The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) - full transcript
This documentary recounts the life and work of one of most famous, and yet reviled, German film directors in history, Leni Riefenstahl. The film recounts the rise of her career from a dancer, to a movie actor to the most important film director in Nazi Germany who directed such famous propaganda films as Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The film also explores her later activities after Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and her disgrace for being so associated with it which includes her amazingly active life over the age of 90.
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We are in the presence of
a legend with many faces
loathed by many,
admired deeply by others.
Her name is still taboo in Germany.
Leni Riefenstahl, the most influential
filmmaker of the Third Reich,
the last great surviving
image maker of the Nazis.
A film about Leni Riefenstahl,
can content itself
with updating the old prejudices.
Or it can attempt to deconstruct
her myth, and to look at it afresh
A feminist pioneer or a woman of evil.
One thing is certain,
she is still
the most famous female
film director in the world.
This film will approach her
without preconceptions.
What do you feel,
looking at those pictures?
Well, really as if the person
in this picture is not me...
...but just some actress
This innocence, enthusiasm...
...then the fall from fame,
the great disappointment...
...how do you see all that today?
It's all so long ago now,
I've long since got over it
I don't think about it anymore
At my age...
...I'll be 90 this year...
...many decades have now gone by.
They were bad times
It's like another world
but no longer live in that past
Guest Dance Performance
An Evening of Dance
I really only wanted to go on stage
as an experiment
To see whether I would make
a good dancer
But I had such a huge success, I was
immediately engaged by Max Reinhardt
Then Prague wanted me, and Zurich.
It was incredible, intoxicating
It was incredible
This station here at Nollendorfplatz
totally changed my life
I was standing here
waiting for a train
I had to go to the doctor. I had hurt
my knee badly and couldn't dance
I was impatient because the train
was late
But, as it drew in, I suddenly saw
a poster for a film...
...'Mountain of Destiny'
It showed a mountaineer
stepping across a chasm
I was so fascinated I missed
the train
I stood rooted to the spot
I read: 'Mountain of Destiny'
Mozartsaal Cinema, Nollendorfplatz
It was right here. I forgot
the doctor and everything else...
...and went to the cinema
'Mountain of Destiny'
directed by Arnold Fanck
was the first feature film
in the history of cinema
to set its drama high in the mountains.
When she saw it, the film
was to change Riefenstahl's life.
Frank had invented an
evocative new genre
the mountain film.
It was a totally new kind of film
The first mountaineering film
The first with sequences so filled
with movement
The clouds were alive with movement.
We'd never seen that before
Fanck was breaking new ground
His use of slow motion, lighting,
the composition of his shots...
It was all artistic
and way ahead of its time
I didn't know much about film but
realised I was looking...
...at a very special art-form
on the screen for the first time
Riefenstahl immediately
set off in search of Fanck,
and quite by chance
met his leading actor
Luis Trenker in a hotel in the Dolomites
She came up and said she wanted
to star opposite me in my next film
She's crazy, I thought. Then she
gave me a lovely photo of herself
I sent it to Fanck and wrote:
Dear Fanck, this woman is beautiful
She's determined to be in your
next film, starring opposite me
It's all a fantasy...
...but I enclose her photo.
Do what you like with it
Fanck was smitten,
and was so fascinated by her
that he asked her to play
the starring role in his next film
I'd hurt my knee seriously
while dancing
So I sent Fanck my photos
and the rave reviews
Presumably because of the pictures
and reviews...
..he visited me in hospital
To my amazement he handed me
a script on which was written:
"'The Sacred Mountain' written in 3 days
and nights for Leni Riefenstahl"
Then Fanck wrote to me:
You're the one who's crazy.
She'll be Germany's greatest star
She's going to be your leading lady
so see you get on with her
The script said I had to be buried
by an avalanche
We were quite mad to do it
I can show you the spot
or as near as makes no difference
Up there
We stood on a rock-face like that
Maybe even steeper
I had to cling...
