Was 70 years old

“Good Bye, Lenin!” director Becker has died

Wolfgang Becker with "Good Bye, Lenin" lead actor Daniel Brühl in 2004

(Bild: AFP)

Director Wolfgang Becker is dead. He became famous with the film "Good Bye, Lenin!" - in which the young Daniel Brühl was seen keeping the GDR alive a little longer for his mother. Becker died unexpectedly on Thursday at the age of 70, according to his agency. 

Becker was born on June 22, 1954 in Sauerland, studied in Berlin and won a Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival with "Butterflies".

Co-founder of the production company "X Filme"
He founded the production company "X Filme" with Tom Tykwer, Dani Levy and Stefan Arndt. He made the tragicomedy "Das Leben ist eine Baustelle" with Jürgen Vogel, and the satire "Ich und Kaminski", based on the novel of the same name by Austrian bestselling author Daniel Kehlmann, was once again about deception.

Wolfgang Becker

(Bild: AFP/2004 AFP)

He was often asked one question in interviews about "Good Bye, Lenin!". "The first question was always whether I was from the East or the West," Becker told dpa on his 65th birthday: "You could have googled it."

No "Ostalgic" look
In "Good Bye, Lenin!" he wanted to let the wind of history blow through a small prefabricated apartment, said Becker. Contemporary history as a backdrop, a family in the foreground. And a lie hovers over everything.

Becker says that the term "Ostalgie" (East German nostalgia) came up after that, especially through television shows. He finds this "not at all appropriate" in connection with his film.

However, if the film is accused of having a "rosy, Ostalgic view of the GDR", of being a kind of retrospective idealization or romanticization of an unjust regime, "then I can only say: you haven't really seen the film".

Video: The trailer for "Good Bye, Lenin!" (2003)

Ostalgie had a different meaning for ex-GDR citizens anyway. "It wasn't about a longing for the old GDR, but about defending one's own achievements and past."

Early recognition
His graduation film "Butterflies" (1988), produced at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin, brought him international recognition early on. This was followed by a Tatort episode entitled "Blutwurstwalzer" and the drama "Kinderspiele" (1992). "Das Leben ist eine Baustelle" was his first feature film.