German producer, director, writer, editor, and actress Leni Riefenstahl may be considered the best woman in film. The success of her first film, The Blue Light, attracted the attention of Adolf Hitler. Riefenstahl’s cinematic abilities and Hitler’s fascist obsession with propaganda would prove a cinematically successful relationship; one that would haunt Riefenstahl the rest of her life. Riefenstahl made two documentaries glorifying the Nazis: Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Many cannot divorce Riefenstahl’s filmmaking talent with her connection to the nature of the films, but this is absurd as Elia Kazan’s work because he named names during the 1950 McCarthy Communist witch-hunt.
One of the biggest problems Riefenstahl had in disassociating herself from the Nazis is the fact that her films were brilliantly made and remain a model of documentary cinema technique. Triumph of the Will used an omniscient point-of-view, a fly-on-the-wall style common to many documentaries today. Aerial shots used in the film help achieve the effect that we are observing the majesty and power of the Nazi Party from the heavens. Riefenstahl’s use of editing techniques, like the slow dissolve, also helps create what would become the Nazi myth of invulnerability. In one shot we slowly dissolve from an aerial shot of clouds to an overhead shot of the crowd, a transition that makes Hitler appear as someone descended from the heavens.
After Hitler saw the outcome of Triumph of the Will he convinced Riefenstahl to film the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. For this event which was to symbolize the spectacle and prowess of Nazi Germany, Riefenstahl used even more innovative and powerful techniques than in Triumph of the Will. She used the most sophisticated equipment and techniques of the day. She trained cameramen as divers and used underwater cameras to film the diving sequences. She had cameras mounted on balloons, airplanes, steel towers, and rafts. She also had trenches dug in the stadium turf in order to film the athletes from low angles.
The Term Paper on Leni Riefenstahl Hitler Film Nazi
... techniques and her bias opinion of Hitler, which she portrays in Triumph of the Will. However, She was not politically involved in the Nazi ... good overview of the life of Leni Riefenstahl and it examined her two controversial films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. It also ... great and solitary leader. There is little dialogue in the film, as Riefenstahl allows the images to speak for themselves. Music is ...
The end result of the filming of the Olympics was titled Olympia. To her credit, even though Hitler ordered Riefenstahl to downplay the achievements of any non-white athletes, Riefenstahl’s film focuses on the achievements of African American track star, Jesse Owens. Nonetheless, along with Triumph of the Will, many continue to view this documentary as a symbol of Nazi power and might. She defends herself in an interview in 1967, “It is always said that I worked for the Nazis, that the Nazis helped me. But I was not in the Party and they made only difficulties for me…” (Riefenstahl 1).
Yet we must make up our own mind on the political implications of the film. But it is hard to deny that Olympia, examined purely as a film, is one of the most beautiful and exciting works Riefenstahl has produced.
In conclusion, Riefenstahl has largely been demonized for her connection with Hitler’s Nazi Germany. After World War II ended, she was imprisoned by the Allies for three years. Her film equipment and much of her property were confiscated by the French government. Recently, the aged filmmaker hoped that a biography of her life and work would help clear her name and reputation as the best and biggest mouthpiece for Nazi propaganda. As the legendary filmmaker stated: “I wasn’t welcome in America. I was a pariah. It would be nice to go back. All anyone ever asks about is the Nazis. There was so much more” (Riefenstahl 1).
While Riefenstahl’s association with Nazi Germany will always be viewed in a controversial light, I believe she is just an exceptional filmmaker.