...onto a rock with my hands...
...until the avalanche came down
Not just once but two or three times
People today say it was madness,
but Fanck demanded our all
This is where I did
my first directing
Since the last time we filmed here...
...sixty-six years have gone by
I will never forget this scene
It wasn't only my first time
as director...
...it was the first time
I had to wind a camera
In those days there were
no electric cameras
It would all have gone wonderfully
but there was an accident
The moment I began
turning the handle to shoot...
...there was a terrible bang
as a torch exploded
The boy holding it was behind me.
There was a sheet of flame
My face was burnt
...but I went on filming
I could feel the pain...
...but I finished the shot
And when I'd finished
I looked in the mirror
My face was black
Then I heard a little boy had also
nearly been burnt...
...but they rescued him
In the Berlin of the early 1920s,
war profiteers and
black market millionaires
flaunted their wealth
But, for most of the people,
life was wretched
Many was starving
Soup kitchens and food queues
were a common sight on the streets
Social unrest was rife.
Berlin, 60 years later
For this film, Leni Riefenstahl and her
companion of many years, Horst Kettner
visit the legendary
UFA Filmstudios in Babelsberg
This is where all the
classic German silent film were made
The camera follows you...
...and you tell us how you first
came to the studios
- As I'm walking along?
- Yes, is that a problem?
- I can't speak when I'm walking
- Couldn't you walk a bit?
No, I've never done that in my life
I've never talked while I'm walking
I'm not a ghost
Just try it
I'm just saying I can't talk
while I'm walking
Even when I dream, I lie down or sit.
I can't talk and walk
No one told me...
You won't listen, will you?
I did listen
I'll ask you a question
roughly like this
You'll answer while we pull back
slowly
But you can't walk backwards.
I'd have to speak like this
But I'm here
How did the studio atmosphere
strike you?
It was very impressive
Three big films were being made here
Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis',
with Brigitte Helm
Murnau's 'Faust' with Camilla Horn
and our film 'The Sacred Mountain'
Admittedly, we were in a small studio
But here in this studio, where I
later shot scenes for 'Tiefland'...
they'd built some fantastic sets
They were hundreds of extras
Did you meet any famous directors?
I never met Lang...
...but Fanck wanted me to go for the
part of Gretchen in Murnau's 'Faust'
I got hold of a long blonde wig
Fanck was convinced
Murnau would hire me
Muranu was interested
I was on the short-list
but Camilla was his final choice
Leni Riefenstahl never
became star tied to the studio
From her first film,
she was drawn over and over again
away from Berlin, into the mountains
This was my favorite area
There's hardly a rock-face or peak
I haven't climbed
See how steep it is?
To the left of that ridge, there's
a sheer drop of over 2,000 ft
Wonderful!
For these mountain films,
the actress from Berlin
had to learn to ski and rock climb
and quickly became a skilled mountaineer
She even climbed without ropes
and in bare feet for the cameras
In those days, mountain climbing was
strenuous activity practiced exclusively by men
But Riefenstahl never had any
difficulty asserting herself
Later on, she would become
the only woman
to play a significant role
in the rise of National Socialism
You can only get a general shot
of the mountains behind me
The camera must be on me...
...or it won't work
If you want me to talk about
climbing, I must face the rocks...
But we're too far away...
No, while I'm talking, you can film
the rock-face with the telephoto
You can edit that in
- The mountains will be too small
- But we need a general shot
Yes, but not like that
You must find a cinematic solution
The mountains make no impression
You can only do it in the cutting,
never with a camera-angle
Don't tell me you want
a Hitler-salute
Over there is the famous east face
We had to bivouac a rope's length
below the summit
Way down, I could see lights
in the huts below
I suppose I didn't realise...
It was fascinating because
you forgot everything
All your worries and problems...
you just concentrated on not falling
It's a sport...
...which involves the whole body
It gives you a feeling of freedom,
being so close...
...to the rocks, to nature,
and the mountains
When you reach the top...
...there's such a feeling of
bliss...
...you just want to experience it
as often as possible
For the best of Arnold Fanck's
mountain films,
Riefenstahl persuaded the director
to hire the famous stunt-flier Udet
And to bring in his co-director, one of the
great names in German Cinema, W.G. Pabst
Yes, Fanck was so wonderful
outdoor director for filming nature
Pabst was a fabulous
feature-film director
I brought the two together
and it worked wonderfully
That's the reason why 'Pizpalü'
was such a success worldwide
These shots are from a home movie,
filmed by a member of the crew
on Morteratsch Glacier in St. Moritz
When Pabst told me to look right...
...I looked left.
When he said left, I looked right
So he said, "You're not the director.
Stop looking from the camera's angle"
He was the first to make me see..
...I'd a talent for directing
An entire rock-face was
iced over to create the illusion
that the glacier had
moved into the valley
Working with Fanck was always
a mental and a physical challenge
We were on an ice-wall in 'Pizpalü'
It was minus 28 degrees
The Engadine hadn't been so cold
for 50 years
We were working at night and the
wind-machine blew snow in my face
- He might lose consciousness
- Tie hum tight or he'll fall
Pabst was quite different from Fanck
Fanck gave very few directions.
We had to more or less improvise
But Pabst knew exactly
what he wanted
Without acting out the part for us,
he put the actor...
...in the mental state he wanted,
which is very important
You forgot the camera and became
the character you were portraying
Maria, the rope!
While filming with Arnold Fanck,
Riefenstahl and Luis Trenker
were themselves learning how to direct
Fanck was a perfectionist,
a stickler for details
Even when his actors were
being tested to the limit
Oh, I'd rather not think about that
It wasn't just bad, it was awful
Fanck's plan was to have me hauled
up and let an avalanche drop on me
I said, "Count me out.
It's out of the question"
So he said, "Leni darling,
it won't be a real avalanche"
"We'll just drop a bit of snow
on you"
He was very persuasive and promised
extra money
I agreed and was tied up with rope
The camera crew were up above,
and off we went
I'd only gone 10 feet...
...when a real avalanche
enveloped me
I screamed, my ears and eyes hurt
Fanck kept the camera rolling
on and on
Then they pulled me in
For weeks I was black and blue
all over. I really hated Fanck
In 1920s Berlin, the National Socialists
were parading through the streets
And the young fanatic
named Goebbels
was gaining notoriety with
his inflammatory speeches
As the struggle for power
raged between the rival parties
the Babelsberg studios decided
to try and take on Hollywood
In the studio,
now named Marlene Dietrich Hall
Riefenstahl furthered her education
when she met Josef von Sternberg
Von Sternberg brought me
to the studio every day...
...until it got too much for Marlene
I liked her a lot, I idolised her.
She was exceptional but very jealous
One day we had quite a row
in the studio, She started it
There was this famous scene
where she sits on a barrel...
...and sings 'Falling in Love Again'
She starting behaving very crudely...
...to try and make me leave
in disgust
Sternberg noticed and stepped in...
...but she said she'd leave the film
if I came to the studio again
He said to me, "Leni, you're
the complete opposite of Marlene
"You're both very special
but quite different
"I've shaped Marlene...
"...into this wonderful creation...
"...and I'll do the same for you
"You haven't been discovered yet"
I really regret the fact that, when
he offered me work in Hollywood...
...I was unable to go
I was deeply involved with a man
at the time...
...and didn't want to leave him
I have that to thank...
...or to regret
for my not going to Hollywood
When Von Sternberg later saw
Riefenstahl's own first film,
he was able to make a more
precise judgment about her
Yes, he'd seen me in
'The Blue Light'...
...where I played the role of
Junta...
...an innocent, naive
child of nature...
...who is intentionally asexual...
...whereas Marlene was the sexy type,
erotic, a sort of sphinx...
