Leni Riefenstahl by Leni Riefenstahl
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Book Reviews of Leni Riefenstahl
Book Review: Did She Sell Her Soul to Satan?
Summary: 3 Stars
When she died recently at age 101, German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was both revered and reviled. Olympia, her film of the 1936 Olympic Games, arguably remains the greatest sports documentary of all time. But those were the "Nazi Olympics," and many consider her merely Hitler's propagandist, not only for that film, but for Riefenstahl's earlier Triumph of the Will, documenting the Nazi Party's 1934 Nuremberg rally.During her lifetime, rumors circulated that Riefenstahl was Hitler's mistress, that she danced nude in front of party dignitaries, that she used concentration camp inmates in her films.
In truth, Riefenstahl was probably more amoral than immoral, more apolitical than political, as much victim as victor, prisoner both of her unique talent and unfettered ambition.
I first viewed Olympia a decade after World War II on the campus of the University of Chicago. It was shown for its artistic merit, irrespective of any political message. Olympia did show Hitler hailing German victories, but it showcased also the successes of a decidedly non-Aryan Jesse Owens. A long segment focuses on Japan's Sohn Kee-chung winning the marathon. We know now that Sohn was Korean, forced to wear the Rising Sun on his singlet.
My fading memories of Olympia include slow-motion images of the pole vault. But that segment was filmed after the competition. In her memoir, published in 1987, Riefenstahl tells why. Because the contest dragged into the night, her pole vault footage proved unusable. With the aid of decathlon champion Glenn Morris from the US, Riefenstahl convinced the athletes to vault again the next day for her cameras. "It turned into an almost genuine contest," Riefenstahl recalls, "and they reached the same heights as on the previous day."
Riefenstahl admits numerous affairs (including one with Morris) and one bad marriage, but with a director's instinct leaves details to her readers' imaginations. She describes in fascinating detail meetings with Hitler--but no intimacies. She obviously was infatuated with Mein Fuehrer, but not with propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, whose advances she resisted.
Riefenstahl, beautiful as well as athletic, began her career as a dancer, but shifted to acting in films featuring snow and cold. Lack of funds forced Riefenstahl to direct herself in The Blue Light, triggering Hitler's attention. Riefenstahl claims she did not want to film Triumph of the Will, but was coerced into it. She argues that Olympia was made for the International Olympic Committee, not for the Nazi Party, which she never joined. She spent most of World War II detached from politics, filming the allegorical Tiefland. Riefenstahl cites court documents to argue that gypsies in that film did not come from concentration camps. Arrested by occupying American troops, she was shocked when shown photos of Auschwitz. She had many Jewish friends. Was Riefenstahl another "Good German" in denial regarding atrocities around her? Placed in Germany in the mid-1930s, how might we have acted?
Marathoner John A. Kelley ran in the 1936 Olympics and claimed he thumbed his nose at Hitler. But Jesse Owens later told Kelley: "Hitler waved to me, and I waved back." Not everyone in 1936 could predict events that would follow--or understand how misguided acts might affect others. Nevertheless, as a German friend of mine, Rudiger Schierz, says of Riefenstahl, "She sold her soul to Satan."
At her death at age 101, Riefenstahl remained revered and reviled. Photographer Robert Jones writes: "Monsters who are yet geniuses are still monsters, and it is society's obligation not to whitewash their sins." She did pay for her sins, spending three years under arrest. The French government confiscated her films, returning them only years later. Film projects she started died because of threatened boycotts. Thousands of irreplaceable feet of the Nuba tribe in Africa were mysteriously ruined by a film laboratory. In later years, Riefenstahl achieved success as a still photographer, publishing four books, but the potential she exhibited in her first three decades went unfulfilled in her last seven decades. Unlike the vaulters who returned the day after competition to pose for her cameras, she never equaled her previous heights.
Because of her complicity with a brutal regimen, Leni Riefenstahl leaves us with a bad taste in our mouths. But she also leaves us with perhaps the greatest film ever produced on our sport. She remains a puzzle even in death.
(This review originally appeared as a Bell Lap column in the online edition of Runner's World. Copyright 2003 by Hal Higdon; all rights reserved.)
Book Review: Leni's Alibi-ography
Summary: 2 Stars
On the 60th Anniversary of VE Day, I feel I must share my views of this tome. Was Leni a cinematic genius and adventerer? Undoubtably so- as her cinematic techniques have been used ever since and she would film well into her 90s'! But genius alone doesn't erase culpability.
How could she have done SO much for Hitler? Was she truly that solipsistic as to not see him for what he really was? What made her tick? I believe the answer lies in her teen years when she goes into endless detail about this ongoing battle of wills between her father and herself about whether she would be a dancer. Even writing about it many decades later when she may have had hindsight, THIS remained THE most important struggle in her life- to the extent that nothing and no one else mattered. Not her parents marriage or anything else- including the fact that this was taking place in Berlin during the last days of the First World War. Not only had millions of soldiers died but this was a time when mothers were rioting in the streets demanding turnips (which had been considered strictly horse fodder just four years before- to show how desperate the food situation had become), people wearing uniforms and suits were being dragged out of the cars and carriages and innocent people were attacked in the streets by angry,looting mobs! Leni's lifelong cinematic rival Marlene Dietrich, as notoriously egocentric as SHE was, DID detail many of these chaotic events of her teen years in her own journal as, yet Leni herself was OBLIVIOUS to all this impending doom of the world surrounding her. Apart from having to duck down in a subway car one time when Communists shot at it while she was riding home from a dance rehersal , NONE of these events made the slightest difference to Leni- because they weren't about HER! Therefore, it made perfect sense to me that someone THAT solipsistic and oblivious the rest of the world could a few decades later pretend the naked Fuhrer had New Clothes as long as SHE reaped the benefits. Leni even went so far in this tome to BRAG about the fact that she could recall every single word of conversation that Hitler had spoken to her. She technically may never have joined the NAZI party but she had ALL the benefits of being a member and then some without having to pay any monetary dues,attend party meetings or have her name written down. By her own account, she was the ONLY filmmaker in Germany who was exempt from the juridiction of Proganda Minister Joseph Goebbels- and only answerable to the Fuhrer himself! How many NAZIs would have given their saluting right arms for THAT kind of power?
The best parts of the book describe her experiences in acting and filmmaking and here her tone was most sincere. She nearly died in real avalanches of authentic ice and rocks while making mountaineering films (only Lillian Gish took as many physical risks as an actress for the film's sake in those days) . While ,simultaneously amoral and reprehensible, one can't help but be impressed by how she as a director orchestrated her films' composition and had a strong (albeit warped) vision which she conveyed to the viewer. While her choices for who and what she supported are unquestionably vile and best not repeated, her cinematic techniques and the drive to constantly innovate new ones are something future filmmakers and performers could use for the betterment of themselves and the cinematic artistry.
Not surprising that she would say that writing her memoir wasn't a happy experience- as she quickly denounced a very exacting documentary film ('The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl')about her life that she herself had eagerly co-operated on, gave detailed on-location interviews for and even shared a good part of her decades of filmwork with (including rarely presented Nuba and underwater footage of her latter years) only to denounce the filmmakers and the movie. I believe she saw the truth and she simply didn't like or wanted to handle it when it was presented to her or when she had to present it herself.
Book Review: Extremely Overrated
Summary: 2 Stars
I don't know if Riefenstahl deserves the title of "Nazi Propagandist". Of one thing I am sure: this self-serving memoir is a profoundly aggravating read. Documenting (although the accuracy of Riefenstahl's memory is put into question on numerous occasions, so perhaps documenting should be placed in quotations) her early career as a dancer, her move to film, her work in Nazi Germany, her (repeated) downfalls, and her work in Africa, the book is essentially an attempt on Reifenstahl's part to exonerate herself. As for trying to re-write her history, I can't really fault her for that. I think all of us, at one time or another, wished that we could change our past; Riefenstahl just took it to the extreme. What I CAN fault her for is dull, repetitive prose, implications that her beauty drove men insane, her naivete towards German militirization in the 30s, and her insistence on including every single retraction, verdict, and testimonial in her favor. Shockingly, despite being double-crossed on dozens of occasions, Riefenstahl continues to trust people to take care of her house/money/family/film/photos. The results are uniformly disappointing for her. The 656 page book ends with Riefenstahl explaining why she decided to write her memoirs. The last line is as follows:
It was not an easy task since I was the only one who could write these memoirs; it did not turn out to be a happy one.
A pathetic end to a pathetic book.
I guess it's not really fair to fault an autobiography for being a downer if the author's life was, in fact, one big downer. But the persistent feeling that the author is manipulating the reader into feeling sorry for her, feeling pity for her, feeling something for her, gives this reader a sick feeling in his stomach. Buyer beware.
Book Review: This is an abridged edition
Summary: 1 Stars
For some inexplicable reason the English translation omits portions of the original. The US publisher neglected to inform the reader of this little detail - I find this practice totally unacceptable (hence 1 star).