Topics
About Women: Biographies
African American Women
Air, Space, Science, Math
Ancient & Medieval Women
Art, Music. Writing. Media
Education or Sports: Women
Feminism, Suffrage, Rights
Life: Family, Work. Fashion
Medicine, Nursing, Health
Military & War: Women
Politicians, Queens, Laws
Religion, Goddess, Witches
Social Reform Movements
Where/When: Women's History
Women's History - More
|
August 22
, 1902 - September 8, 2003
Berta (Bertha) Helene Amalie Riefenstahl
film director, actress, dancer, photographer
Leni Riefenstahl's career included work as a dancer, actress, film producer,
director, and also a photographer, but the rest of Leni Riefenstahl's career was
shadowed by her history as a documentary maker for Germany's Third Reich in the
1930s. Often called Hitler's propagandist, she disclaimed knowledge of or any
responsibility for the Holocaust, saying in 1997 to the New York Times, "I did
not know what was going on. I did not know anything about those things."
Leni Riefenstahl
was born in Berlin in 1902. Her father, in the plumbing business, opposed her
goal to train as a dancer, but she pursued this education anyway at Berlin's
Kunstakademie where she studied Russian ballet and, under Mary Wigman, modern
dance.
Leni Riefenstahl appeared on stage in many European cities as a dancer in the
years 1923 through 1926. She was impressed with the work of film-maker
Arnold Fanck, whose "mountain" films presented images of almost mythical
struggle of humans against the strength of nature. She talked Fanck into
giving her a role in one of his mountain films, playing the part of a dancer.
Then she went on to star in five more of Fanck's films.
By 1931, she'd
formed her own production company, Leni Riefenstahl-Produktion. In 1932
she produced, directed and starred in
Das blaue Licht
("The Blue Light").
This film was her attempt to work within the mountain film genre, but with a
woman as the central character and a more romantic presentation. Already,
she showed her skill in editing and in the technical experimentation that was a
hallmark of her work later in the decade.
Leni Riefenstahl
later told the story of happening upon a Nazi party rally where Adolf Hitler was
speaking. His effect on her, as she reported it, was electrifying. She
contacted him, and soon he had asked her to make a film of a major Nazi rally.
This film, produced in 1933 and titled
Sieg des Glaubens
("Victory of the
Faith"), was later destroyed, and in her later years Riefenstahl denied that it
had much artistic value.
Leni Riefenstahl's
next film was the one that made her reputation internationally:
Triumph des
Willens
("Triumph of the Will"). This documentary of the 1934 Nazi
Party convention in Nuremburg (N
?
rnberg)
has been termed the best propaganda film ever made. Leni Riefenstahl
always denied that it was propaganda -- preferring the term documentary -- and
she has also been called the "mother of the documentary."
But despite her
denials that the film was anything but a work of art, evidence is strong that
she was more than a passive observer with a camera. In 1935, Leni
Riefenstahl wrote a book (with a ghostwriter) about the making of this film:
Hinter den Kulissen des Reichsparteitag-Films,
available in German.
There, she asserts that she helped plan the the rally -- so that in fact the
rally was staged in part with the purpose in mind of making a more effective
film.
Critic Richard Meran Barsam says of the film that it "is cinematically dazzling
and ideologically vicious." Hitler becomes, in the film, a
larger-than-life figure, almost a divinity, and all other humans are portrayed
such that their individuality is lost -- a glorification of the collective.
David B. Hinton
points out Leni Riefenstahl's use of the telephoto lens to pick up the genuine
emotions on the faces she depicts. "The fanaticism evident on the faces
was already there, it was not created for the film." Thus, he urges, we
should not find Leni Riefenstahl the main culprit in the making of the film.
The film is
technically brilliant, especially in the editing, and the result is a
documentary more aesthetic than literal. The film glorifies the German people -- especially
those who "look Aryan" -- and practically deifies the leader, Hitler. It
plays on patriotic and nationalistic emotions in its images, music, and
structure.
Having practically
left out the German armed forces from "Triumph," she tried to compensate in 1935
with another film:
Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmach
(Day of Freedom: Our
Armed Forces).
For the 1936
Olympics, Hitler and the Nazis once again called on Leni Riefenstahl's skills.