...a star, an elegant super-star
He thought I was the absolute
opposite of Marlene
I think that was probably true
While Riefenstahl made films for Hitler,
Dietrich chose to emigrate
In his memoirs, Von Sternberg makes
no reference to Riefenstahl
In the streets of Berlin,
Nazis were still struggling to win elections
Hitler, waiting in the wings
was certainly ready, but, was Germany?
We Germans wanted a Führer...
...and we got one, right?
We Germans are all like that,
we want a Führer
And what happens?
This ghastly Hitler comes along...
...and everyone says,
"Wonderful, here's a real Führer
"Someone to tell us what to do"
There's something
in what Marlene says
For us, at school and at home...
...discipline came first.
She's right there
Germans would be very
enamored of someone...
...they thought they could
model themselves on
They're happy to let themselves
be led, that's for sure
While the Germans rallied around their
new Führer in ever increasing numbers,
Riefenstahl set off again for the mountains
In the south Tirol,
she made her first film
a romantic fairy-tale, which
she produced, directed and starred
This rocky peak in the
Brenta Massif of the south Tirol
is transformed by Leni Riefenstahl's
camera into a mysterious presence
mythical and Wagnerian
The girl holding the crystal
is an outcast, a witch
The crystal or crystals...
...are in fact the symbolic theme
of 'The Blue Light'
Junta...
...who is a wild, innocent
mountain girl...
...was fascinated by the light
in this grotto
In the mountains was a crystal grotto
which only Junta knew about
It was only visible...
...by the blue light of a full moon
shining through a crack
Then it was a shimmer of blue
Symbolic...
...of the ideal one always dreams of
but never attains
That's the film's theme
Why did you choose a fairy-tale
for your first film?
I suppose because Dr. Fanck's films...
...although realistic, were set
in fairy-tale landscapes
I found that a conflict of styles
Fairy-tale landscapes and realistic
action didn't work together for me
But since I also loved beautiful,
fairy-tale, picturesque landscape...
...I thought it would be better
to fit a fairy-story into it
No one in the film understands how
power of a mysterious mountain
had access to the precious stones
You witch
Go away, you ugly old witch
How beautiful
Before I worked with Fanck,
when I was a dancer...
...I'd written scripts
but no screenplays
Then I met Carl Mayer,
the famous playwright...
...who'd written the material
for Murnau's film...
...and Bela Balazs, who was
the best screen-writer then
They liked my material so much
they gave me some good tips
Balazs even helped me for free
Balazs wrote the dialogue
and I did the visual scenes
It was the ideal collaboration
Here, for instance...
...I drew the waterfall
and the position of the sun
It says here, 7:10 a.m.
Shooting must be finished by 8
I even put the lens to be used:
a 7.5 focal length
It's all noted
You put down every scene
in writing
I fine-tuned every scene through
the camera, worked out the light...
...and tested everything in advance.
It ran like clockwork
We even did a rush of every scene
We made a negative to see whether
we could improve on it
We placed a lot of importance
on picture quality
Riefenstahl was a perfectionist,
and would only settle for the best
For her first film, she ordered
a special lens to be sent over from Hollywood
and asked the labs to develop a
new film stock for the night scenes
I was able to do that because Agfa
made some special film-stock for me
It was later called R-Stock
If you use it with a red filter,
the blue comes out dark, almost black
I could do climbing shots as if they
were at night, without a spotlight
It was an experiment
As Rosselini and De Sica told me,
I was the first...
...to film in real locations,
like a church
We built nothing in the studio
I was given permission to film
in a church...
...while the priests were
conducting a service
The inn scenes were filmed in
Bolzano
In fact all the interior scenes...
...were shot in real locations
for the first time in a feature film
When the film was ready, I showed it
to Agfa, who were the distributors
They didn't like it at all
and I was also disappointed with it
The film did not look
as I'd envisaged it
So I went and showed it to Fanck
And he said, "Come back tomorrow
and we'll improve it
"It has weaknesses and boring bits"
When I went back the next day...
