
The effects of censorship have been devastating to society. Countless people have fought to preserve the freedoms that so many people in the world take for granted. In most western governments freedoms such as the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech are basic rights written into their constitutions. However, in some parts of the world this is not the case. Even today, major governments limit what newspapers, broadcasting companies, and authors can publish to the world. This has major effects on people’s knowledge of world events and public opinion. Artists of all types, writers, playmakers, painters, directors, have all produced works that comment on censorship. Both Antonio Tabucchi’s novel Pereira Declares and the film The Lives of Others directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck concentrate on censorship. Tabbuchi and von Donnersmarck explore how censorship affects society and what it can drive people to do in order to get accurate information to the public that the government does not want them to know. Throughout this paper I will analyze how these two works are similar and how they comment on the effects that censorship has on artists and the spread of information and political opinion.

Exploring the similarities between the novel and film can help us understand how each writer’s protagonist deals with the effects of censorship. In Pereira Declares we have a newspaper writer named Pereira. At the beginning of the novel he is quiet and timid, but upon meeting a younger boy who explains to him the problems with the Portuguese government, we see Pereira become interested in the government and what it is doing to its people. By the end of the novel, Pereira manages to get around the censor’s office and publish an article exposing the police for assassinating a young activist that opposed the government. Likewise, in The Lives of Others we are greeted with an author and playwright known as Georg Dreyman during the period after WWII when Germany was divided into the United States, France, and United Kingdom controlled West Germany and the USSR controlled East Germany. During this time many writers, including many of Dreyman’s friends and colleagues, were blacklisted from publishing stories as their opinions contradicted the practices of the state. After learning about how the East German government was promoting statistics suggesting that East Germany was a great place to live and covering up less desireable facts, most notably the alarmingly high suicide rate, Dreyman decided to publish a story in the West, revealing the truth about how people were living in the East. Both the film and novel create the same problems for each main character by prohibiting the publishing of these types of stories. The main problem being the increased difficulty for the protagonists to spread accurate information about the communities in which they live. The lack of accurate information kills public opinion and causes people to believe only what they state wants to them to know.

Censorship is far more complicated than just a government trying to make its ideas the only ones heard. These governments are trying to establish a disciplinary society. Michel Foucault, a twentieth century French philosopher, explains that a disciplinary society can be established through surveillance and censorship. Foucault details that disciplinary societies are setup up through surveillance and censorship by stating “to achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable” (3). Surveillance is a necessary step in order to establish censorship. We see this in both the novel and the film. In Pereira Declares the government looks at every article that is to be published in newspapers and in The Lives of Others The Stasi, or the East German secret police, eavesdrops on people that they think are at odds with the government, including Dreyman. Both von Donnersmarck and Tabbuchi are taking stances against this action in their works by showing what effects censorship has on their characters. As we see at the end of both stories, the protagonist is able avoid the censor and relay what they have learned to the general public. This can be interpreted as the authors saying that no matter how much power governments exercise over their people, the people will find a way to prevail. People fight to get their stories heard even when they, in turn are being fought by their governments. Tabbuchi and von Donnersmarck are telling stories on how this can be done and what implications it has on society.

The power that is expressed by the governments in both stories can be similarly compared to Foucault’s analysis of how power is used in the panopticon. A panopticon is a theoretical prison, with a central tower surrounded by cells that allows for a single person to watch over every prisoner without the prisoners knowing that they are being viewed. The idea behind a panopticon is that although the original example is a prison, it can be implemented in many other institutions, such as schools and governments to increase central power. Foucault explains the benefits of how power is used in a panopticon in this quote “in each of its applications, it makes it possible to perfect the exercise of power. It does this in several ways: because it can reduce the number of those who exercise it, while increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised. Because it is possible to intervene at any moment and because the constant pressure acts even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed” (6). The power that is exercised through spying and censoring is found in the novel and film. Like it was said before both governments censor and to an extent spy on both main characters. This causes most people to practice self-censorship. Both protagonist do this until they work up the courage to go against the political regimes and stand for what they believe is right. This self-censorship is not just something found in these stories, it is a real world phenomenon. Kyaw Thu describes how governments can enforce censorship even before a writer has written an article. In her report on how censorship affects the private press she found that “Censorship certainly does have an impact on the quality and scope of reporting. Journalists are always going to be reluctant to chase and report on topics that they know are likely to be censored”. This is exactly what Foucault means when he states “it is possible to intervene at any moment and because the constant pressure acts even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed” (6). We see this theory implemented into both stories. Pereira is reluctant to publish anything until he is affected by a murder caused by the Portuguese government and Dreyman acts only after a friend of his commits suicide. These works go further than just denouncing censorship and spying, they go on to express how government’s power can get out of control.

In some parts of the world governments still censor what their citizens are allowed to see. By understanding what censorship does in the contexts of the novel and film, we can understand how the spread of information is affected by this act. Most people consider the freedom of the press and the freedom to express your opinion basic rights. This freedom is what makes understanding censorship so important and why comparing these works is so important.
