15-01-2013, 09:56 PM
Leni Riefenstahl always claimed she was an artist, not a fascist.
Leni said her loyalty was to the artistic form. Not to a political cause.
Here are the opening scenes of the notorious Triumph of the Will.
This is 1934-5.
The filmic storytelling, the understanding of film grammar and its use to deliver drama and message is startling.
Leni was a great filmmaker.
I started this thread not to debate whether Riefenstahl was a Nazi or not.
Riefenstahl's work clearly served the cause of fascism.
Her films helped create, promote and spread the Nazi brand.
I started this thread because Riefenstahl was a great filmmaker, a pioneer of filmic storytelling.
Her loyalty was to the filming, framing, gathering of composed and uncomposed image, and the editing of image and sound to tell a story.
If instead of being born in Berlin in 1902, she had been born in Moscow on the very same day, I suspect Leni could have been the great filmmaker of Soviet Communism.
If she had been born in London, she may have beome the cinematic chronicler of the pomp of Empire and its slow decline.
Filmmaking is an expensive business. Someone has to pay the bills.
My point is that her loyalty was to filmmaking.
This is Leni Riefenstahl's genius and her fatal, poisonous, flaw.
Leni said her loyalty was to the artistic form. Not to a political cause.
Here are the opening scenes of the notorious Triumph of the Will.
This is 1934-5.
The filmic storytelling, the understanding of film grammar and its use to deliver drama and message is startling.
Leni was a great filmmaker.
Quote:Writer Budd Schulberg, assigned by the US Navy to the OSS for intelligence work while attached to John Ford's documentary unit, was ordered to arrest Riefenstahl at her chalet in Kitzbühel, Austria, ostensibly to have her identify the faces of Nazi war criminals in German film footage captured by the Allied troops. Riefenstahl claimed she was not aware of the nature of the internment camps. According to Schulberg, "She gave me the usual song and dance. She said, Of course, you know, I'm really so misunderstood. I'm not political.'" However, when Riefenstahl later claimed she had been forced to follow Goebbels' orders under threat of being sent to a concentration camp, Schulberg asked her why she should have been afraid if she did not know concentration camps existed. When shown photographs of the camps, Riefenstahl reportedly reacted with horror and tears.
I started this thread not to debate whether Riefenstahl was a Nazi or not.
Riefenstahl's work clearly served the cause of fascism.
Her films helped create, promote and spread the Nazi brand.
I started this thread because Riefenstahl was a great filmmaker, a pioneer of filmic storytelling.
Her loyalty was to the filming, framing, gathering of composed and uncomposed image, and the editing of image and sound to tell a story.
If instead of being born in Berlin in 1902, she had been born in Moscow on the very same day, I suspect Leni could have been the great filmmaker of Soviet Communism.
If she had been born in London, she may have beome the cinematic chronicler of the pomp of Empire and its slow decline.
Filmmaking is an expensive business. Someone has to pay the bills.
My point is that her loyalty was to filmmaking.
This is Leni Riefenstahl's genius and her fatal, poisonous, flaw.
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war