get gone

in my propaganda course today we watched the first part of the film, "the wonderful, horrible life of leni riefenstahl" by ray muller. we had watched "the triumph of the will," the film leni had made for adolf hitler in 1934. the film, which came out in 1935 was considered one of the greatest propaganda films ever. it consisted of new film techniques like motion, elevated camera angles, and amazing juxtaposition of the smiling and obedient crowd with hitler (as one would imagine like a hero).

riefenstahl died in september of 2003 at age 101. in the film we watched for class she was asked to speak about her documentary and she did so with great satisfaction. although she claimed she was not proud of the film (only because she said that ruined her life after WWII), clearly the look on her face when she is revisiting the scenes and the editing (that she did) tells otherwise.

she claims she had no political interest whatsoever when making the film, despite evidence that she was in awe of hitler, as well as, friends with he and joseph goebbels for years. it's hard to believe her when she adamantly (and slightly suspiciously) says she had no political intentions in making the film. when asked about the ediiting of the speeches she claims there must be a beginning and an end. she says that she took the parts with peace and unity and places where the crowd gave the best reaction.

it seems to me from the film, that she might have had some other interest in making the film, besides her role as "an artist." yes, when watching the film, it is artistically brilliant, but she feels no remorse for the support her film drummed up for the genocide of hitler's party.

even during the interview (at age 92), she shows her stubborn and self-centered personality and her disregard for the death her film helped to propagate. i'm not saying that she should feel all blame for what the nazi party carried out during the time. but i do think that she could express some sort of remorse (however little) for her part in manipulating the public to favor such a man and his party.
i understand that during this time, hitler was a very charasmatic man and perceived well, but i'm talking about retrospect. i can't imagine not feeling any sort of shame for making the film.

we only got to watch the first half of the film, but i'm glad we got to. i'll have to finish the remainder, perhaps i'll feel differently toward her.

i found this video on youtube interesting, it's got snippets from the part i watched...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5E36mdHE3w


sweeter dreams.
k