Leni Riefenstahl died Monday night in Poecking, in Bavaria, at the age of 101. If you don't know her name, you should. She was the mother of documentary filmmaking. Her works are considered by filmmakers to be among the greatest examples of the form. Of course her greatest, and most controversial work, was "Triumph of the Will", the documentary about Adolf Hitler and his appearance at a Nazi rally in Nurenberg in 1934. This film was the propoganda piece that the Nazis used in Germany for years to seduce people there to their side. My dad, whose parents were German, visted there in the mid 30's and reported that theaters were required to play excerpts from that film before every showing of every regular movie. Leaving aside politics, Triumph of the Will is an amazing film. It was released on DVD more than a year ago. The images and the imagery and the shots, like Hitler in his plane descending from the clouds like a God to start the movie, were revolutionary in their time. To many filmmakers, that movie is sourcework. The bible of documentary filmmaking. Where you see how its done. Steven Spielberg, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, did certain scenes in it, directly based on Triumph of the Will. Two years later, at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Riefenstahl did the "Olympia" documentary, chronicling in detail those games, and that is also considered one of the greatest films, documentaries or otherwise ever made. During filming of "Olympia", she also took up still photography and there is a terrific coffee table book of her work at those games. When Riefenstahl was banned for years from filmmaking for her controversial association with Hitler, and she took up still photography full time. She moved to africa and chronicled various african tribes in detail in still photographs. Her works on the various tribes in Africa that are disappearing over time are quite celebrated. Later, in her seventies and eighties, she took up scuba diving and made vast chronicles of underwater photography. I read her autobiography, which came out only a few years ago, just recently. Leni Riefenstahl's life was amazing, her life was so long and complex that a book can't really cover it. She was Hitler's filmmaker and propogandist, and will always, deservedly be reviled for that. But she was also the only important female in an obsessively sexist political hierarchy. And in her time, one of the few female filmmakers in the world. And the life she led afterwards, going around the world as a still photographer, living in the most remote conditions, among tribes of Africa and out at sea and under all kinds of conditions, to take pictures, speaks for itself. Whatever you think of her politics, Leni Riefenstahl was a remarkable woman. She is the mother of not only documentary filmmaking, but also of modern political advertising. There isn't a 20th century political history class or a filmmaking class that doesn't feature her work. Leni Riefenstahl's influence is incalculable. She died at 101 and it sounds like she lived, really lived, every year of that life45 responses total.
To give you an idea of how long and well Leni Riefenstahl lived, just last year she released "Impressions Under Water", a widely acclaimed documentary where she filmed sharks underwater for long periods of time. When she made that movie, underwater filming sharks, she was in her nineties. It came out when she was 100.
i am glad she's dead! 8D
I only saw one of her shoots of savanna- or sub-saharan-dwelling people in Africa. Possibly the Masai, but I'll defer to the correction of the grexers with her life's work. It was National Geographic quality. Dignified, Respectful. Saturated colors, but having cloudless days helps along those lines. The big surprise was in the editor's comments on the current issue. Along with the blurb on her expedition was a photograph taken by an unidentified collegue of her at the village. She was walking holding hands with a handsome man of the village. He, with but a few decorative feathers, had little more than some facial paint onand he looked to be about 6-foot seven-inches next to the tiny euorpean woman he was holding hands with. They appeared to be as unaffected as any couple in a park. This just isn't the sort of thing that I would have expected from any Nazi.
She wasn't a Nazi - she was a photographer, who on occasion photographed Nazis. I ran across a filming of her movie Olympia late one evening (not figuring out what it was for a long time as the introduction was all symbolism of heroism and valor), which was about the Olympic games of 1936 in which Jesse Owens competed (and won). Eventually the movie got to the games, and there was a lot of footage of Hitler and public adulation of him. But the movie still showed Owens racing and winning and being adulated also. Photographers photograph their environemtn and what is happening. Nazi-ism was happening. I can't fault her for pursuing her art regardless of the relation to politics. The world is richer for having the products of her art.
She is castigated for remaining truly neutral to the Nazis' advantageous use of her remarkable work in the pursuit of their cause.
nazi collaborator.
If anything, she was exhibiting to the world some aspects of German society at that date - how one was to interpet that was up to the viewer. The threats of Naziism were also not widely comprehended at that time. It can only be said in hindsight that her work played into their hands.
