Riefenstahl

[poliphilo]

 I've watched Triumph of the Will. All the way through. I am one of the very few people who have.

It's extraordinarily impressive. Also extraordinarily boring. They showed it us at University- as part of a course in 20th century studies.  At the beginning the lecture room was packed. By the end there were just a handful of us still numbing our bums on the wooden seats. 

The debate goes on and on as to whether its maker, Leni Riefenstahl, was a committed Nazi or simply a committed artist who saw a Nazi rally as an opportuity to leave Cecil B de Mille choking on the dust of her chariot wheels.

There's a new German documentrary which has access to Riefenstahl's own records. I've watched the trailer- with footage of Rienstahl herself- by now a hard-faced old lady- throwing a strop at an interviewer who was insisting on raking over old bones. I can't help thinking, "O, let her be. If she has demons gnawing away at her entrails they're her business, not yours".

Even if we could reach a final conclusion on the extent of her depravity it wouldn't change the fact that she was a cinematic pioneer. I've also seen her film of the 1936 Olympics. And that's also extraordinary- and a good deal less boring.

We have this very human desire to prove our heroes - our great artists, our great thinkers, our great scientists- in every way heroic- and if they weren't to piss on their graves.

But none of them were. 

Comments

[tagryn]

I've scrolled through her previous film, "The Victory of Faith" (also available online), which is primarily interesting (a) for its previous status as a lost film, before a copy was discovered about 40 years later, (b) its strong similarity to TotW, not surprising since they were the same event filmed a year apart, and (c) how Ernst Rohm goes from a starring role in VoF to being memory-holed in TotW, since the Night of the Long Knives had happened only a few months before the rally in TotW.

[poliphilo]

I didn't know The Victory of Faith existed.....

I've also seen her directorial debut The Blue Light. It's over fifty years ago now, but I remember it as magical.....

[paserbyp]

Leni was a nazi. Period. It doesn’t matter she was genius or pioneer. She has blood on her hands…

[poliphilo]

That is one view of the matter.

But I wouldn't want to lose her film of the 1936 Olympics- which has passages of great beauty....

[paserbyp]

I lost interest to Olympic games many years ago when I understood how it used by dictators for preparation of gun meat and Leni helps here as well.