Leni Riefenstahl glorified Nazi Germany with her beautiful, powerful films that encapsulated its philosophy of power, beauty, racial purity and morality. “Triumph of the Will” remains one of the most frighteningly powerful documentaries illustrating the magnetic pull Hitler exerted over his chosen populace—and it should also have been a chilling warning to those who were not. This powerful documentary, written and directed by Andres Veiel, takes a hard new look at the still-controversial filmmaker. Diving into previously unavailable material makes this an important, must-see film, deconstructing the mask she so carefully fabricated after the war.
“Olympia,” her masterpiece, chronicled the 1936 Berlin Olympics, rightfully deifying Jesse Owens and revolutionizing sports photography with the tracking shot. She spent months before the Olympics filming high divers to find the right angles and camera positions. There can be little doubt that she was a formidable director and may be one of the best, if not the best, woman director of the 20th Century. This, however, does little to excuse her Nazi past, despite all her denials. As she repeatedly said, throughout her post-World War II lifetime (and she lived to 101, dying in 2006), “I am not responsible!”
Responsibility is an interesting choice of words because it can be interpreted differently, whether implying lack of trust, causation, accountability, proficiency, and to be very clear, she was extremely proficient. Riefenstahl was the very definition of responsible. She had complete control of her art. Despite her protests to the contrary, she was not following orders. She had final cut in everything she did, whether shooting and editing her films, choosing subject matter, or rejecting the advances of those like Goebbels, who pressed her, literally and figuratively. Leni Riefenstahl was very responsible.
Beginning her professional life as an actress, Leni had Greta Garbo-like beauty and presence. She immediately attracted attention in her first movie, “The Holy Mountain” (1926), doing her own climbing stunts. Not content just to act, in 1932 she directed, wrote, edited, produced and starred in “The Blue Light.” By this time she was very much on Hitler’s radar and he on hers. She was electrified the first time she heard him speak, “The State doesn’t give us orders. We give the State orders.” After an earlier commission, Hitler personally asked her to create a film about the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. The resulting film, “Triumph of the Will,” is an epic of propaganda filmmaking. Riefenstahl consistently denied that she was making propaganda; she was the ultimate apologist hiding behind her art.
“Olympia” (1938) was the most costly documentary up to that time. It was to be a film that glorified the athleticism of the Aryan race. She researched the original Greek games and the paintings and statuary depicting those athletes. But during the games, her focus shifted and she became entranced with the Black athletes dominating their events, particularly Jesse Owens. Her shots of him became burned in the minds of anyone seeing that footage, and most of us have. She described the Black athletes as beautiful, powerful animals, not as human beings.
Director Andres Veiel was drawn into “Riefenstahl” by producer Sandra Maischberger who, after the death of Riefenstahl’s partner in 2016, gained access to her estate. Although Leni Riefenstahl has been the focus of quite a few previous documentaries and Veiel makes use of clips from many of them, the gold mine that Maischberger discovered was boxes and boxes of Riefenstahl’s personal records, diaries, outtakes, unpublished photos, home movies and phone recordings. Unlike previous documentaries, Veiel was not beholden to either Riefenstahl or her partner, Horst Kettner.
The Leni Riefenstahl that emerges from Veiel’s outstanding study is a narcissist who knew exactly how to portray herself, whether innocent victim, naive young woman, object of desire, artist, apologist or, basically, anything she chose. Totally camera-aware, she flirts with it as though it were a sexual partner. She was a master at shutting down any conversation she didn’t like. She was always in control: in control of her films, of the men around her, of her life and most of all, her image. She was well aware of how important the public perception of her would be to her legacy. Her first avenue of attack was to “deny, deny, deny.” If you say it loud enough and often enough, you control the narrative. Leni, no matter how many times she changed her story, was always in control of the narrative. After all, she was only following orders.
Archival footage from previous interviews, and she was never hesitant to participate in talk shows, provided that the host adhered to her ground rules. In the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, many Germans were still in denial over their part in the murder of the Jews and drank whatever drivel Riefenstahl had to offer. What comes to mind is the character of Sergeant Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes,” an American comedy series of the 1960s about a German prisoner of war camp. His catchphrase, “I know nothing, nothing.” That was the phrase Riefenstahl lived by, even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. The concentration camps? No knowledge. Didn’t she notice that Jews were disappearing? The only Jews she knew who disappeared were the ones who went to America. In one of her last Reich-sponsored movies, “Lowlands,” she used Roma children from an internment camp as extras. When the film finished shooting, those children and their parents were shipped to Auschwitz where they were murdered. Asked about that, Riefenstahl insisted that she had seen all of them again after the war. “I know nothing, nothing.”
Although she continued filming and photographing, notably in Sudan, her life’s work after the war was to reshape the public’s perception of her. Her story shifted with every interview. She was convinced that she could change history, or at least her history, something made possible by the dearth of evidence to the contrary. That evidence, evidence of her admiration for Hitler, the Nazi party and its values, the existence of the camps and the persecution of the Jews, was finally uncovered in the boxes and boxes of memorabilia that she and her partner kept locked for years. Most trenchant was the interview that never was. When contacted to appear on a Swiss talk show, she laid down her ground rules about what could and could not be discussed. When the host refused to acquiesce, she refused to appear. But this didn’t stop the show. Instead, very powerfully, the camera closes in on an empty chair, body mic hanging over the edge, as the host explains that she refused to show up unless they excised footage about the killing of the Jews. He proceeds with his questions to the chair and shows the footage, making it all the more intense.
Riefenstahl, “I’m not responsible.”
Opening Sept. 12 at the Laemmle Royal.