I recall seeing "Triumph of the Will" several years ago and I was quite impressed with it. It was a really pretty good movie (for the time), although obvious propaganda. What I find so amusing about her is that there are loads and loads of people who just jump at the chance to trash her because of some film that she made 70 years ago, but all too often, these same people do more or less the same things nowadays and no one gives a damn. When WWII was being fought, the companies in the army (or in any other branch of American service) were not integrated. Blacks in America were treated more or less the same as the Jews in Nazi Germany -- they didn't have to wear a yellow star, but their skin color served the same purpose. True, there were no death camps in America, but a white man could easily kill a black man and never be charged with any wrong doing. Even now on television, black men in particular are portayed more often than not as crack dealers or crooks of some stripe. And now the same thing is being done to Arabs on a lesser scale with regards to terrorism. Actually, now the propaganda is a lot more disturbing since it is so much more subtle. You get it all the time, but you are never aware that this is what you are getting. When Hitler's army was defeated, it was not like all of the Germans who had participated in the Holocaust suddenly had lightning transformations and saw the evil of their ways. The same is true here. There are still people that feel the same as people did 50 years ago about race. But these same people who condemn Arabs and blacks, seem to have no problem using Leni as their scapegoat. It cannot have been easy for an artist to produce quality works of art under the Third Reich . . . I wonder all these people who criticise the ones who tried . . . I wonder how much better they would have done had they been in the same situations? You can criticise Heidegger or Riefenstahl all you want, but if those who do the most of the criticism were in the same situation, I doubt if they would have acted boldly and sacrificed their lifes, reputations, livelihoods and/or art to save an ethnic group already not well-liked. I recall in the film "Judgement At Nuremberg," Spencer Tracey's character said something to Burt Lancaster's character to the effect that he "went too far" in his collusion in the Nazis machinations the very first time he sentenced an innocent man to death. I kind of wish Lancaster's character had snapped back, "When was the last time that you stopped a lynching, Judge? When was the last time you hung a white man for participating in the American Holocaust?" That of course would have ruined the movie, especially after Lancaster's soliloquy at the end. But I'll bet that if Dr. Ernst Janning was guilty of being chicken shit rather than risking life and limb for decency's sake, Judge Haywood probably wasn't much better. It's kind of strange how you can always see others' faults, but never see them in yourself. Also strange how we'd crucify someone else even though we are guilty of the same sins. Her Nazi films were masterworks of propaganda, and excellent films based on style. They were used to very bad ends. Her later work in the Sudan showed that she was behaving very, very oddly for a real Nazi. Was she a a Nazi collaborator? Yes. But so were most others in her country at that time. This does not excuse her refusing to accept the consequences of the films, but let me ask you all this: If you had been alive 80 years ago and saw a lynching of a black taking place, how many would have spoken up? How many would have risked their families, jobs, life, etc. in order to stand up for justice? Every one of you, I am sure . . .
oh...in that case i think it's really neat that she was a nazi collaborator! /applause
As I said above "This does not excuse her", although if you or I were in her position, I doubt if we would have done much better. When was the last time you risked your neck for something?
would that include working with aggressive psychotic people for the last 13 years? when was the last time you risked YOUR neck for something? (not counting the risk of going to jail for threatening people with a gun at school)
neck.
answer. neck.
For some reason my l;ast reply wasnt posted. if you still are pissed at me for holding the gun on that kid 15 years ago, then you have no idea what it is like to live in a gang infested area. Tough. I look after myself. I know human nature a little too well to beleive that either of us would.
i'm not *mad* at you, mr. pistol. "either of us would" *what*? a gang infested area? oh my, that's scary. i'll bet they're negroes, latinos, or asians too!!! /runs across the street to where the family of 3 were murdered (1996) before i lived here and asks the 4 bangers to quit hanging out in the still abandoned domicile/daycare property and starts picking up the crack baggies.
with me without constantly referring to something I did once about 15 years ago, could you please tell me something ythat you have done that you are ashamed of so that I can mention it each time we talk? Fair is fair, after all. in authority had been doing their jobs, the incident would not have occured. but youre perfect, so i guess all that is lost on you, hrey?
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Speaking as a citizen from a country that sufffered severely (200,000+ gassed Jews, for instance) much from the nazi yoke: she never voiced any regret from her colaboration to nazi propaganda. THAT makes her suspect. Maybe she wasn't like true nazis, but still... We Dutch look at those people with much suspicion.
A sin of omission, at the very least.
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I don't think she had anything to apologize for. Her art did not further the Nazi enterprise even if they used it as propaganda. However it never succeeded as propaganda. Who looked more favorably upon the Nazis because of her films?
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Quite so, but, as Bob Mondelo observed, subsequent imitation of her cinimatography was immediately suspect, for we all understood (too late) the horror that those images were connected to. In this sense, her work remains influencial and stud.
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(studied)
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One can acknowledge something as a work of art even if it has been used to promote evil ends. Examples: Triumph of the Will, Birth of a Nation, and the Old and New Testaments.
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Yes. Literary art. But you knew that.
only the perdy ones is.
Rane, she knew what she was doing when shoting the documentary. Goebbels took over after her job was done. She never took distance from her movie (the skill not counted). There is craftmentship and there is content. Scientists, artists or whether which profession that willfully co- operates with a particular fascist regime is just as guilty as those committing the crimes against humanity, if committed.
you're eiher with us or against us.
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Heh. It took me a minute to get the reference. :>
What, you're getting stale on Blues Brothers trivia already? :)
I've had Buick, Hillman, Plymouth and Subaru stationwagons, but never a Ford.
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Rane wrote: > I don't think she had anything to apologize for. Her art did not further > the Nazi enterprise even if they used it as propaganda. That's contrary to nearly everything I've ever seen written about "Triumph of the Will", so I wonder how Rane reaches this conclusion..
In what specific ways did it further the Nazi enterprise that would not have occurred without it? In some ways it was more of an alert to the world of the nature of Nazism. How else could she have reported this to the world?
> In what specific ways did it further the Nazi enterprise that would not > have occurred without it? Of course nobody will ever be ale to answer that question to your satisfaction.. > In some ways it was more of an alert to the world of the nature of Nazism. > How else could she have reported this to the world? So in your view she wasn't just innocent of being a willing and complicit tool of the Nazis, she was high-mindedly performing a valuable public service? Sheesh.
She was just making movies of current events. Why do you insist on forcing more into it?
Her real problem is that being a film director is a name-up-front-and-on- everyone's-mind social awareness job. If instead she'd been designing better U-boats, streamlining train schedules, or attacking the stupidities of the Republic in newspaper columns, she would have gotten off clean.
Not by attacking the Republic....but then, she really was but the Nazis didn't figure that out.
You have several choices: