Leni Riefenstahl is dead

[Alexander's Horse]

she's dead

[Ecthy]

yeah, but many people die. horses die, too.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
yeah, but many people die.

I think it is safe to say that all die -- sooner or later

/smartass

[Alexander's Horse]

well she probably doesn't smell very nice right now

[Ecthy]

would a horse care?

[Alexander's Horse]

only if I was downwind

[Ned]

Re: Re: Lehrer

Originally posted by gunkulator


"Once the rockets go up who cares where they come down?
That's not my department, says Werner Von Braun"

Ah yes, Tom Lehrer. Still, without von Braun the US space program would have been a decade or more behind the Soviets. You sure do find a lot of German names when you look at great "American" scientists.

I agree. Von Braun was critical to the US space program, headed NASA and retired with honors and respect. Did Leni do any more for NAZI Germany than Von Braun?

She should be honored for her achievements, IMHO.

Strictly from an interview of her I saw a few years ago, she definitely seem to be in love with Adolf. He seem to have that effect on a lot of German women.

[BeBMan]

Re: Re: Re: Lehrer

Originally posted by Ned
Did Leni do any more for NAZI Germany than Von Braun?

Did Von Braun also claim that people who were sent into death camps were alive and well after the war?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Riefenstahl and Eisenstein, forever twinned with Hitler and Stalin.

The difference is Eisenstein's movies are still good. Even W.D. Griffith's movie is still good. Triumph of the Will is drek.

[Alexander's Horse]

not true. when Stalin came to power Eisenstein's movies went down the toilet.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


The difference is Eisenstein's movies are still good. Even W.D. Griffith's movie is still good. Triumph of the Will is drek.

Sorry old bean, but dreck just won't do. Yours might be a valid, visceral reaction, but your previous post indicates it isn't. I'm sure many of the Right tendency posters here would have the same reaction to 'Strike', 'Storm Over Asia' or 'The End of St. Petersburg', simply because they were early Soviet era films, and not because of inherent technical or artistic failings.

I despise Nazism and Fascism, but Riefenstahl captured the seductive power of those ideologies- and did so in a technically and artistically accomplished way. That's what makes 'Triumph des Willens' dangerous as well as impressive. I look back at archive footage of Hitler's speeches (and to a lesser extent, Mussolini's speeches) and wonder what were people thinking? The rhetoric, posturing, declamatory tirades, are all unconvincing. Then I watch 'Triumph des Willens' and it clicks.

One of my former headmasters was a British spy in pre-war Germany and told me of how at the Nuremberg rallies otherwise respectable women would work themselves into a sexual frenzy during Hitler's speeches-they would strike their thighs with their fists, or the flat of their hands, and as the saying goes, there wasn't a dry seat in the house...

To me that's what 'Triumph des Willens' captures. Fascinating fascism, as Susan Sontag called it. To criticise Riefenstahl for not being Saatchi and Saatchi or Madison Avenue is like criticising Daniel Defoe for not using the stream of consciousness technique, or the builders of Stonehenge for not using Romanesque style.

[Alexander's Horse]

That's true. Hitler was an electrifying speaker but this is not conveyed by recordings of his voice. He had a heavy Austrian accent and is quite difficult to understand sometimes. The atmospherics and stage setting of the speeches were all important.

Another interesting thing about Leni was she broke all the rules about what the nazis thought a woman should be. She was independent, successful and public, quite an oddity in nazi Germany where women were expected to stay at home and have babies. It was her talent and usefulness to Hitler and Goebbels which made it possible for her to have a career.

Her movies were just about the only work done in Nazi Germany of any lasting artistic merit.

[Ecthy]

Riefenstahl movies

Communism