Greetings again from the darkness. Having one’s name or work associated Hitler typically (but somehow not always these days) marks one as a pariah or persona non grata. For artists, the rules can be a bit blurred, and filmmaker Andres Veiel takes on the story of Leni Riefenstahl, in hopes of removing some of the blur.
Leni Riefenstahl was a former actress who became the Reich’s preeminent filmmaker best known as the director of TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (1935), the ultimate propaganda film for the Nazi party, and OLYMPIA (1938), her version of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Having access to her private family archives, filmmaker Veiel takes the deepest dive yet into her life and approach. He opens with her appearance on a 1978 talk show where she is asked if she now considers her association with Hitler to have been a mistake. She bows her head and the clip is cut before we hear the answer (if there was one), though the remainder of the documentary uses her own words and actions to pretty much answer the question.
There have been other films about Leni. The most well-known is probably Ray Muller’s THE WONDERFUL, HORRIBLE LIFE OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL (1993), which Veiel references here. Still, nothing previous feeds us the wealth of photos and video clips served up by Veiel, offering such a full profile of one of the most controversial people from the WWII era. It should be noted that Leni died in 2003 at age 101, so she lived many decades of facing scrutiny and scorn. During her interviews and appearances on talk shows, very little attention was paid to the innovative filmmaking techniques she used in her work, but rather the attention was on her affiliation with Nazis, especially her ‘friendly’ relationship with Hitler.
Photos of her with Hitler and Goebbels are shown, and the backlash from Goebbels’ diaries are discussed. There is also a segment on Albert Speer, part of Hitler’s inner circle and one of the war criminals sentenced at the Nuremburg trials. What we notice is that Leni was no wallflower. She often spoke her mind, and continued to hang her hat on the “art” label … going so far as to state (in 1980) that ‘art is the opposite of politics.’ This defense likely eased her conscience a bit, but we can’t help but be stunned when she claims “Peace” was the theme of her TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. It’s a word that only she would associate with that film.
In her defense, Leni states that most Germans supported the efforts and that things didn’t end well for dissidents of the Reich. Mostly we find Leni in the George Costanza corner – ‘it’s not a lie if you believe it.’ She was a smart and talented and strong woman who was calculating in everything she did or said. She discusses her long relationship (business and personal) with Horst Kettner, and we see the lovely home they shared. We also learn that it took Leni ten years to write her memoirs, and we are left wondering how much guilt she experienced – despite claiming that she knew nothing of the Holocaust (a topic Veiel addresses). We have all seen her extraordinary camera work on Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics, yet no amount of filmmaking genius or creativity can overshadow her work for Hitler. Was she the first ‘cancelled’ artist? In fact, regardless of the pain, she must be remembered … something this project from Andres Veiel ensures.
IN THEATERS
September 5 – NY (Lincoln Center, Quad Cinema)
September 12 – LA (Laemmle Royal, Laemmle Town Center 5)
Movie Reviews from the Dark 