Riefenstahl

Greetings again from the darkness. Having one's name or work associated Hitler typically (but somehow not always these days) marks one as a pariah or persona non grata. For artists, the rules can be a bit blurred, and filmmaker Andres Veiel takes on the story of Leni Riefenstahl, in hopes of removing some of the blur.

Leni Riefenstahl was a former actress who became the Reich's preeminent filmmaker best known as the director of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (1935), the ultimate propaganda film for the Nazi party, and OLYMPIA (1938), her version of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Having access to her private family archives, filmmaker Veiel takes the deepest dive yet into her life and approach. He opens with her appearance on a 1978 talk show where she is asked if she now considers her association with Hitler to have been a mistake. She bows her head and the clip is cut before we hear the answer (if there was one), though the remainder of the documentary uses her own words and actions to pretty much answer the question.

There have been other films about Leni. The most well-known is probably Ray Muller's THE WONDERFUL, HORRIBLE LIFE OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL (1993), which Veiel references here. Still, nothing previous feeds us the wealth of photos and video clips served up by Veiel, offering such a full profile of one of the most controversial people from the WWII era. It should be noted that Leni died in 2003 at age 101, so she lived many decades of facing scrutiny and scorn. During her interviews and appearances on talk shows, very little attention was paid to the innovative filmmaking techniques she used in her work, but rather the attention was on her affiliation with Nazis, especially her 'friendly' relationship with Hitler.

Photos of her with Hitler and Goebbels are shown, and the backlash from Goebbels' diaries are discussed. There is also a segment on Albert Speer, part of Hitler's inner circle and one of the war criminals sentenced at the Nuremburg trials. What we notice is that Leni was no wallflower. She often spoke her mind, and continued to hang her hat on the "art" label ... going so far as to state (in 1980) that 'art is the opposite of politics.' This defense likely eased her conscience a bit, but we can't help but be stunned when she claims "Peace" was the theme of her TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. It's a word that only she would associate with that film.

In her defense, Leni states that most Germans supported the efforts and that things didn't end well for dissidents of the Reich. Mostly we find Leni in the George Costanza corner - 'it's not a lie if you believe it.' She was a smart and talented and strong woman who was calculating in everything she did or said. She discusses her long relationship (business and personal) with Horst Kettner, and we see the lovely home they shared. We also learn that it took Leni ten years to write her memoirs, and we are left wondering how much guilt she experienced - despite claiming that she knew nothing of the Holocaust (a topic Veiel addresses). We have all seen her extraordinary camera work on Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics, yet no amount of filmmaking genius or creativity can overshadow her work for Hitler. Was she the first 'cancelled' artist? In fact, regardless of the pain, she must be remembered ... something this project from Andres Veiel ensures.

IN THEATERS September 5 - NY (Lincoln Center, Quad Cinema) September 12 - LA (Laemmle Royal, Laemmle Town Center 5)

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.

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.