Leni Riefenstahl

The chapter uses the methods of psychobiography and object relations theory to conduct a single-case study of the life and loves of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003). Leni's childhood home was dominated by her father, who had to be cajoled, and sometimes outright deceived, into supporting his daughter's desire to enter a career in the performing arts. Unfortunately, Leni's success was often her worst enemy: Just as she evaded her father Albert's censorious glance, so did she avoid the barbs of German film critics by gaining Adolf Hitler as her patron until the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945. At this time, Leni lost not only her marriage and her film career, but even her sanity, if only for a short time. The chapter shows, through a Fairbairnian analysis, how Leni adapted to the disaster that was her early career by reinventing herself as a photographer of African tribes. Also, in her romantic life, she changed tacks. Compared with her late-in-life companion Horst Kettner, Leni's early romances were relatively shallow either because her counterpart was too involved in promoting her career (Harry Sokal) or too far removed from her working life (Peter Jacob).

Remediation is a process through which digital media exploit the communicative force of other media in order to develop, enrich and realise their own potential. Through different modalities, the same process also takes place between nondigital media. This is the case with Leni Riefenstahl, director of two exceptional propaganda documentaries now viewed as formal masterpieces in the history of cinema, who drew
from Greek plastic arts to strengthen the message of her works and to establish an artistic connection with the Third Reich.
Keywords: Nazi Cinema, Remediation, Propaganda, Documentary.

Riassunto. La rimediazione è una caratteristica dei media digitali che si appropriano delle potenzialità comunicative di un altro medium per arricchire, completare, sviluppare, le proprie. La stessa operazione, pur con modalità differenti viene compiuta dai media non digitali, e, nello specifico, da Leni Riefenstahl, la quale nel realizzare due dei più grandi capolavori del cinema mondiale, straordinarie opere di propaganda, fa riferimento all’arte plastica della Grecia antica per rafforzare il senso dei suoi messaggi e creare un ponte artistico con il Terzo Reich.
Parole chiave: Cinema nazista, Rimediazione, Documentario di propaganda.

Dans le champ de l'histoire des styles cinématographiques, une lecture courante consiste à dire que la manière de filmer de Leni Riefenstahl, au moins telle que la postérité l'a fixée dans Le Triomphe de la volonté et Les Dieux du stade, annonce ou préfigure le style postmoderne. L'article discute cette affirmation d'une « contemporanéité rétrospective » de deux manières : d'une part en montrant que les inventions stylistiques de Leni Riefenstahl sont davantage des systématisations de trouvailles empruntées aux figures du Zeitgeist ; d'autre part en suggérant que d'une manière générale une figure de style qui est techniquement la même, à cinquante ans de distance, n'est plus appréhendée de la même façon quand l'environnement sensoriel de l'époque a changé.

La extensa bibliografía que existe hoy en día sobre el periodo nacionalsocialista sorprende si la comparamos con la escasez de obras dedicadas en español a uno de los ámbitos artísticos en el que los nazis fueron más prolíficos. La industria cinematográfica goebbeliana, que llegaría a producir más de 1200 películas durante los doce años de terror del régimen hitleriano, ha acaparado en general escasa atención entre la crítica especializada. El cinéfilo y el espectador hallarán en el interior de estas páginas capítulos dedicados a cumbres del cine fantástico (Münchhausen) y a pequeñas obras maestras como la expresionista Fährmann Maria, el drama pushkiano, Dunia, la novia eterna o la elegante Romanza en tono menor de Helmut Käutner. Asimismo, en esta selección se incluyen rarezas cinematográficas y piezas inclasificables como una película de ciencia ficción, un documental en el Tíbet, un musical con tintes antisemitas, una comedia basada en obras de Plauto, una adaptación a la pantalla de una obra del dramaturgo catalán Àngel Guimerà, una Juana de Arco, un Sherlock Holmes interpretado por Hans Albers, un Titanic antes del blockbuster de James Cameron, una coproducción con el Japón imperial o la película en la que se inspiró Blake Edwards para su comedia Victor Victoria, entre otras muchas más.

The purpose of this essay, written from the viewpoint of a moderately supportive viewer of 'history on film', is to explore and assess what it is about the topic that provokes such expressions of hostility and defensive  enthusiasm. The strengths of film, in an historical context, are examined within the broad category of public consumption and impact. Weaknesses are considered under the headings of firstly: accuracy, authenticity and invention and secondly: interpretation. While the essay concentrates on historically-themed feature films (using Titanic and Zulu as examples) since these provoke the most discussion, the theoretical ‘reality’ genre of newsreels, propaganda films and documentaries is also evaluated.

Ideología y propaganda en el cine del Tercer Reich nos sumerge en la época en la que Alemania vivió bajo el gobierno del partido nazi a través del cine documental y de ficción de aquellos años.
El cine fue, en manos del ministro de propaganda Goebbels, uno de los principales instrumentos de adoctrinamiento de la sociedad alemana.
Su autor, Marco da Costa, es quizás una de las pocas personas en el mundo que hayan visto —y estudiado en profundidad— la totalidad de las producciones cinematográficas que vieron la luz en la Alemania de aquella época.
Con gran maestría y un lenguaje plástico y fluido, desfilan ante nosotros todos los aspectos de la vida cotidiana de la Alemania nazi, y nos muestra hasta qué punto la ideología y la propaganda estaban presentes en el día a día de aquel país.
En otro orden de cosas, este libro es, quizás, uno de los primeros libros «multimedia» en formato papel, pues el lector puede acceder a todas y cada una de las películas y documentales analizados a través de los códigos QR que encontrará a lo largo del libro y que podrá escanear con su teléfono móvil o tablet para acceder a su visionado a través de internet.

Ausdruckstanz and the theme of athleticism is seen and symbolically placed in Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia. Both are fundamental representations of bodies within the film that house a fascist aesthetic. Fascist aesthetic is the essence of art, propaganda or design that perpetuates the goal of an authoritarian regime. Fascist aesthetics were alive and well in Italy, fascism’s birthplace, and newly spread to Germany during the 1930’s, due to the effects of the Great Depression. It is important to establish that the fundamental principles of fascism include nationalism—an extreme form of patriotic efforts, imperialism—unequal distribution of wealth, property and socio-cultural governance, totalitarianism—where nearly every part of the government is completely under control by one source—and total social control.

Wie kaum eine andere Skulptur zieht der Barberinische Faun die Betrachter in seinen Bann, dient als Folie moderner Kunst und als modische Ikone. Hierbei stehen nicht zuletzt die erotischen Aspekte der Figur im Zentrum des Interesses – sowohl die hetero- wie homoerotischen! Der Beitrag fasst zusammen, was hinsichtlich der Aufstellung, Wirkung und Rezeption der Statue bekannt ist.

This paper was presented at the annual convention of the Canadian Association of Teachers of University German in Victoria, BC, in June, 2013 . --  More than twenty years after its inception, Rammstein is still one of the most controversial and most successful German bands. As German theorist Moritz Baßler has demonstrated in 'Mitteilungen des Deutschen Germanistenverbandes' (2006), a large share of their appeal – both in domestic and international markets – stems from their appropriation of fascist art, namely the films of Leni Riefenstahl. At the same time, their musical aesthetics are greatly influenced by the Slovenian band Laibach that started to perform in German and use Nazi symbolism to provoke Yugoslavian authorities in the wake of Tito’s death. This paper explores Rammstein’s adaptation of Laibach’s musical and visual strategies to a German context and its implications; this connection has often been claimed, but never been studied in detail. Two close readings will be at the core of this paper: The first will deal with Laibach’s 'Geburt einer Nation' (1987), a cover version of Queen’s song 'One Vision' that, by slight changes in their translation of the lyrics, turn an homage to Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, into a hymn to fanatic nationalism.  A second part will then cover Rammstein’s appropriation of Laibach’s strategies to a German context, as exemplified by the lyrics and video for the Depeche Mode cover 'Stripped' (1998). One result is that, while Rammstein are less explicit in their use of elements of fascist aesthetics, partly due to German laws against anticonstitutional enunciations, they work just as consciously with the traditional punk/new wave strategy of “Überidentifikation” as a strategy of subversion, as bands like DAF, Throbbing Gristle, and Laibach did in the 1980s. While both Rammstein and Laibach consider themselves left-wing, the intentional ambivalence of their art demonstrably exposes them to appropriation and identification by listeners with Nazi sympathies.

