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Leni Riefenstahl |
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Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (August 22 1902 – September 8 2003) was a German film director, dancer and actress widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens, a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party. Riefenstahl's prominence in the Third Reich along with her personal friendships with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels thwarted her film career following Germany's defeat in World War II, after which she was arrested but never convicted of war crimes.[1] Riefenstahl is widely noted in film histories for developing new techniques in film. The propaganda value of her documentary films made during the 1930s repels most commentators but many cite the aesthetics as outstanding. Riefenstahl later published her still photography of the Nuba tribes in Africa and made films of marine life. BiographyDancer and actressRiefenstahl was born in the working class suburb of Wedding in Berlin. She began her career as a self-styled and well-known interpretive dancer. After injuring her knee while performing in Prague she saw a nature film about mountains and became fascinated with the possibilities of film. She went to the Alps to meet Arnold Fanck, the film's director, hoping to secure the lead in his next project. Instead, Riefenstahl found an actor who had starred in Fanck's films who wrote the director about her. Riefenstahl went on to star in many of Fanck's Mountain films as an athletic and adventurous young woman with a suggestive appeal. Riefenstahl's had a prolific career as an actor in silent films. She was popular with the German public and highly regarded by directors. Her last acting role before becoming a director was in the 1933 film SOS Eisberg (U.S. title SOS Iceberg).As a filmaker Riefenstahl's sense of perfectionism enabled her to produce exceptionally polished movies, culminating in her final works for the Nazi government. At first her main interest was in fictional films and when presented with the opportunity to direct Das Blaue Licht in 1932 she took it. Breaking from her mentor's style of setting realistic stories in fairytale mountain settings, Riefenstahl filmed Das Blaue Licht as a romantic, wholly mystical tale which she thought of as more fitting to the terrain.<ref name="muller" /> Propaganda documentariesRiefenstahl heard Adolf Hitler speak at a rally in 1932 and was mesmerized by his talent as a public speaker. Describing the experience in her Memoiren Riefenstahl wrote, "I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the earth's surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth."[2] According to the Daily Express of 24 April 1934 Leni Riefenstahl had read Mein Kampf during the making of Das Blaue Licht. In the newspaper article she comments: "The book made a tremendous impression on me. I became confirmed National Socialist after reading the first page. I felt a man who could write such a book would undoubtly lead Germany. I felt very happy that such a man had come."[3] Hitler already admired Das Blaue Licht and during a personal meeting he asked Riefenstahl to direct the 1933 film Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith), an hour-long feature about the Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg in 1933 (released on DVD in 2003). Riefenstahl wasn't happy with the outcome of this film.Impressed with her work, Hitler asked her to film the upcoming 1934 Party rally in Nuremberg. The result, Triumph of the Will, was a documentary generally recognized as a masterful, epic, innovative work of documentary filmmaking, however it was a propaganda film for the Nazi Party. Triumph of the Will was a rousing success in Germany, but widely banned in America. The film won many international awards as a ground-breaking example of filmmaking and is widely regarded as one of the most effective pieces of propaganda ever produced. In interviews for the 1993 film The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl Riefenstahl adamantly denied any deliberate attempt to create pro-Nazi propaganda and said she was disgusted Triumph of the Will was used in such a way.[4] In 1935 Riefenstahl made (German for Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces), a lesser-known film about the German Wehrmacht. Like Der Sieg des Glaubens and Triumph of the Will this was made at the annual Nazi party rally in Nuremberg. Over a million Germans had participated in the 1934 Nuremberg Rally and later yearly rallies held there got even bigger. The 1935 rally is noted for pronouncements about the status of Jews in Germany. These became known as the Nuremberg Laws which for Jews in Europe would soon become matters of life and death. In 1936 Riefenstahl qualified as an athlete to represent Germany in cross-country skiing for the Olympics but decided to film the event instead. She also went to Greece to take footage of the games' original site at Olympia, where she was aided by Greek photographer Nelly's. This material became Olympia, a film widely noted for its technical and aesthetic achievements. She was one of the first film makers to use tracking shots in a documentary, placing a camera on rails to follow the athletes' movement. Riefenstahl's work on Olympia has been cited as a major influence in modern sports photography. World War IIDuring the Invasion of Poland Leni Riefenstahl was photographed in Poland wearing a military uniform and a pistol on her belt in the company of German soldiers.