Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: Our Leni...
Review: ...was just using the wrong men. And it is definitely not her fault that she lived
in these times.

I also believed for a long time that Riefenstahl produced propaganda movies for
the Nazis including hate speeches and incitation to aggressive wars. But everybody
who has seen her notorious movie "Triumph of the Will" knows that there Hitler preaches:
"We want that this nation will be peace-loving but also brave, thats why you must be
peaceful". Therefore the french government awarded this movie a "Grand Prix" during
the world fair 1937 in Paris.

And seven trials, one american, two french and four german, revealed that she was
never member of any Nazi organisation. To those, who still continue bashing Leni
Riefenstahl, I just want to say that they also cannot forsee the future. And they are
also incapable of remote viewing what happens in some concentration camps hundreds of
miles away, which were, as everybody knows, not accessible to the public.

This book is as fascinating as her olympic movies. Although I like to go to bed very
early I could not stop reading before 3:00 am. During breakfast I had to continue
reading. It shows clearly that Riefenstahl was an extraordinary strong personality.
Thats why she never gave excuses for crimes that she never commited, although a lot of
pressure was put on her in that direction. For this I tribute her lots of respect.
I am pretty much more concerned about those germans with weak moral, which believed
in the past to be a member of a superior race, while today they feel guilty
for crimes that they never commited, because they were not alive those times.
What kind of madness will originate from these delicate personalities in the future?
Another aspect: through Riefenstahls eyes it becomes discernible that the Nazi leaders
were a bizarre clique of gamblers and bohemiens.

But those, who read in between the lines of her memoirs, realize that Leni Riefenstahl
had not only an extremly strong will but also narcissistic traces in her character.
As a young girl she wanted to be admired as a dancer. Concerning men she decided to
control them always. Whenever necessary she twisted them around her little finger
and used them for her ambitions as an artist, which were the main motor of her live.
But her movies demonstrate clearly that she had a positive attitude towards men.

Everybody, who experienced as a forty year old man that a hundred year old lady
appeared to him interesting as a woman believes the following episode of her memoirs.
He also knows how she made it. 1936, in the olympic stadium, seen by all the
spectators, the winner of the decathlon Morris (USA) opened her shirt and kissed her
breast. Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels wanted to throw her out of the stadium
because of her scandalous behavior. This is typical of Riefenstahl: the king of
athlets must be captivated in the public and no thought about the consequences.

In german newspapers there are still rumours from hearsay that around 1937 Riefenstahl
confessed, Hitler has been kneeling in front of her and was asking her with wet hands
for marriage. But without these properties Riefenstahl would have never become the most
ingenious female movie maker of the 20th century. And which man was able to match her?

Absolutley: this is a five star book. But one star I withdraw from Leni Riefenstahl as
a sign of solidarity with some of the men she used. For instance the ingenious pioneer
of mountain movies and avantgardistic nature movie maker Dr. Arnold Fanck, the creator of
the breathtaking silent film "The white hell of Piz Palu".

Rating:
Summary: Whitewash
Review: As the old saying goes, "only the good die young." This doesn't
necessarily follow that the evil always die old, but it's noteworthy that the controversial photographer and movie director Leni Riefenstahl just turned 100 last year.

Reading this book was painful for me: As a Catholic in the 1990s, I worked for a Jewish civil rights organisation, and I am currently a fine-arts photographer, who has been deeply influenced by the broad sweep and tightly framed compositions of Riefenstahl. She is doubtless a pioneer in cinema and photography, and those who would lambast her art as without merit are putting their morality and politics ahead of their objective judgment.

In my review of "Olympia," there is nothing but unqualified praise; But this book is not *primarily* concerned with her art as it is justifying her collaboration with the Nazis. Given that context, and having opened that can of worms, she is found morally wanting.

I was stationed in Germany with the Army during the 1980s, and even then, it was the same old story, like a broken record, hearing the older Germans fall all over themselves in explaining away their dubious "noninvolvement" with the Third Reich: "Hitler was a horrible man.....I was never a member of the Nazi party.....We knew nothing of the Holocaust.....The German people really despised the Nazis, but there was nothing we could do," etc.

That's basically what Riefenstahl's account of her years as chief
glorifier of the Third Reich is: A painstakingly dry account of
semi-plausible denial. After all these years, she's yet to categorically apologise. In this book, she also glosses
over her use of gypsies from concentration camps in one of her movies. Also, Riefenstahl should be exonerated because, after all, she "was never a member of the Nazi Party." Please, this tome was published in 1995, but denying one's party membership was
already old hat when Mel Brooks put that line into the mouth of neo-Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind, author of "Springtime For Hitler" in "The Producers" in 1968.

So, we are left with this paradox: Was Leni Riefenstahl a genius or a monster?

I regard "Olympia," her film of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, as the
greatest documentary of the past century. It is a cinematic marvel, a rare work of grace and beauty that captures the true essence of the Olympian spirit.

But her 1934 masterpiece of technique, "Triumph of the Will" was equally brilliant and equally pioneering. It reveals a mind of unparalled insight and intelligence. And there's the rub: This makes her culpability even greater, because she was smart enough to know better. Riefenstahl was no babe in the woods, she was a sophisticated, worldly woman (read her accounts of her romances, her theories on cinema and her account of her life after World War II). Still, she expects us to believe she was some naif when it came to the Nazis. Sorry, I'm not buying; She was both a genius and a monster.

One reviewer tries to explain this away: "Artists and creators under censorship find ways to express themselves despite the hostile climate." Some, such as Jonathan Swift and Moliere, wrote satirical adventures to undermine the authoritarian regimes of their lands and times. World War II is rife with examples of artists who fled Europe to find freedom in America: Directors Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch all saw the writing on the wall, and got out. Lubitsch even directed a gem of parody on the Nazis with "To Be Or Not to Be." Italian director Goffredo
Allesandrini made an epic movie out of Ayn Rand's anti-totalitarian novel, "We the Living" -- which the Fascists wanted as anti-Russian propaganda -- but made it as a thinly veiled allegory against Mussolini's regime, and it was soon pulled out of circulation. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini left America to return to Italy and refused to play the Fascist anthem, and was jailed for standing up to the Fascisti. Dear readers, *that* is how artists with *guts* "express themselves, despite the hostile climate." They don't cozy up to the dictators and turn them into the second-coming of Jesus Christ, like Riefenstahl did. Riefenstahl's weak denials come off like conductor Herbert von Karajan's explanations that he "made due" under the Nazis. Truth be told, both Riefenstahl and Karajan were opportunists who *literally* climbed over corpses to the respective tops of their arts, because all their competition had either fled, been imprisoned, or executed.

Personally, I think Leni Riefenstahl should have been imprisoned at Spandau for fifty years. Certainly, I would have given her free artistic rein and run of the prison. She would have made some dark and charming images of the dank prison walls, the gruel for supper and rodents and cockroaches coinhabiting her cell, instead of being let loose in the world to rehabilitate her self-image by filming the Nubians in Africa. Monsters who are yet geniuses are still monsters, and it is society's obligation not to whitewash their sins, but to put them on display in order that civilisation not be mocked.

Rating:
Summary: This is an abridged edition
Review: 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).

Rating:
Summary: She had no shame!
Review: Her story caught my attention as Leni R. was about the only person still alive who had participated in some close way in the events of the IIWW and the Third Reich.

Now I have no doubt in my mind that she indeed was a personal supporter and admirer of Hitler. Never ever she regreted the fact that she colaborated in a way (her films) with the Third Reich. This alone is a reason enough to apologize, and Leni not only never did, but she insisted she had nothing to apologize for.

Rating:
Summary: Leni Riefenstahl, a Real Person
Review: I love Leni Riefenstahl. Her memoire is honest and descriptive. It is a big book, but a historical perspective that most are not aware. Ms. Riefenstahl is 99 and will turn 100 in August. She has really lived many lives. She learned to dive in the 1980's as she lied about her age. She started doing her film work underwater because there was no more pain or at least less. In fact, she has a new film 45-min that will be our shortly. This memoire is fascinating as Leni R.'s life is and she is like the energizer bunny. She's endured a lot of grief for her work for Hitler, but she's a filmmaker and like most artists, her work is very important to her. I hope to see her diving in New Guinea again. Back to the book, Leni Riefenstahl. She was a woman before her time literally "climbing the mountains of success". Her art, her life and her humanitarian side really show through in some of her other books, but also her you see the real side of Leni R and like so many others if you think she was a supporter of Hitler's, then watch the Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.
Everyone should own a copy of this memoire. There will never be another woman like Leni Riefenstahl, "the world greatest filmmaker in the world" according to the director of Pearl Harbor. She is also and a great writer and photographer too.
WWII buffs will enjoy the book as she relates her one on one talks with Hitler about the films he enjoyed that Leni made and the films he wanted her to make for him, which she refused but was later convinced to do the job. Pinning labels on L.R. is to close your mind to the real woman we know, Leni Riefenstahl...

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating memiors of much maligned woman.
Review: It turns out that Leni R. is not only a great filmmaker, but a great writer. I found myself fascinated by this woman's triumphs and struggles, and saddened by the persecution of her that continued to the day of her death. There's something for everyone in this book, For 'creative people' you will find her insights fascinating....for the armchair adventurer, her travels to Greenland and Africa read like hemingway....the blurb on my addition says "coulnd't put it down' for once a book lived up to its expectations.

Side note:One of the great tragedies of the filmmaking is that this woman was essentially blacklisted after 1945 - and the hypocrisy of the people who do it and simulataneously heap praise on Sergi Eisentien (supporter of stalin) is appauling.

Rating:
Summary: Leni R. and the national socialism
Review: LR would have been even greater without the advent to power of the NSDAP. A pioneer of new techniques doubled by artistic sensitivity, LR would have claimed her right to glory regardless of who were the power dealers in Berlin.

To understand LR position vs. national socialism is to understand the dynamics of a society under a dictatorship. Just to flatly state that because of her pact with AH she shared the same views and opinions is blissful ignorance, at the best.

Artists and creators under censorship find ways to express themselves despite the hostile climate. And LR is an extraordinary woman in extraordinary circumstances. It is too easy to judge and throw the blame on her from the comfort of the freedom of speech which we all enjoy. It is not only too easy, it is a fashion.

Trying to understand and voice a different opinion of her becomes almost too ideological for the taste of the voluntary censorship in the US.
And the criticism borders the absurd when her artwork in Africa in the '60 is labeled "fascist" because of her choice
of subjects (afro people never made it into the fascist standards of beauty, in the official ideology books at least.).
Nobody can escape their destiny and this is hers, a controversial one.

I gave it a five for each of her lives.

Rating:
Summary: Controversial Filmmaker or Self Serving Propagandist?
Review: There is no doubt that even today Leni Riefenstahl remains a controversial figure from the twentieth century. The editorial reviews listed have a knee jerk anti Riefenstahl sentiment and do not seem to be prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. Riefenstahl was (is) undoubtedly a major film making talent, something which is admitted even by her greatest detractors. What the book shows is her internal fight against becoming the icon of propaganda film, with Riefenstahl longing to remain an actress and even become the next Marlene Dietrich. It is probably impossible to know how much of an apology for her life the book is, although the reader cannot help but admire her artistic vision and marvel at the truly amazing adventures she had (shooting movies on ice bergs which are breaking apart, for one!)
Although there are many incidents from her post war work, the majority of readers will be interested in the Nazi years. The question of whether she was genuinely ignorant of the abuses and horrors of Hitler and his cronies, or wheher she is trying to recast her personal life in light of them is one which nags at the reader at every turn. The answer will probably depend on the individual. In any case, the assertion that this is a dry and weak account is wrong and perhaps only points to the fact that it is best to approach the book with a (sceptical) open mind. Anyone interested in film history and pre and post war Germany will not be disapointed in the slightest!

Rating:
Summary: She had no shame!
Review: 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.)

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Autobiography from an Amazing Artist!
Review: While some of the recollections should be taken with a grain of salt, this autobiography is a compelling and impressive read from the woman who is arguably the greatest living photographic artist. And what a witness to history! Love her or hate her, her talents are irrefutable...as great as the controversy that continues to swirl around her! Don't miss out on this read!