...he'd cut up my copy into hundreds
of pieces and completely re-edited it
I was horrified
His version didn't work either.
All my effort was wasted
Riefenstahl's steely determination
enabled her to conquer
not a new rock-face, but also to
overcome all obstacles in her career
The fight in the editing room
was to prove the first of many
And she always got her way
For several days, I just wept
and then I began to edit it again
And this exercise was
very therapeutic
Although I didn't like Fanck's cut...
...I noticed lots of things
he'd done...
...which I'd never have thought of,
like the inter-cutting of scenes
Fanck had cut too much but I saw
it was wrong not to cut at all
So I took it over and edited it
in a rhythm...
...I felt right for the subject.
I hadn't done that before
If a director shoots a scene
that goes on too long...
...he doesn't always realise
it needs cutting
A particularly important scene was
in the moonlight...
...when the peasants shut their doors
At first I'd edited it - man shuts the door,
next a man shuts door and so on
That was the logical way but Fanck
did it differently
He had one man starting to shut his
door, the next continuing the action
This variety gave more interest
and tension
It was a very special method
which I intuitively understood...
...and which I applied to my subject
I still did things more slowly than
he had, but not as slowly as before
I was learning
Don't close the shutters...
...in this fine weather
It's full moon
Ah, the blue light
I played this girl Junta,
who is a kind of witch
It's as if it were a premonition
of my own life
Junta was loved and hated
It's been the same for me -
I've been loved and hated
Just as Junta lost her ideal...
...through the shattering of
the crystal...
...in the same way I lost my ideals
at the end of that terrible war
To that extent the film was indeed
a premonition of my own destiny
Were you already in contact with
the National Socialists?
I didn't know of their existence.
I hadn't even heard of Hitler
When I was filming 'The Blue Light'
I had no idea
Didn't Hans Jaeger say something
to you about Hitler?
He said to me:
"Are you going to this National
Socialist meeting today?"
I didn't understand so I said
"Why? What about it?"
"Hitler's speaking today in Berlin,
in the Sports Palace", he said
"So what?" I said
Then he said, "I've a feeling...
"...that if you heard him,
it could change your life"
I laughed and asked
"How could it do that?"
So Jaeger, who was an anti-Nazi,
though I didn't know that, said:
"Take my advice and go"
And as I was curious, I went
And indeed it did change my fate
I know, my comrades...
...that it was hard for you when
you thought change must come...
...and it never came
When endless appeals were made
to you that the fight must go on
Calls not to act but to obey
To resist but not to bend under
this monstrous pressure
It was the first time I'd ever seen
a political meeting
I found it immensely impressive and
I was carried away by the atmosphere
Hitler really fascinated me
So I immediately wrote him a letter
I wanted to meet him. I thought:
May be he is the man
who can save Germany
When I asked his adjutant
why I'd received a reply, he said:
"The Führer was thrilled with
your dance by the sea...
"...in 'The Sacred Mountain'"
What was your impression of him?
Interestingly, quite the opposite
of my impression at the Stadium
There he'd seemed a politician...
...trying to enthuse people
Now he seemed a modest,
private individual
You couldn't imagine him
stirring the masses
He seemed very natural,
straightforward, modest and friendly
When I'd seen his face on posters,
I'd thought him decidedly ugly
But when I met him personally,
that all disappeared
You just didn't notice his features
and the mustache
He radiated something very powerful
You forgot all the rest
But as a man he did not interest me
at all
You sensed he had a kind of
demonic power of suggestion?
Yes, at the public meeting...
...and even more strongly
when I met him
He radiated something which had
a kind of hypnotic effect
That frightened me a little
I didn't want to lose my own will
and my freedom
I already felt...
...I had to avoid this atmosphere
at all costs
It would paralyse one's free will
What did you make of
his political programme?
I knew nothing about it...
...and had no time to find out
because I was off to Greenland
She was soon being typecast.