[5] On 12 September 1939 she was in the town of Końskie when 30 civilians were executed there, in retaliation for an alleged attack on German soldiers. According to her memoir Riefenstahl tried to intervene but a furious German soldier held her at gun point and threatened to shoot her on the spot. Closeup photographs of a distraught Leni survive from that day. By 5 October 1939 Riefenstahl was back in occupied Poland filming Hitler's victory parade in Warsaw.On June 14, 1940, the day Paris was declared an open city by the French and occupied by German troops, Riefenstahl wrote Hitler in a telegram, "With indescribable joy, deeply moved and filled with burning gratitude, we share with you, my Führer, your and Germany’s greatest victory, the entry of German troops into Paris. You exceed anything human imagination has the power to conceive, achieving deeds without parallel in the history of mankind."[6] Riefenstahl was friends with Hitler for twelve years and reports vary as to whether she ever had an intimate relationship with him.[7] After the Nuremberg rallies trilogy and Olympia Riefenstahl began work on a feature film based on Hitlers favorite opera, Eugen d'Albert's Tiefland. The German government paid her 7 million reichsmarks in compensation (on Hitler's direct order).[8] From September 23th until November 13th 1940 she filmed in Krün near Mittenwald. For the extras playing Spanish women and farmers, gypsies (Sinti) detained in a camp at Salzburg-Maxglan were forced to work with her. Filming at the Babelsberg Studios near Berlin began almost one and a half year later in April 1942 and lasted well into summer. This time Sinti and Roma from the Marzahn detention camp near Berlin were compelled to work as extras.[9] A surviving document from camp Marzahn shows a list of 65 inmates who were ordered to serve in the production.[10] 50 stills from the filming in Krün near Mittenwald were later found and from these, surviving prisoners were able to identify 29 camp inmates who worked for Riefenstahl and were then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the first weeks of March 1943 following Himmler's December 1942 decree.[11][12] In October 1944 the production moved to Barrandov Studios in Prague for interior filming. Lavish sets made these shots some of the most costly in the film but they were finished within days. Editing for Tiefland wasn't completed until after the war and the film did not premier until 11 February 1954. Leni Riefenstahl married Peter Jacob on March 21, 1944 shortly after she introduced him to Hitler in Kitzbühel, Austria but they divorced in 1947. Post-war detentionAfter World War II Riefenstahl spent four years in a French detention camp. She was investigated by postwar authorities several times but never convicted, neither for her alleged role as a propagandist nor for the use of concentration camp inmates in her films. Riefenstahl claimed she wasn't aware of the nature of the internment camps and later maintained that she was "fascinated" by the National Socialists but politically naïve and ignorant about any war crimes.[13]Later lifeRiefenstahl attempted to make films after the war but was met with resistance, public protests and sharp criticism. As a result she could not secure funding, but did begin work on a few projects which never came near completion.In the 1960s she began a lifelong companionship with Horst Kettner who was forty years her junior. Riefenstahl became a photographer and developed an interest in the Nuba tribe in Sudan where she sporadically lived among them. Her books with photographs of the tribe were published in 1974 and 1976. Pictures taken at a 1971 social event showing a camera-wielding Riefenstahl with rock star Mick Jagger (including one of her snapping a photo of him and his wife Bianca) remain somewhat controversial. Years later she was similarly photographed with Las Vegas entertainers Siegfried and Roy. At age 72 Riefenstahl lied about her age (saying she was 52) to get certified for scuba diving and pursue underwater photography. She survived a helicopter crash in the Sudan in 2000. On August 22, 2002 (her 100th birthday) Riefenstahl released a film called Impressionen unter Wasser (Underwater Impressions), an idealized documentary of life in the oceans. In 2003 at the age of 101 Riefenstahl married Kettner.[14] DeathLeni Riefenstahl died in her sleep in the late evening of September 8 2003 at her home in Pöcking, Germany a few weeks after her 101st birthday. She had been suffering from cancer. She was buried in the Ostfriedhof (Eastern Cemetery) in Munich.In his book The Story of Film film scholar Mark Cousins claims, "Next to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, Leni Riefenstahl was the most technically talented Western film maker of her era." WorksActor
Director
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Author
References1. ^ Leni Riefenstahl. (1993). The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl [motion picture]. Germany, Africa: Ray Müller.
2. ^ Leni Riefenstahl, Memoiren, München, 1987 3. ^ Fraser, J., 'An ambassador for Nazi Germany', Films II/5 (London, April, 1982) 12. He quotes from the Daily Express 24 April 1934. 4. ^ Interview with Leni Riefenstahl by Ray Müller: The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (DVD), 1993 5. ^ Riefenstahl in military uniform, image from: Steven Bach (2007). Leni - The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. [1];Ścinki Taśmy, Polityka, 2003-10-05 6. ^ Die Neue Rechte, by Kay Sokolowsky, Konkret 3, 1999: "Mit unbeschreiblicher Freude, tief bewegt und erfüllt mit heissem Dank, erleben wir mit Ihnen mein Führer, Ihren und Deutschlands grössten Sieg, den Einzug Deutscher Truppen in Paris. Mehr als jede Vorstellungskraft menschlicher Fantasie vollbringen Sie Taten, die ohnegleichen in der Geschichte der Menschheit sind, wie sollen wir Ihnen nur danken? Glückwünsche auszusprechen, das ist viel zu wenig, um Ihnen die Gefühle auszusprechen, die mich bewegen." 7. ^ See Infield, Glenn B. Eva and Adolf New York:1974--Grosset and Dunlap (Interviews with former SS officers who had been close to Hitler and Eva Braun) 8. ^ Jürgen Trimborn : Riefenstahl, Berlin 2002, page. 325 9. ^ Kein Vergessen, 70. Jahrestag der Errichtung des Zwangslagers für Sinti und Roma in Berlin - Marzahn. [2] The photo on page 13 shows Riefenstahl during the making of the film. See also: Leni Riefenstahl's 'Gypsy Question', by Susan Tegel, in: journal Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Volume 23, Issue 1 March 2003 , pages 3 - 10 10. ^ Sozialausgleichsabgabe für die Zigeuner bei dem Film Tiefland ab 27.4.42 11. ^ In a decree dated December 16, 1942, Himmler ordered the deportation of Gypsies and part-Gypsies to Auschwitz--Birkenau. See: Sinti and Roma, ed. Hlocaust Museum [3] 12. ^ Fourteen of them, with concentration camp numbers, were: Robert Adler (Z-5792); Karl Dewüs (Z-4145), Heini Ernst (Z-5696), Wilhelm Ritter (Z-4883), Albrecht Rose (Z-752), Charlotte Rosenberg (Z-5406), Werner Rosenberg (Z-4860), Otto Schmelzer (Z-5448); Karl Steinbach (Z-4875), Ludwig Weisenbach (Z-4857), Hermann Weiß (Z-644), Johann Weiß (Z-643), Willy Zander (Z-5933); Hans Zens (Z-178). Berliner Zeitung, 17.02.2001, Riefenstahls Liste. Zum gedenken an die ermordeten Komparsen, by Reimar Gilsenbach and Otto Rosenberg [4] 13. ^ Happy Birthday, Leni Riefenstahl 14. ^ TZ Online, Leni Riefenstahl: Letztes Geheimnis geleftet! retrieved 04 October 2007 15. ^ Hinter den Kulissen des Reichsparteitags-Films [5] complete online text and photos Bibliography
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..... Click the link for more information. 20th century - 21st century - 22nd century 1970s 1980s 1990s - 2000s - 2010s 2020s 2030s 2000 2001 2002 - 2003 - 2004 2005 2006 2003 by topic: News by month Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun ..... Click the link for more information. Anthem "Das Lied der Deutschen" (third stanza) also called "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" ..... Click the link for more information. film director is a person who directs the making of a film.[1] A film director visualizes the script, controlling a film's artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of his or her vision. ..... Click the link for more information. actor, actress, or player (see terminology) is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity. ..... Click the link for more information. Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is a branch of philosophy, a species of value theory or axiology, which is the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. Aesthetics is closely associated with the philosophy of art. ..... Click the link for more information. All Movie Guide profile / IMDb profile Triumph of the Will (German: Triumph des Willens) is a propaganda film by the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. ..... Click the link for more information. propaganda film is a film, either a documentary-style production or a fictional screenplay, that is produced to convince the viewer of a certain political point or influence the opinions or behavior of people, often by providing deliberately misleading, propagandistic content. ..... Click the link for more information. Nürnberg Nuremberg Nuremberg Kaiserburg Coat of arms Location ..... Click the link for more information. The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: (help info ) , or NSDAP, originally known as the DAP (this changed in 1920) and commonly known as the ..... Click the link for more information. This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling. You can assist by [ editing it] now. A how-to guide is available, as is general . This article has been tagged since August 2007. ..... Click the link for more information. Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (The Nazi party). He was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and became Führer (leader)[2] in 1934, remaining in power until his suicide in 1945. ..... Click the link for more information. Paul Joseph Goebbels (German pronunciation: IPA: [ˈɡœbl̩s]; English generally IPA: /ˈɡɝbəlz/ ..... Click the link for more information. Allied powers: Soviet Union United States United Kingdom China France ...et al. Axis powers: Germany Japan Italy ...et al. ..... Click the link for more information. 1890 • 1891 • 1892 • 1893 • 1894 1895 • 1896 • 1897 • 1898 • 1899 1900s 1900 • 1901 ..... Click the link for more information. Photography [fә'tɑgrәfi:],[foʊ'tɑgrәfi:] is the process of recording pictures by means of capturing light on a light-sensitive medium, such as a film or electronic sensor. ..... Click the link for more information. Nuba (not to be confused with Nubia, a region extending from southern Egypt to northern Sudan) is a collective term used for the peoples who inhabit the Nuba Mountains, in Kordofan province, Sudan, Africa. ..... Click the link for more information. Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30,221,532 km² (11,668,545 sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area, and 20.4% of the total land area. ..... Click the link for more information. This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia® - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the Wikipedia® encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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And even Leni Riefenstahl, the Fuehrer's darling, received a posthumous mention among the notable Hollywood dead at the 2003 Oscars. The patterning and expressionist flavor of his style reportedly influenced the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, who, in her damned propaganda classic, Triumph of the Will, retained Berkeley's mesmerizing deployment of bodies, but substituted Nazi troops for Broadway chorines. Oh, there's no question," says Steven Bach, author of both the Moss Hart biography Dazzler and an upcoming Leni Riefenstahl bio due in fall 2006. |
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Leni Riefenstahl
