The Good Die Young, and Leni Riefenstahl Turns 100

Cafe Society
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Well, here’s the thing Cartooniverse. I judge Olympia on it’s own. So when I say that she made a beautiful, gorgeous film when she made that…it’s an accurate statement…because I’ve seen it. I never said anything at all regarding TOTW, so how can I show pride in ignorance.

And when I came into this conversation, TOTW was not the central issue. Leni Reifenstahl being nothing at all but a NAZI BITCH was the issue…which I took umbrage to.

As for hajaro, I don’t know what to say. I’m trying NOT to argue any points anymore, I’m just trying to make the point that she was a human being. She says HERSELF that she didn’t know the extent of the atrocities. You seem to have no reason to believe she’s telling the truth, I don’t see any factual evidence to say she’s lying. And since I never said that I particularly LOVED Leni Reifenstahl as a person or that she was my hero, or that I was her daughter or lover or whatever, it’s just not something I spend a lot of time worrying about.

I never said that “most” of germany didn’t know what was going on. I said “I bet a lot of people” didn’t know what was going on. Think about right now, in 2002, the technology at our fingertips. Can you say, beyond a shadow of a doubt that you know EVERYTHING our government is doing? I sure can’t, and I bet there’s some shady shit going down.

When you say no one is arguing that she was talented…I have to disagree, since several people are saying that she should be remembered as NOTHING but a NAZI bitch.

In the end…I’ve simply got to say for, oh, the fifth or sixth time…I just don’t really care that much about the issue, I just don’t want people to think ill of ME on the boards because I defended the history of someone who associated with the NAZI party.

OK?

End of story.

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Her work did consist of more than one film. Still, one of her films has stood out from the rest and coloured the rest of her work. To discuss her and ignore TOTW and its impact, as well as her denials is poor scholarship at the least.

There is a reason the woman has been vilified. Why do you feel the need to defend her?

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I. AM. NOT. DEFENDING. HER.

I am stating factually, that she is more than one propaganda film, and therefore more than just a NAZI bitch. OK?

THE…FUCKING…END.

J

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Fenris brought up a comparison with Mengele that I think is relevant to this topic. Medical experiments were conducted on concentration camp inmates, experiments which are sickening in their cruelty. Some of the data from those experiments may have some benefit to modern medicine, for instance in helping patients recover from hypothermia. Does that mean the doctors who performed these experiments shouldn’t be vilified? Their work has merit, so their crimes are somehow mitigated? * Triumph of the Will*, which I have seen, may be a groundbreaking piece of filmmaking, but so was Birth of a Nation. That doesn’t excuse Griffith’s praise of the Klan. If Riefenstahl was ignorant of what was happening in Germany, it was a willful ignorance, an ignorance of convenience. No matter what her entire body of work is, nothing short of devoting the rest of her life to countering the message of her Nazi-era films would make me view her as anything less than a criminal.

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And her ONE propaganda film has had a great impact on the world and history.

What IS your problem with that?

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But did it really?

Hitler already was chancellor when the film was shot in September 1934. He already was the object of mass adulation, as Triumph of the Will shows. President Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler had already suspended civil liberties and the state governments. The Reichstag already had given Hitler dictatorial power, in March 1933.

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I’m still back at the post that’s informing us all that this is The End of the conversation, even though some other Dopers are still interested in having a conversation.

It’s like Mommy telling you to go to bed before you see the end of “Love, American Style”. It not only makes no sense, it shows poor manners.

The business with Mengele is a terribly slippery slope, yet is a more worthwhile hijack than being told over and over that this is The End. Yes, he was a monster. Yes, there is material and data that came out of what he did that is used as the basis for more research today. Was it worth it? Beyond a doubt no, none of it was worth it.

The end does not justify the means, sorry. IMHO ( Where is the location this thread may wind up soon ), there is zero justification. We could have a whole other debate about experimenting on primates , and all animals and the use and benefits to humankind, but that’s a topic for another thread.

However, I do not demand that this is the end of the conversation, I merely offer my thoughts on the conversation at hand. :slight_smile:

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I’m still back at the post that’s informing us all that this is The End of the conversation, even though some other Dopers are still interested in having a conversation.

It’s like Mommy telling you to go to bed before you see the end of “Love, American Style”. It not only makes no sense, it shows poor manners.

The business with Mengele is a terribly slippery slope, yet is a more worthwhile hijack than being told over and over that this is The End. Yes, he was a monster. Yes, there is material and data that came out of what he did that is used as the basis for more research today. Was it worth it? Beyond a doubt no, none of it was worth it.

The end does not justify the means, sorry. IMHO ( Where is the location this thread may wind up soon ), there is zero justification. We could have a whole other debate about experimenting on primates , and all animals and the use and benefits to humankind, but that’s a topic for another thread.

