|
| The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl | |||||||
 |
| ||||||
| The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl From Amazon (US) for |
"Nazi" film legend Riefenstahl reveals her true personality! (Rating: 5.00) Review : Mueller's 1993 quasi-documentary of German film legend Leni Riefenstahl sheds new light on her controversial work and life. Having entered the film world as a young, determined actress, Riefenstahl caught the eye of Hitler after _Das Blau Licht_, a film she wrote and directed, won awards all across the European continent. It is at this point that film scholars and afficionados begin to differ, some claiming her work presents the highest of film aesthetics, while others charge her with crimes against humanity for creating Nazi propaganda. Mueller has done his homework well, presenting a balanced view of both arguments in the form of authetic film footage and documents, and interviews with the director's contemporaries. Yet Mueller succeeds in uncovering the "real" Riefenstahl through one-on-one interviews with the filmmaker, some of which end with Riefenstahl cursing at the top of her lungs in German, denying in her own special way claims that she was Hitler's mistress or that she supported the Jewish Holocaust. Any other filmmaker might have quit at this point, but Mueller charges forward into Riefenstahl's later film and photographic work, detailing her adventures with the primitive Nuba tribes of Africa in the 1960s and her dynamic underwater photography. Short of three hours, Mueller's film, _The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl_, serves not only as a permanent record of one of the world's greatest film artists, but provides entertaining access to the lively person responsible for the visual and aesthetic air of superiority surrounding the most powerful fascist dictator of all time. END Fascinating! (Rating: 5.00) Review : I never heard of this woman, Leni Riefenstahl, until I was perusing the Amaon.com listing of documentaries. It sounded interesting, so I purchased it. First, I must say Leni is a dynamic character with whom you wiil definitely sympathize, just as she was judged by a court after the war to have sympathized with the Nazis. I think it pretty much reflects the frustration, consternation, and horror of the whole Nazi era. Everyone claims to have known nothing of what was happening in the concentration camps, even those such as Leni who had access to the highest echelons of Nazi society. I think the viewer will understand how gray the whole thing became. Leni poses the question herself: Were filmmakers compelled by Stalin to create films for him responsible for the deaths he caused? I can't help but feel Leni was scapegoated in some way. I can understand why some would be angry with her for creating the film, The Triumph of the Will, that made the Nazi Congress at Nuremburg seem like somethin out of a Wagner opera. Yet, I think the film shows that her creation of Triumph of Wills, which she claims was forced on her--and she only made one film for the Nazis, per se--was consistent with her perfectionist attitude toware her work. She's not being faulted so much for having made a film about the Nazis but about having a made a very fine film for the Nazis--which received international prizes when it was released, even in Paris . . . Her life reflects the contradictions of her time; she states her regreat about having made "Triumph". I for one believe her. Anyway, who are any of us to judge anyone else? She never even joined the Nazi party. Watch this film! Like peeling away the layers of an onion (Rating: 4.00) Review : Leni Riefenstahl was 90 years old when this documentary was made and she was more active than your average 60 year-old. It begins with her scuba diving and shooting a film about the underseas. The documentary mostly takes the middle ground and Leni tells the interviewers that she was never political and shot her Nazi films because she was an artist that Germany was her country. She admits being friendly with Hitler but becomes incensed when the interviewers ask her about Goebbels. She refuses to acknowledge any kind of relationship except to say that he came on to her and she rejected him. The interviewers then read from Goebbel's diary that suggests a good friendship between the two. It's an interesting moment in the film because you realize that no matter how sharp Riefenstahl is she cannot hide the whole truth. Her best moment is when she compares her life to the lives of communist artists like Eisenstein who made pro-Soviet films. That this contradiction isn't explored more in the documentary is a shame. Riefenstahl it could be argued helped strengthen the Nazi cause which probably led to more deaths, but the same could also be said for Eisenstein who has all but escaped such scrutiny. You realize that the anger against her is less about the people who died because of her actions and more about the selective enforcement of morality in such circumstances. We're supposed to hate Hitler because of the death camps, but we don't have to hate Stalin for the death camps. Eisenstein was an idealist, but Riefenstahl was a cynic. There are some great moments from her days as an actress and director, but even more interesting is the interspersed footage of the documentarians working to make this film and getting flak from Riefenstahl the whole way. Like a typical Nazi she was trying to take over the production, complaining about how she should be shot and where. You can enjoy this film as a document of history, politics or even film heritage. If you like of those choices, you should see it. I can only recommend it, especially since Leni was really gifted and very much before her time. She even ordered special film stock for one of her first movies. Very interesting. |
 |
| The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl | |||||||
|
| ||||||
| Home | About | Bookmark ShopExt - CTRL+D |