Leni Riefenstahl, who died in 2003 at the age of 101, is forever listed on Google as “Hitler’s favorite director” for her bold and innovative documentaries triumph of willabout the Nazi rallies in Nuremberg in 1934, and olympiaabout the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Her acclaim and infamy are equal parts – was she a pioneering genius, a Nazi propagandist, or both? – Riefenstahl remains a subject of fascination and debate as to whether her talent can be separated from her political views.
What these views were exactly, and what Riefenstahl knew about Hitler and the Holocaust and when she knew them, are key to this debate and the subject of countless books and documentaries. This is the center of the problem Liefenstahla new documentary from German filmmaker Andres Veiel (black box BRD).
The documentary screened out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, where Leni Riefenstahl won a gold medal for the film triumph of will In 1935, he won the highest award, the Mussolini Cup for Best Film. olympia 1938. Liefenstahl.
Viel had access to Riefenstahl’s personal archive for the film, which included approximately 700 boxes of diaries, letters, personal photos and phone recordings. While he covers some familiar ground, the film attempts to do something that a Riefenstahl documentary has never done to date: provide a psychological portrait of the director and, through her, what Weir calls “fascism.” Alluring Essence”, this is both the 1930’s variety and today’s updated version.
“What we found in her archives seemed so current and so relevant to what’s going on now, whether it was her vision of some form of heroic nationalism, her celebration of the superior, the beauty of the victor, or Her disdain for the weak and the powerless “It gives us insight into the archetypes of fascism and gives us the opportunity to understand the rise of right-wing movements that we are now seeing, not just in Germany but across Europe and the United States. “
Weill believes that the question of whether Riefenstahl was a true Nazi believer or just an opportunist remains to be resolved.
Leni Riefenstahl (right) filming ” olympia 1936
Vincent Productions
“She was not an opportunistic artist, she was very deeply involved in [Nazi] Ideology, reflected not only in her aesthetics, which extolled strength and heroism, and her contempt for the weak, the sick and so-called foreigners, but also in a truly anti-Semitic belief… We find what she embraced in 1934 Interview [British newspaper] daily expresswhere she said she read [Hitler‘s autobiography] my fight It’s already 1931. “After reading one page, I became an enthusiastic National Socialist,” she said. She spent her whole life in denial.
After the war, Riefenstahl recorded correspondence and phone calls with friends and colleagues, including with Hitler’s architect and “Nazi artist” architect (and World War II armament minister) Albert Speer. In recorded correspondence and phone calls, Riefenstahl showed no sign of remorse or change of mind. Her only regret is that her style and old ideologies have fallen out of favor.
“In one of the articles, she actually said, ‘This will happen within a generation or two. [to rehabilitate Nazism in Germany]”, Weir said. “Now two generations later, you’re going to see the right rising again. “
a lot of Liefenstahl The series focuses on the director’s life after World War II, when she was declared a Nazi sympathizer by the Allies (although she was never a party member) and struggled to find directing work. Liefenstahl Showing that the documentary filmmakers clearly felt that she was the victim of the story. In a key scene, we see footage of Riefenstahl on a German talk show in the 1970s, as she confronts a host and German contemporaries who question her claim to know nothing about the Holocaust. Riefenstahl was undeterred, protesting that she knew nothing about the concentration camps until after the war.
“At one point, she turned to the audience—remember, she started out as an actress, [in pre-war German “mountain movies” like The Blue Light]— There were tears in her eyes. She was the perfect victim,” said producer Sandra Maischberger. tire steel There was also a famous German TV host who interviewed Reifenstahl on the occasion of her 100th birthday. “The response was huge. She received a huge number of letters and phone calls from viewers to support her. When I saw this, I was really shocked. I lost faith in my fellow Germans. How could there be so many viewers at that time? To believe her lies? This feels like a diagnosis of postwar Germany in the 1960s and 1970s.
“There were 500 letters from viewers, and I read every one of them,” Veiel said. “All of them were celebrating Leni Riefenstahl. That talk show and the audience’s reaction to it inspired her renaissance, the rebirth of postwar Germany. Artist Leni Riefenstahl ) began to receive praise.
Celebrations continued until her death. legend new yorker Critic Pauline Kael says triumph of will and olympia “Two of the greatest films ever directed by women.” In 1974, the first Telluride Film Festival honored Riefenstahl as a “feminist” film pioneer and role model for female directors. At various times, Jodie Foster, Paul Verhoeven, Steven Soderbergh and Madonna were all interested in a biopic of hers. (Riefenstahl reportedly told Verhoeven that she thought Forster was “pretty enough to play me” and suggested he choose Sharon Stone.)
Riefenstahl has defended her version of her history, reinforcing her legend as a naive genius unaware of the dark side of Nazism. Ray Müller’s 1993 documentary The wonderful and terrifying life of Leni Riefenstahl —— was produced with her approval and editorial control. It won the International Emmy Award for Best Arts Documentary. Viel’s film contains the following excerpts: A wonderful and terrible lifeincludes unreleased footage from Mueller’s interview in which Riefenstahl objected to his questioning, refused to continue and screamed at him to stop filming.
Liefenstahl director andresville
Arnold_Declair
If anyone dared challenge her version of events Liefenstahl During the show, the artist was also quick to file a lawsuit. In 2002, a year before her death, Riefenstahl took documentary director Nina Gladitz to court to prevent Gladitz’s documentary from being released Times of darkness and silence. TV documentary interviews Roma and Cindy as extras lowlandRiefenstahl began writing this feature film based on Hitler’s favorite opera in 1940 (she eventually completed it in 1954). Reifenstahl carefully selected these extras from nearby concentration camps. She later claimed that they all survived the war. In fact, nearly 100 of them are known or believed to have been gassed at Auschwitz, a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of Roma murdered in the Holocaust.
When Graditz’s documentary was played in court, Riefenstahl interrupted the screening, screaming “Lies! Lies!” However, faced with the evidence, she retracted her initial claims. But since Graditz could not prove a Graditz refused to edit the interview, alleging that Riefenstahl personally promised to rescue the Sinti from refugee camps Times of darkness and silencethe film was never aired.
“Of course she knew about Auschwitz; [the Romani extras] She was killed, but she just denied it,” Viel said. “She denied this her whole life, with a strange mixture of repression, denial and lies.”
Weill hopes to create a psychological portrait of Germany’s most notorious propagandist Liefenstahl It also provides insight into the enduring and terrifying appeal of fascism.
“It’s a story about how easy it is to be seduced,” he said, “because some elements of her story sound like any filmmaker’s dream: Imagine getting an unlimited budget to make your movie. ! I can imagine the attraction. I must think of my father who was a general in the war. [Nazi SS leader Heinrich] Himmler was on the Russian front and had many advantages. He was tempted. So this is a very personal issue that I have to grapple with.
