunups
That was so great, I have to watch it one more time because of you! Since Devon opened Pandora's suggestion box, here is mine: you need to watch The Trouble With You (2018). It is about cops finding out that ACAB, it has kink, romance, absurd action scenes that are actually entertaining, and it is very horny.
Dr. Yolo McSwag
Style to the 10's, story....not so much. Great choice!
Dr. Yolo McSwag
How about watching "Knives Out" to get ready for the next one. KFC Craig Fingersuck is back at it
Gabe
If you like terrible but highly stylized kung-fu movies with "Oh man, that's our boy!" fun casting, look at "Bunraku" it's not a good movie, but it's interesting.
Upthorn
Dev, since you asked for movie recommendations: I watched Wanted (2008) back when it was in theaters and was left thinking "Wow! That's the best action movie I've ever seen!" But I recently rewatched it and was left thinking "Wow! This movie has a lot of toxic ideas about masculinity and society that I'd love to hear dissected by people smarter and more eloquent than I am!"
Vivi
since you asked for movie recs i humbly offer up Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which features Robert Downey Jr as an idiot thief in over his head with a murder mystery centered on some chandler/flemming style pulp novels and features Val Kilmer as a fast talking exasperated PI known as "Gay Perry"
brodie
Dev make them watch chainsaw man. This has nothing to do with anything but you are the wildcard of the podcast and therefore able to make this happen
Youngstown
Man, it´s been a minute. Because you see, we, uh, let´s say mass surveilled this movie in schools, when it came out (or a bit later). I was still somewhat too young to appreciate it, eventhough it made an impression of being quite beautifully, "menschlich", sad. Well, I guess I gotta rewatch it.
Zeroisanumber
I'd consider a John LeCarre adaptation to be more of a natural companion piece than Equilibrium. But I was surprised by how humane this story was compared to the bureaucratic and often amoral Western intelligence agencies we see depicted in Hollywood
Brady
This has to be one of my favorite episodes of an already consistently great podcast ❤️ Can’t wait for Equilibrium tho 👀 I already know it’s going to be a banger episode
arbitrary-fascinations
This movie is going on my must-watch list. Great discussion!
Alfie Hall
I got shown this is in year 10 german by my German teacher who was leaving at the end of the year and just showed us films for the first year of our German gcse
Sequoia Alexander
I feel like this might be your best episode ever? I don’t know I don’t really remember them all, but this was great. I’m gonna have to check out this film. But also, y’all are doing so well. Love this pod!!
John Harwood
No, it’s a really generous film, and you should hold on to that beautiful memory forever, no matter what cynical people say.
dm
Haven't listened yet, but this film holds a very special place in my heart. My mum read about it and described it to my family of 6 to see if we wanted to go, I was the only one who did so we saw it together at a small local cinema. We went out for italian afterwards and talked about the film in detail and she let me have a glass of wine (I was 16). I felt so grown up and cultured, sipping Shiraz, munching penne bolognese, and talking about a foreign language film. Haven't revisited it so there's every chance it sucks, but it was a really nice moment in my life.