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Law on Film
Law on Film explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films, even to those that are not obviously about the legal world. Film, meanwhile, tells us a lot about the law, especially how it is perceived and portrayed. The podcast is created and hosted by Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer, legal scholar, and film buff. Each episode, Jonathan and a guest expert will examine a film that is noteworthy from a legal perspective. What does the film get right about the law and what does it get wrong? Why is law important to understanding the film? And what does the film teach about law's relationship to the larger society and culture that surrounds it. Whether you're interested in law, film, or an entertaining discussion, there will be something here for you.
Law on Film
The Lives of Others (2006) (Guests: Mark Drumbl & Barbora Hola) (episode 56)
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This episode looks at The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s haunting exploration of surveillance, complicity, and the brittle architecture of authoritarian legality in the final years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany). The critically acclaimed 2006 film examines how law can be co-opted into an instrument of domination, how bureaucratic routines of “security” normalize repression, and how small acts of resistance acquire profound moral weight under systems built on fear and an extensive system of informers. The Lives of Others raises enduring questions about the ethics of observing and informing in Cold War Eastern Europe. To help unpack these themes, I’m joined by Mark Drumbl and Barbara Holá, whose recent book Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (Oxford Univ. Press) offers a deeply researched, empirically grounded look at informers within repressive regimes and transitional justice processes.
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
4:23 East Germany in 1984
6:32. The timelessness of informing
7:35. The surveillance state in the Eastern bloc
13:27 Informers and informing
19:36. Informing's afterlife
23:26 The book’s methodology and illustrative cases
33:26 The corrosive impact on social relations
35:02 Who becomes an informant and why
38:22 Informers and transitional justice
44:57 The opening of the secret files
50:39 Informers and agents
55:54 Resistance and historical revisionism
1:00:46 How the book came about
Further reading:
Ash, Timothy Garton, The File (1997)
Burkhard, Bilger, “Piecing Together the Secrets of the Stasi,” The New Yorker (May 27, 2024)
Cords, Suzzane, “Stasi: How the GDR kept its citizens under surveillance,” DW (Aug. 1, 2025)
Drumbl, Mark A. & Holá, Barbora, Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (2024)
Alford, C. Fred, Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power (2001)
Lindenberger, Thomas, “Stasiploitation: Why Not? The Scriptwriter’s Historical Creativity in ‘The Lives of Others,’” 31 (3) German Studies Review 557 (2008)
Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.
For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html
You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com
You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz
You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm
You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast