Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
by Steven Bach
List Price:
Our Price: $0.41
You Save: $29.59 (99%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Steven BachEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2007-03-13
ISBN: 0375404007
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
Book Review: Fascinating biography of the complex and controversial Leni Riefenstahl
Summary: 5 Stars
This biography of Leni Riefenstahl by Steven Bach is compelling reading. It tells the tale of someone with great talent--but also someone who could never come honestly to grips with her role in Nazi Germany. Someone who, in the end, was a mediocre actress and dancer and a very talented filmmaker and photographer. But even with her successes, many felt that with Riefenstahl, she put as much focus on herself as on her works. And, with some of her works, critics noted that they were technically wonderful, but not with much soul or heart.
Her early years featured a strong, almost overbearing father; she early learned how to try to "get around him." Her mother Bertha (whom some suspected of being Jewish) was supportive of her, whereas her father wanted nothing to do with Leni's visions for her future as a dancer. Injury derailed her from dance, and she began acting, with her most prominent genre being the so-called Alpine films. While she saw herself as a terrific actress, outside of some exceptions, she appears to have been rather ordinary. But, as throughout her life, her self-image was far more positive; she never had the ability to be self-critical. One virtue that emerged early in her films was physical courage (page 43), "the only personal quality she possessed that colleagues and even enemies could later praise without reservation."
Through a series of events, she ended up in a position to direct a film featuring Adolf Hitler at the 1933 Nazi party congress, "Victory of Faith." It was not as well done as her later, much better known films, but it provided her experience in developing techniques, coming to understand camera work, and so on. Here, she was clearly working on concert with Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi political machine, although she steadfastly resisted the implication that she was a willing and even enthusiastic partner in her films with the party. Hitler decided that he wanted her to do a follow for the 1934 party congress. The result was one of her classics (and a troubling classic, given its explicit vehicle for Nazi propaganda), "Triumph of the Will." Anyone interested in the art of Riefenstahl must watch this movie; there is an awesome (and awful) grandeur to it. Following this, another of her major works, the film that focused on the 1936 Olympics. Technically, another strong work. Some of the same troubling questions, though, remain, including her ties to the Nazis.
Her work as, at least functionally, a propagandist of the Third Reich essentially ended her film making career, although she made a handful of efforts. Thwarted, she moved to documentaries (in Africa) and photography. At a point later in life, she became one of the oldest scuba divers around and took what are apparently fine photographs underneath the sea. In her 80s and 90s, there was renewed interest in her earlier classic works, including showings at some film festivals. Even at that, though, when interviewed she would deny involvement with the Nazis, with the use of Gypsies as extras (some of whom would perish in the concentration camps), and so on. One of her later statements makes this clear, when she said (page 274) "I have never done anything I didn't want to do, and nothing I've ever been ashamed of."
This is a strong biography of a fascinating character, whose denial of her role in World War II leaves the reader troubled. She was remarkably ambitious and used whatever tools that she had at her disposal to get ahead; she was strong-willed and made enemies. This is a work that illuminates this complex person.
Summary of Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
The definitive biography of Leni Riefenstahl, the woman best known as ?Hitler?s filmmaker,? one of the most fascinating and controversial personalities of the twentieth century. It is the story of huge talent and huger ambition, one that probes the sometimes blurred borders dividing art and beauty from truth and humanity.Two of Riefenstahl?s films, Olympia and Triumph of the Will, are universally regarded as the greatest and most innovative documentaries ever made, but they are also insidious glorifications of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Now, in this masterful new biography, Steven Bach reveals the truths and lies behind this gifted woman?s lifelong self-vindication as an apolitical artist who claimed she knew nothing of the Holocaust and denied her complicity with the criminal regime she both used and sanctified.
The facts and her actions, many unknown until now, bear chilling witness: her passionate enthusiasm for Hitler from her first reading of Mein Kampf; her involvements with Nazi leaders Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, Albert Speer, and Julius Streicher, who advanced her career, and with Hitler, who personally helped finance it; her role as silent eyewitness to wartime atrocities against Jews; and her use of slave labor in the form of concentration camp Gypsies destined for Auschwitz. We see her after the war trying to sell footage to Hollywood under an alias, manipulating a sham ?discovery? of the Nuba tribes of Sudan into a career comeback, fighting to disinherit her closest living relatives, and?to the end?unable to express remorse for the millions murdered by the Nazi regime made mythic by her work.
Relying on new sources?including interviews with her colleagues and intimate friends, as well as on previously unknown recordings of Riefenstahl herself?Bach gives us an exceptional work of historical investigation that untangles the past and is also an objective but unsparing appraisal of a woman of spectacular gifts corrupted by ruthless personal ambition.
Entertainers Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Entertainers Books
El Sid: Saint Viciousby David Dalton
Griffin; Published: 1998-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.79
Price in other shops:
Moonwalkby Michael Jackson
Crown Archetype; Published: 2009-10-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.45
Price in other shops:
High Society: The Life of Grace Kellyby Donald Spoto
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2010-10-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.25
Price in other shops:
Stand & Deliver: The Autobiographyby Adam Ant
Pan Macmillan; Published: 2007-04-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $137.10
San Antonio Rose: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF BOB WILLS (Music in American Life)by Charles Townsend
University of Illinois Press; Published: 1986-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $33.50
Price in other shops:
Orson Welles: Volume 1: The Road to Xanaduby Simon Callow
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1997-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.22
Price in other shops:
The Basketball Diariesby Jim Carroll
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1987-07-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops:
Hollywood Animalby Joe Eszterhas
Hutchinson; Published: 2004; Paperback; Book
Love, Janisby Laura Joplin
It Books; Published: 2005-08-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
A Paper Life CDby Tatum O'Neal
HarperAudio; Published: 2004-10-12; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $17.77
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945by Ian Kershaw
Penguin Press HC, The; Published: 2011-09-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.60
Price in other shops:
Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlifeby Eric Rentschler
Harvard University Press; Published: 1996-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $35.98
Price in other shops:
Berlin Noir: March Violets; The Pale Criminal; A German Requiemby Philip Kerr
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1994-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.94
Price in other shops:
Leni Riefenstahl: A Lifeby Jürgen Trimborn
Faber & Faber; Published: 2008-01-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.49
Price in other shops:
Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoirby Leni Riefenstahl
St Martins Pr; Published: 1993-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.49
Price in other shops:
Triumph of the Will (Special Edition)RYKODISC; Release date: 2006-03-28; DVD
Best price: $19.75
Price in other shops:
Leni Riefenstahl: A Lifeby Jurgen Trimborn
Faber & Faber; Published: 2007-01-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.87
Price in other shops:
Leni Riefenstahlby Leni Riefenstahl
Picador; Published: 1995-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.87
Price in other shops: