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: Fascinating Autobiography.
Review: Amazingly talented filmmaker Riefenstahl has written a remarkable and interesting autobiography...although a clear message of "Who, me?" seems to run throughout. Nonetheless, it is a compelling work by and about one of the 20th Century's most enigmatic and notorious historical figures. Rumors still exist that Jodie Foster's interested in a movie version...
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: Author response
Review: Dear Amazon.com book buyers. I thank you for your gracious comments. Your wisdom has impressed me with its depth and sincerity. As I head into my second century of robust and womanly life, I will take your kind words to heart. At last, I am understood as I would like to be understood, not as so-called "witnesss" and "scholars" would have it. Their truth is dead, yet mine lives on. God bless the internet for which we give our thanks. It has conveyed history, as it must be. The people have spoken
Rating:
Summary: Leni's triumph of the will.
Review: Equipped with a squint, perfectly in tune with the two dimensional nature of celluloid, the dancer-cum-actress, Leni Riefenstahl, works her way via Dr Fanck's mountain epics toward her first, own production, The Blue Light. This film is successful, winning many awards and accolades for its revolutionary cinematic qualities, and the attention of Adolf Hitler and his associates from the Third Reich's Ministry of Propoganda. After much persuasion, trouble, and interdepartmental interference, Leni Riefenstahl creates, Triumph of the Will, a film of the Nuremberg rally, so outstanding, that it is required study for aspiring film makers all around the world, especially in America, where her subsequent master-work, Olympia, was so roundly dismissed at the time of its issue prior to World War 2. She accused of being Hitler's mistress, a Third Reich propagandist, etc. Leni Riefenstahl dismisses these allegations as guilt by association, and provides the reader with a clear understanding, as to what really happened. For villains are too easily created from rumour and innuendo, something it has taken a long time for Leni Riefenstahl to outlive - I was surprised to learn ( authors comment: Leni from Berlin; 2001 ). Her descriptions of the technical difficulties of film making in the thirties were very interesting, making today's drag-and-drop NLE with SMPTE synchronisation, with the likes of Adobe's Premiere, much more appreciated. I also thought her use of pre and post shooting of necessary sequences for Olympia was pretty daring, yet consistent with my line of thinking, in the sense - who's to know what happened when. Her telling of her disappointment at the look of the lighting ceremony of the Olympic Flame in Greece as 'duller than dull' was a hoot, her fix being to hire the best looking of the athletes present ( Anatol ) to re-shoot the event as she saw fit. She also did this for some of the night shots that had turned out badly for the athletics featuring Glenn Morris, etc. It's her determination to make great films that comes across really strongly. A pity we can't get to see them today as intended if reviewers' comments for the current video releases are anything to go by.
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: A Very Moving Memoir
Review: I do not agree with the opinion that this memoir is merely a work of propoganda to try to salvage the author's image and legacy. One leaves this book very moved by the triumphs and tragedies of an fiercely independent woman who was willing to sacrifice everything for her passion and love of film-making. If you are the slightest bit curious about this woman, this book is absolutely essential for your library. It is endlessly fascinating and enjoyable reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely Overrated
Review: I don't know if Riefenstahl deserves the title of "Nazi Propagandist". Of one thing I am sure: this self-serving memoir is a profoundly aggravating read. Documenting (although the accuracy of Riefenstahl's memory is put into question on numerous occasions, so perhaps documenting should be placed in quotations) her early career as a dancer, her move to film, her work in Nazi Germany, her (repeated) downfalls, and her work in Africa, the book is essentially an attempt on Reifenstahl's part to exonerate herself. As for trying to re-write her history, I can't really fault her for that. I think all of us, at one time or another, wished that we could change our past; Riefenstahl just took it to the extreme. What I CAN fault her for is dull, repetitive prose, implications that her beauty drove men insane, her naivete towards German militirization in the 30s, and her insistence on including every single retraction, verdict, and testimonial in her favor. Shockingly, despite being double-crossed on dozens of occasions, Riefenstahl continues to trust people to take care of her house/money/family/film/photos. The results are uniformly disappointing for her. The 656 page book ends with Riefenstahl explaining why she decided to write her memoirs. The last line is as follows: It was not an easy task since I was the only one who could write these memoirs; it did not turn out to be a happy one. A pathetic end to a pathetic book. I guess it's not really fair to fault an autobiography for being a downer if the author's life was, in fact, one big downer. But the persistent feeling that the author is manipulating the reader into feeling sorry for her, feeling pity for her, feeling something for her, gives this reader a sick feeling in his stomach. Buyer beware.
Rating:
Summary: Leni Reifenstahl
Review: I found the book to be a fasinating one particularly because many of the people of that era are no longer with us. Leni is, therefore her account of that period is important, historically if for no other reason. She did not want to film the 1934 Nazi Party Rally but was forced to by Hitler. People forget that in those days very few people said "no" to Hitler.
| 
