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Leni Riefenstahl dies

288 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by eweiss, Sep 9, 2003

eweiss

Discussion Starter · Sep 9, 2003

Leni Riefenstahl, Filmmaker and Nazi Propagandist, Dies

By ALAN RIDING

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/ob...9CND-RIEF.html

(You may need to register -- free -- NY Times to read this. You can use nytidxxx as username and nytid as password -- these are junk names.)

Excerpt:

Leni Riefenstahl, the German filmmaker whose daringly innovative documentaries about a Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1934 and the Berlin Olympics of 1936 earned her both acclaim as a cinematic genius and contempt as a propagandist for Hitler, died on Monday night at her home in PÃ¶cking, south of Munich. She was 101.

After the defeat of Germany in 1945, Ms. Riefenstahl was pronounced a Nazi sympathizer by the Allies and never again found work as a movie director. But such was the influence of her revolutionary film techniques on subsequent generations of documentary makers that the debate over whether her talent could be separated from her prewar political views continued unabated until her death.

For many students of her life and legacy, Ms. Riefenstahl was both genius and propagandist. She put her talent at the service of the Nazis, yet without her exceptional artistic vision, her two most famous documentaries, "Triumph of the Will" and the two-part "Olympia," would neither have caused a sensation at the time nor be considered classics today.

FYI - the Synapse DVD of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL is a decent presentation of this historically-significant film. The commentary track is very informative.

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JB72

· #2 · Sep 9, 2003

Bummer. Triumph of the Will, and Olympia: Part Two are amazing works of cinema.

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Shaded Dogfood

· #3 · Sep 9, 2003

And she was apparently scuba diving and photographing underwater last year at age 100! A hope for us that one can age gracefully.

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eweiss

Discussion Starter · #4 · Sep 9, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by JB72
Bummer. Triumph of the Will, and Olympia: Part Two are amazing works of cinema.

"Bummer"? How's that? Did you wish that she would live to, say, 120 ... or what? 101 is p-r-e-t-t-y good!

And, she wasn't making films, either, 'cause public opinion wouldn't allow anything she did to be shown anywhere anyway.

I never saw TRIUMPH until several months ago, and now I know where ALL THAT FOOTAGE OF HITLER that you see in so many WWII history specials came from. The Synapse film lets you hear it with the accompanying music track, or with a muted music track and a commentary voice-over, identifying the persons in the film and remarking on what's being shown. Apparently this movie was continuously shown in Germany every day, every year, in some form or another, and in some city or another, from Hitler's rise to power until the end of the war. Having seen it, she can't claim innocence, in my opinion.

Watch TRIUMPH followed by Alan Resnais' NIGHT AND FOG -- 31 minutes of gripping holocaust images. Some say Hitler was demon-influenced. They may be right. The Third Reich was the triumph of something more than the mere human will.

Leni's first encounter with Adolf Hitler:

It was also around this time, a year before Hitler's rise to power, that she first heard the Nazi leader speak at a rally. "I heard his voice: `Fellow Germans'," she recalled in her autobiography. "That very same instant I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the earth's surface were spreading out before me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth. I felt paralyzed."

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Larry Davis

· #5 · Sep 9, 2003

I think Jodie Foster wanted to make a biopic of Leni Riefenstahl. I wonder if/how it will take place.

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eweiss

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 9, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by Larry Davis
I think Jodie Foster wanted to make a biopic of Leni Riefenstahl. I wonder if/how it will take place.

I can see it. I wonder if the ADL will raise a fuss about it, though!

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Larry Davis

· #7 · Sep 9, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by eweiss
I can see it. I wonder if the ADL with raise a fuss about it, though!

That's practically a given. She was very controversial, but there is a lot of interest in her life story, particularly from a feminist perspective.

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eweiss

Discussion Starter · #8 · Sep 9, 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by Larry Davis
That's practically a given. She was very controversial, but there is a lot of interest in her life story, particularly from a feminist perspective.

Well, thanks for duplicating my typing error in your quote of my comment!

I meant to write "will" not "with."

If this movie promotes Leni as a feminist leader/icon, it definitely will get a lot of peoples' panties in a knot!!!

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