Tesis doctoral en filosofía, alrededor de la cuestión de la ciudad desde la perspectiva de la estética y la política. Partiendo de las intuiciones en torno al espacio y el lugar de Walter Benjamin (Libro de los pasajes) y Martin Heidegger (Construir, habitar, pensar) y recogiendo el hilo de las reflexiones de Eugenio Trías (La lógica del límite), José Luis Pardo (Las formas de la exterioridad) o Michel Serres (Atlas) se desarrolla una exploración del territorio de lo que se podría llamar "filosofía urbana", recogiendo de modo holístico las enseñanzas de la Historia urbana, la sociología urbana, la geografía urbana, la antropología urbana y la poética del espacio.

It is instinctive for film makers to produce the best possible film that they can. It is at the heart of what drives them. But there are also constraints – the amount of access to the film’s subject, control over the set, the technology at the director’s disposal, external influences from the commissioning body and so on – all of which ultimately determine the success of a film. This is especially true of documentary films with a political or propaganda angle. It is a prerequisite that documentary directors try to combat such constraints and encompass realist techniques as the foundation for their film output. In this essay I will explore the techniques used by Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) in her propaganda documentary film Triumph of the Will produced for the Third Reich in 1935, as well as the way in which she augmented reality to create one of the most successful propaganda films of all time, analysing three particular sequences.

Zamierzeniem tej książki nie było stworzenie historii politycznej, społecznej lub gospodarczej Trzeciej Rzeszy – ani nawet jej kina. Kino nazistowskie potraktowane zostało jako wielka machina wyobrażeń społecznych, która w ciągu dwunastu lat swojego istnienia wyprodukowała ponad 1100 filmów. Centralną figurę fantazji kina Trzeciej Rzeszy stanowi ciało: zamknięte w mundurze ciało niemieckie oraz nagie, monstrualne ciało obce (żydowskie, chore, kobiece). Zamknięte w mundurze ciała niemieckie miały być w stanie znieść każdą konfrontację, przetrwać każde niebezpieczeństwo i nigdy nie rozpaść się. Ciała jednak bezustannie rozpadają się na poszczególne części – twarze, gesty, dłonie i stopy – aby następnie złożyć się z powrotem w zamkniętą całość zidentyfikowaną z narodem. Żydowskie, chore i kobiece ciała to z kolei trauma, z którą nazizm usiłuje sobie na wszelkie możliwe sposoby poradzić: od prób kontroli do konieczności eliminacji wyrażonej ostatecznie w defragmentacji i degradacji martwego ciała. Jednocześnie jednak ciała niemieckie i nie-niemieckie wydają się intymnie splecione, gdy zadawana w obrazie filmowym przemoc seksualizuje się. Analiza filmów i obrazów Leni Riefenstahl, Veita Harlana, Fritza Hipplera, Hansa Scheinhoffa, filmów medycznych i propagandowych z getta warszawskiego ostatecznie składają się na opis biopolityki i seksualności nazizmu.

Recenzje:
  Olga Wróbel, Za mundurem panny sznurem, "Notes na 6 tygodni", nr 104, 2016;
  Bartosz Żurawiecki, Reżim cielesny, "Kino", nr 05, 2016;
  Tomasz Żukowski,  Recenzja: Jan Borowicz, Nagość i mundur. Ciało w filmie Trzeciej Rzeszy, "Zagłada Żydów. Studia i materiały" nr 12, 2016;
  Gaweł Janik, Ciało obce, obcość ciała, "Narracje o Zagładzie", nr 2, 2016.

Seminar work at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin (Institut für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte) discussing documentary and propagandistic character and content of the two works of Leni Riefenstahl 'Sieg des Glaubens' and 'Triumph des Willens'. Contains a sequence analysis and comparison in style and rhythm of the opening credits of both films.