However, I do not demand that this is the end of the conversation, I merely offer my thoughts on the conversation at hand. :slight_smile:

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Sorry about the double post.

Walloon, isn’t it difficult to separate the idea of pure documentary from the idea of propaganda? I’ve shot an incredible amount of documentary footage in 20 years as a cameraman, and I’ve always believed that there is no such thing as a real documentary. I shoot what I chose, AND what is appearing before the lens as I roll. The point here is that there is a powefully subjective nature to “documentary films”.

Now, take TOTW. You’re right of course in your recounting of Germany’s timeline. Does that matter, though? Her work in this case was not really to document a speech or rally, but to encourage a point of view. To pay homage with the art of cinema to Hitler’s vision and master plans. The timing of the suspension of rights, etc. is not irrelevant but I would argue that it’s not core to what she did. She created carefully wrought propaganda in order to both diefy her Fuhrer, AND to spread his concepts and iconography further than her nation’s borders.

Look at an entirely different kind of documentary, one where -rare as it is- history WAS wrought right before the cameraman’s eyes and was not a chosen moment. When the Maysles’ Brothers made “Gimme Shelte”, they had no way of knowing that the involvement of the Hells Angela as a security force would become seminal to the film’s story, and that they would capture a murder on film. If you were AT Altamont, it’s a home movie with an awful reminder of that murder. If you were a Rolling Stones fan, then it’s a pretty darned good concert film with a terrible scene at the end. If you are someone who exists outside of the entire culture of rock and roll, perhaps that film speaks of much greater issues.

[Devil’s Advocate Hat On] Rock and roll as a dangerous and subversive force, rock and roll as a promoter of satanism and violence. How the rock culture encouraged the marriage of a rock band and an outlaw motorcycle gang, how important that final scene is where Jagger is watching that murder footage on the flatbed Steenbeck editing maching, and makes a remark of sadness, and turns and stands, walking away from it all with a physical distancing that speaks volumes about how the rich and powerful of any clan are insulated from the real filthy awful day to day violence that permeates them.[Devil’s Advocate Hat Off].

The film was shot, the images created and blended into a story in the editing room. Leni created the film documentary to serve many masters, and her sickened creative muse was but one of them. I deeply feel that she’d have made a similar film even if the historical timeline outlined above had not quite transpired as accurately recounted.

She had her agenda, it was Hitler’s Agenda AND her agenda. She was far from an innocent filmmaker. At the risk of being self-depricating in the extreme, there is NO SUCH THING as an innocent filmmaker. You capture all you can, and weave the images to have a certain impact. Such is the nature of the art.

She perverted the art to a grotesque degree.

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I think some of the anti-Riefenstahl rhetoric here takes her out of the context of 1930’s Germany. So much of her propaganda work comes from the early-mid 1930’s before or just barely after concentration camps were set up or the Nuremburg Laws enacted. Certainly “millions” of Jews hadn’t been killed yet. If you were a 1930’s German who had lived through WWI, the humiliating peace terms, and the ensuing socioeconomic depression, I doubt you would have been so quick to perceive Nazism as the ultimate evil, unless you could look forward in time. Also bear in mind that at roughly the same time in America, the Ku Klux Klan was staging marches of thousands of members in Washinton D.C., and that many US politicians of mainstream parties were openly racist. The point being that at the time Leni was making her propaganda in the early 1930’s, there was bad discriminatory sh*t going down all over the world, from all sorts of political parties, not just in Nazi Germany, making it hard to discern its inherent evil.
For those who think Leni is unrepentant, what is your opinion of Tiefland the only movie she made in the 1940’s, to which the Nazis did not give much support, and which was not shown in theaters until the 1950’s? Its heroine is a Gypsy woman, and the story involves rebellion and murdering an authoritarian ruler. There is an interesting analysis of it here.

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You’re either misunderstanding or misstating my point. My argument was not that Triumph of the Will was some sort of unbiased, objective fact-reporting. Hardly!

My argument was against what Hastur wrote, “And her ONE propaganda film has had a great impact on the world and history.”

My argument is that TOTW did not have an impact on the world and history. Hitler had already reached the zenith of his power as dictator more than a year earlier. There was nothing more to add.

If TOTW had any effect on world history, it was the opposite of what most people would think – its release elsewhere was a potently illustrated cause for alarm among democratic nations on what was transpiring in the middle of Europe.

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A bitter reminder of what documentary filmmaking IS. I shot a documentary about a month ago, a live concert/party. While I was off shooting other stuff, one of many bands played on the stage. So, I missed em. Oh well.

Last week the guitar played was killed in a car accident, driving home from the Philadelphia Folk Festival. The performance that I missed shooting was the last time Sunhill Down will ever play together. I missed the moment, and the film will be different as a result.

Walloon, I did indeed misunderstand, please accept my apologies.