Leni Riefenstahl, la lumière et les ombres

Again we are shown a life documentary about one of the famous/notorious and talented filmmakers in the world Leni Riefenstahl. Yes there is more historical material as in the predecessing movies but the story is the same: the onesided accentuation of her admiration of the nazies in the thirties which colored her work at the time. To little is told why she was so good in her work with completely new techniques. I would have liked to know more about that.

Riefenstahl admits her mistake being pro nazi at the time. She says unlike most Germans now openly that she was like 80% of the German population. And she shows in her movie Triumf des Willens why they all were so enthousiastic. That she turned away in her work from working for the nazies, seeing life what happened in 1940 during the invasion of Poland is also in this film only and repeatedly presented as a nazi commitment. Yes she realized she was committed and refused to go on being so.

The point which had to be accentuated in this movie was Riefenstahl artistic fascination of human beauty but even her admiration for the Nuba warriors is seen as suspicious.

Can despicable propaganda also be great art? It is a question that forever will be raised when German director Leni Riefenstahl's work is discussed. She is admired as being one of the greatest German directors ever (by Quentin Tarantino for example), but she is also despised for making the Third Reich look glamorous.

Riefenstahl herself has always denied being a nazi herself. In her view, she was an artist who happened to be working for Hitler. In interviews she has always insisted to have been unaware of the atrocities of the regime.

After her death in 2003 this self created image was quickly shattered. The striking contrast between her own statements and the historical facts were already the subject of the recent TV documentary 'Riefenstahl - the End of a Myth', and are more deeply researched in the documentary movie 'Riefenstahl'.

Director Andres Veiel has painstakingly combed her entire estate, searching for letters, newspaper clippings and official documents to confront Riefenstahl's words with reality. This research shows even more clearly how manipulative Riefenstahl was. But at the same time, it is very fascinating to see how her huge ego and her fearless ambition helped shape her place in cinematographic history.

In a Q&A during the Film Festival in Ghent, Veiel said that at first, he wanted to create a Riefenstahl-avatar in his film, an alternative Leni, created from the personal letters and diary fragments in her estate. But in the end, the material itself was so clear that it could speak for itself. There is no doubt that Riefenstahl felt deep sympathy and admiration for the nazi movement. Veiel shows convincingly that her own world view was completely in line with the nazi ideology.

The film contains a treasure trove of historic material. Very revealing is the footage of television interviews, made when the cameras were kept running while the interview was interrupted. Riefenstahl repeatedly becomes very angry when questions are being asked about her responsability as an artist and her involvement in the nazi movement.

But even more revealing are the taped telephone conversations Riefenstahl held with her many admirers. Whenever her artistic integrity was put into doubt, she received letters of support and sympathetic phone calls. Many Germans agreed that in the 1930's it was very hard to resist the nazi movement, and that the passive supporters of Hitler are being judged too hard.

Andres Veiel himself considers his film a lesson for today. Riefenstahl's capability of recreating her own image and shaping the past in her advantage, is similar to the multitude of fake news that is being created by populists like Donald Trump.

I along with about 8 other customers watched this documentary yesterday afternoon.

I found it to be rather incoherent and poorly assembled. What really made me extremely annoyed were the subtitles. For reasons best known to the director the subtitles were white regardless of the colour of the background. As Riefenstahl often wore a white blouse I was left groping at exactly what was being said.

I recall reading a biography of her some years ago and this film did not add to anything I already knew about her.

She was constantly denying her involvement with the Nazi regime and of course she was totally unaware of the Holocaust,and pigs will fly!

Enlightening documentary by Andres VEIEL, which once again deals with the notorious director Leni RIEFENSTAHL (1902 - 2003), who enjoyed great success during the Nazi era.

The German director Andres VEIEL has already presented remarkable documentaries with BLACK BOX BRD (2002) and BEUYS (2016). At the suggestion of the television presenter Sandra MAISCHBERGER, who interviewed Leni RIEFENSTAHL on her 100th birthday, he has now once again dealt with the life of the controversial director. He has succeeded in making a haunting film, which, however, draws heavily on LENI RIEFENSTAHL: DIE MACHT DER BILDER by Ray MÜLLER. The German director Ray MÜLLER had already released his interview film with RIEFENSTAHL in 1993 and even won the INTERNATIONAL EMMY AWARD for it. In conversation with Ray MÜLLER, RIEFENSTAHL revealed herself to be a hot-tempered artist of repression who used all the stops, from crying and flirting to malicious aggression, to deny her responsibility. In Germany, the film was shown in 1993 on the then very ambitious private news channel VOX. VEIEL has little to add to MÜLLER's findings. However, he now has images from RIEFENSTAHL's estate that further deepen the findings already gained in 1993. Her involvement in the murder of Jewish extras in Poland shortly after the start of the Second World War becomes very clear. In contrast, the images from RIEFENSTAHL's photo expeditions to the Nuba warrior tribe in Sudan are unintentionally comical. The director poses with children from the tribe next to Persil cartons (detergent) and Kaba cans (cocoa powder) to advertise her generous sponsors. This woman always knew exactly what she was doing or not doing. Nothing in her entire life was left to chance.

VEIEL's film is merited by the fact that it provides the psychological profile of a repressive follower of the criminal acts of the Third Reich in RIEFENSTAHL. This woman managed by all means to keep telling her own lies until she had internalized them as truths. Such people are highly modern again, and that is why a film like RIEFENSTAHL is needed!

DIE MACHT DER BILDER (1993) by Ray MÜLLER should by no means be forgotten. The real pioneering work was done by MÜLLER and not MAISCHBERGER / VEIEL.