'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

R.R.: Some critics say that she is “outside of history.” But in my opinion, at that era, in
that time, with that government she wouldn‟t have had a lot of power.
H.S.-B.: No, and I think this way of criticizing is very dangerous because it comes out of
an opinion that people can be courageous under all circumstances. Sometimes it‟s not
courageous to be courageous. And when you are with a child, like Lene is, when you are
with a child, to be courageous, in the sense of these critics, would put this child into
terrible danger. And also, this is a question of why would you want to set the life of a
child at risk just for a courageous action. To me, it seems very uncourageous. It seems
like easy thinking. Yesterday I saw a film that is now playing in Germany. Effi Briest, a
version of Effi Briest. Well the Effi Breist of Fontane is just a victim. In this film they
try to make her into a kind of non-victim, just following these kinds of critics who would
all be very happy [with this depiction]. But I feel that this is destroying the special
character of this woman. I had the impression that the actress is fighting with the
difficulties. She is set up to be courageous, and actually, when you see what happens to
her, she isn‟t. One gesture that shows that she is courageous is that she smokes…Well, I
mean… (laughs).
R.R.: Is smoking courageous? (Both laugh)
H.S.-B.: I think this is a very important point and we have to go a little further to
understand it. What I feel is that our society, the Western industrial society, is about to
have, as the ancient Chinese would have said, far too much yang and far too little yin. Do
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