In “Sontag’s Captions: Writing the Body from Riefenstahl to S & M,” Bonita Rhoads considers how Susan Sontag altered her aesthetic convictions in response to her evolving writer’s conscience and produced some of the most indelible commentaries of her generation. Her scathing critique of Leni Riefenstahl continues to set the standard of criticism of the Nazi-friendly director despite Sontag’s own little-acknowledged mitigation of her excoriating essay “Fascinating Fascism” several years later. Rhoads’s essay establishes Sontag’s condemnation of Riefenstahl’s “fascist aesthetics” as a turning point in her growth as a woman of letters, elucidating how that oft-cited critique reveals not only Sontag’s ideological transformation, but also her response to the sexual revolution just as it was shifting from the heady idealism of the 60s to the garish affectations and irreverent fads of the 70s.

In Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of Will (1935), the ritual element is revealed
not only through the documentaristic representation of the Parteitag,
but also through the cinematic representation which enhances the existing
rituals and liturgies of the congress while creating new ones through shots
selection and montage. As an example, the end of the first narrative segment
(3rd sequence), shows the symbolic passage from pre-Nazi to Nazi Germany,
anticipating the coming of the millennial Reich. The combination of shots
and music creates a liturgic context and a rite of passage, emphasising the
hallowing potential of cinema.

In our paper we are going to examine some of the postmodern readings of the avant-garde that had been developed within the field of contemporary theatre and performing art during the latest few decades. We will focus on what Aleš Erjavec calls politicized art under late socialism or postmodernism in the postsocialist condition. The starting point for our discussion (is) will be the assumption that postmodern performing arts intuitively or rationally employ Derrida’s deconstructive reading of Western philosophy as its own (artistic) reading of western theatre tradition and its orientation “toward an order of meaning – thought, truth, reason, logic, the World – conceived as existing in itself, as foundation” (Culler) This reading of the tradition is positioned within its critique of what Derrida calls “theological stage” with its structure comporting with the elements of author-creator regulating the time or the meaning of representation understood as something that represents him, his thoughts, intentions, ideas. Postmodern theatre thus develops something that Philip Auslander calls “other grounding concepts” of logocentricity, for example director’s concept or even stage designer’s concept, in which “the logos of the performance need not take the form of a playwright’s text …”

Leni Riefenstahl es la cineasta más importante de la Alemania Nazi. Sus películas son imprescindibles para entender muchos aspectos relativos a la mentalidad de los ciudadanos de este período. Los tres filmes que componen la Trilogía de Núremberg están centrados en la propaganda del nazismo y en como los actos organizados por el partido de Adolf Hitler impactaban de lleno entre los alemanes de a pie, mientras que su siguiente filme, Olympia, es un documental deportivo que también aporta mucho sobre esta época aunque desde una óptica muy distinta. Todos estos trabajos contribuyen a ofrecer una representación muy precisa de uno de los momentos más oscuros de la historia de la humanidad.

En el presente artículo se realiza un análisis en torno a la cuestión de la autonomía formal del arte mediante el cine propagandístico de Leni Riefenstahl. Se parte de la posibilidad de valorar una obra artística separando la forma del contenido, y se toma como ejemplo la película El triunfo de La voluntad (1935); film que, en la actualidad, se concibe bajo estas premisas. A través de la visión de varios teóricos del arte, se estudia la medida en la que se puede establecer dicha separación, no solo en el ámbito del cine, sino en el del arte en general.

Leni Riefenstahl, fue una directora de cine alemana nacida en Berlín, en agosto de 1902. Mujer inmoderada en todas sus aristas tuvo una larga e intensa vida de 101 años. Realiza su último filme a la edad de 100 años, siendo la cineasta más longeva en activo hasta su muerte en 2003, título que pasó al portugués Manuel de Oliveira. A los 60 años se va a vivir con el pueblo Nuba del Sudán donde realizó un gran trabajo fotográfico para la revista Harper y los 74 años aprende a bucear para realizar su última producción, un filme subacuático. 

Yirminci yüzyılın sanatsal pratiklerini incelediğimiz taktirde, üretildikleri zaman-mekan düzlemiyle sıkı bir ilişkide olduklarını, sanatçı kimliği inşasında ise toplumsal ve siyasi olayların büyük önem taşıdığını fark etmek mümkündür. Özellikle geçmiş yüzyıla damgasını vuran iki dünya savaşı, yıkıcı bir o kadar da yapıcı karakteriyle sanat alanını etkilemiş aynı şekilde sanat da ideolojik etkinlikler için bir araç niteliği kazanmıştır. İtalya, Sovyet Rusya ve Almanya gibi rejim değişikliği yaşayan ülkelerde mevcut iktidar, ideolojilerini meşru kılmak için kitlelerden beslenir. Faşizm de komünizm de, bu doğrultuda ideolojilerini yeniden üretebilecekleri bir düzlem olan sanatsal akımları kullanır. Kitlelerin ve ideolojilerin dili ise elbette ki propagandadır. Kitle kültürünün beşiğine doğan sinema ve fotoğraf, teknik olanaklarla yeniden üretim biçimleri sayesinde propaganda yöntemleri açısından büyük önem taşımaktadır. Her iki pratik de, gerçek dünyadaki nesnelerin neredeyse birebir görüntülerini yeniden üretir. Ancak bir objektif aracılığıyla dolaylı olarak oluşturulan bu görüntüler gerçekliğin yansıtılması değil, yeniden inşasıdır aslında. Nitekim sinemayı bir dil olarak nitelendiren ve görsel dizgelerin anlam imkanları üzerine yoğunlaşan Rus biçimcilerinde bu yaklaşımı görmek mümkündür. Ekim Devrimi sonrasında Sovyet ideolojisi sanatsal bir zeminle desteklenmiş; Kuleşov, Pudovkin ve Eisenstein gibi isimler kurgu ve montaj tekniklerini geliştirerek ortaya koydukları sinema dilini sistematikleştirmişlerdir. Bütün bu yenilikçi ve deneysel çalışmalar, propaganda için kullanılmaları açısından devlet tarafından desteklenmiştir. Elbette bunda dönemin savaş ekonomisinin getirdiği ekonomik sıkıntıların etkisi büyüktür. Dolayısıyla sırf Rusya'da değil, diğer birçok ülkede hakim bir " ülke sineması " kavramından bahsedilebilir. İdeolojik olarak yoğun anlamlarla yüklü bu filmler, özleri gereği bir mesaj iletme kaygısı güderler. Her ne kadar ham maddelerini " gerçeklikten " aldıklarını iddia etseler de, toplumsal olanın yeniden inşasında taraf tutarlar. Bu ideoloji-sinema ilişkisindeki iç içe geçmişlik, filmi bugün izleyen seyirciyi belki taraf tutmaya zorlamaz ama o açıdan değerlendirmeye mecbur bırakır. Tıpkı görüntüyü kadrajlayan bir kamera gibi. Ancak bu ideolojik çerçeveleme, film, sanatsal olarak değerlendirmede bir probleme yol açar. Hele ki söz konusu film milyonlarca insanın ölümüne sebep olmuş, dünya tarihindeki en çarpıcı savaşlardan birinin kaynağı faşizmden besleniyorsa sorun daha da çetrefilli bir hal alır. Estetiğin politikleşmesi bir yana, faşizm Walter Benjamin'in Die Passagemwerk'te değindiği üzere " politikayı estetize eder " , savaşı ve ölümü yücelterek onları bir haz nesnesine dönüştürür. Faşist ideolojinin güzellik ve saflık ideali adeta sanatla bir fetiş haline gelir. Bu noktada, faşist ideoloji ışığında çekilmiş bir filmin sanatsal değeri var mıdır, varsa bu değer hangi ölçütlerle belirlenebilir gibi sorular sık sık dile getirilir. Ve sinema tarihinde bu çerçevede yürütülen tartışmalar genelde tek bir isime odaklanır: Leni Riefenstahl