Giving her much latitude to try special techniques -- including digging pits
next to the pole vaulting event, for instance, to get a better camera angle --
they expected a film that would once again show the glory of Germany. Leni
Riefenstahl insisted on and got an agreement to give her much freedom in making
the film; as an example of how she exercised the freedom, she was able to resist
Goebbel's advice to diminish the emphasis on the African American athlete, Jesse
Owens. She managed to give Owens a considerable amount of screen time though his
strong presence was not exactly in line with the orthodox pro-Aryan Nazi
position.
The resulting
two-part film,
Olympische Spiele
("Olympia"), has also won both acclaim
for its technical and artistic merit, and criticism for its "Nazi aesthetic."
Some claim that the film was financed by the Nazis, but Leni Riefenstahl denied
this connection.
Leni Riefenstahl
started and stopped more films during the war, but didn't complete any nor did
she accept any more assignments for documentaries. She filming
Tiefland
("Lowlands"), a return to the romantic mountain film style, before World War
II ended, but she was unable to complete the editing and other post-production
work. She did some planning of a film on Penthisilea, Amazon queen, but never
carried the plans through.
In 1944, she
married Peter Jakob. They were divorced in 1946.
After the war, she
was imprisoned for a time for her pro-Nazi contributions. In 1948, a
German court found that she had not been actively a Nazi. That same year, the
International Olympic Committee awarded Leni Riefenstahl a gold medal and
diploma for "Olympia."
In 1952, another
German court officially cleared her of any collaboration that could be
considered war crimes. In 1954,
Tiefland
was completed and released
to modest success.
In 1968, she began
living with Horst Kettner, who was more than 40 years younger than her. He was
still her companion at her death in 2003.
Leni Riefenstahl
turned from film to photography. In 1972, the London Times had Leni Riefenstahl
photograph the Munich Olympics. But it was in her work in Africa that she
achieved new fame.
In the Nuba people
of southern Sudan, Leni Riefenstahl found opportunities to explore visually the
beauty of the human body. Her book,
Die Nuba
, of these photographs
was published in 1973. Ethnographers and others criticized these photos of
naked men and women, many with faces painted in abstract patterns and some
depicted fighting. In these photos as in her films, people are depicted
more as abstractions than as unique persons. The book has remained somewhat
popular as a paean to the human form, though some would call it quintessential
fascistic imagery. In 1976 she followed this book with another,
The
People of Kan.
In 1973,
interviews with Leni Riefenstahl were included in a CBS television documentary
about her life and work. In 1993, the English translation of her
autobiography and a filmed documentary which included extensive interviews with
Leni Riefenstahl both included her continuing claim that her films were never
political. Criticized by some as too easy on her and by others including
Riefenstahl as too critical, the documentary by Ray M
?
ller
asks the simplistic question, "A feminist pioneer, or a woman of evil?"
Perhaps tired of
the criticism of her human images as representing, still, a "fascist aesthetic,"
Leni Riefenstahl in her 70s learned to scuba dive, and turned to photographing
underwater nature scenes. These, too, were published, as was a documentary
film with footage drawn from 25 years of underwater work which was shown on a
French-German art channel in 2002.
Leni Riefenstahl
was back in the news in 2002 -- not only for her 100th birthday. She was
sued by Roma and Sinti ("gypsy") advocates on behalf of extras who had worked on
Tiefland
. They alleged that she had hired these extras knowing that
they were taken from work camps to work on the film, locked up at night during
filming to prevent their escape, and returned to concentration camps and likely
death at the end of filming in 1941. Leni Riefenstahl first claimed that
she had seen "all" of the extras alive after the war ("Nothing happened to any
of them."), but then withdrew that claim and issued another statement deploring
the treatment of the "gypsies" by the Nazis, but disclaiming personal knowledge
of or responsibility for what happened to the extras. The lawsuit charged
her with Holocaust denial, a crime in Germany.
Since at least
2000, Jodie Foster has been working towards producing a film about Leni
Riefenstahl.
Leni Riefenstahl
continued to insist -- to her last interview -- that art and politics are
separate and that what she did was in the world of art.
Leni
Riefenstahl on this site
Also on this site
Print Bibliography
About Leni Riefenstahl
- Categories: film-maker, dancer, actress, photographer, Nazi propagandist, "mother of the documentary"
- Places: Germany
- Period: 20th century
Text
copyright 1999-2006 ©
Jone Johnson Lewis
.
|
|