In this big Hollywood production,
Leni Riefenstahl once again plays
the part of the beautiful daredevil
The plucky rescue pilot
in the Arctic
She embodied an ideal which Hitler
was cleverly to exploit
Incidentally, he said then:
"When we come to power,
you must make my films"
I certainly didn't take him
seriously. I said:
"I can only do what I enjoy. I'm
an actress, I want nice parts to play"
It is precisely these roles which
created the image of Riefenstahl
that Hitler so admired,
a heroic superwoman,
the queen of the mountains,
enthroned high among the peaks,
beyond the reach of the masses,
an idol, a myth larger than life
In other words, exactly what
Hitler himself so much wanted to be
but so conspicuously lacked
the artistic tinge to achieve
Then Hitler said, "Well, when
you're older and more mature...
"...maybe you'll understand my ideas"
I was ignorant then
In January 1933, Hitler
became Reich's Chancellor
with immediate consequences
German men and women...
...the age of pettifogging
Jewish intellectualism...
...is at an end
The breakthrough
of the German revolution...
...had cleared the path ahead
for Germany
I consign all that is un-German
to the flames
I consign to the fire
the writings...
...of Heinrich Mann...
...Ernst Glaeser...
{\a8}...and Erich Kästner
As ever, at the crucial time,
Leni Riefenstahl was absent
{\a8}Down with time-servers and political traitors
filming in the Swiss Alps
I heard nothing about the book-burning.
We hadn't television then
I learnt about it on my return...
...and particularly about
friends of mine...
Who had emigrated?
I found their letters in my post
They wrote to me and that really
upset me
And when I was summoned...
...to see Hitler, I immediately
spoke to him about it
His face darkened suddenly
and he said:
"I must ask you, Fräulein,
not to speak to me on this matter"
You did try to raise the subject?
Immediately. It was the first thing
I tried...
...and realised it wasn't possible
He immediately called his adjutant
and had me ushered out
He wouldn't talk to me about it
Clearly, something in Germany
had fundamentally changed
In the brutal boycott of Jewish shops
gave her no cause to doubt
How could she have overlooked
what she saw around her in Germany?
My friends who'd emigrated...
...and Manfred Georg
in particular...
...urged me to stay and
stick it out
By staying, we could prevent
the spread of anti-semitism
We were to be a bulwark against it
And we all thought it was just
electioneering...
...a temporary thing
that would die down
We didn't foresee the danger
Didn't 'Mein Kampf'
open your eyes...
...to Hitler's aims?
It was very interesting
I hadn't read it all -
just a few chapters
Some things in it appealed to me
very much
Everything that dealt with
social problems
I think that was why Hitler had
so many supporters then
Six million unemployed,
the poverty...
Obviously I didn't like
his racial theories
I made notes in the book which later
happened to fall into Hitler's hands
I had written 'good' or 'bad', 'not good'
etc. So I had made my choices
- How did he react to this critique?
- He laughed
{\a8}Ladies and gentlemen
Goebbels' diaries for the year 1933
give the distinct impression that
{\a8}With one bold and magnificent stroke...
Riefenstahl was on good terms socially
with both Hitler and Goebbels
{\a8}...we've put our enemies to flight
What was your relationship with
the Propaganda Minister, Goebbels?
The worst you can ever imagine
We met before they came to power
It was in the lift at the Hotel Kaiserhof.
We were both going up
He pursued me and was determined
to have me
He wanted me as his mistress
and so on
But he was not my type at all
I felt nothing for him
He never forgave me for rejecting
him. Later it became worse
I can say he was almost an enemy
Reading Goebbels' diaries for
1933, we get the impression...
...you were on visiting terms with
him and Hitler
You must show me these entries.
I've never read them
I've never read anything saying I was
on visiting terms. It's sheer fantasy
Saw Leni Riefenstahl this afternoon,
suggested a film about Hitler to her
She was enthusiastic
In the evening to Madam Butterfly
with Magda and Leni
At the start of 1933 I'd never
visited him. He never said I had
Drove back with Hitler in the evening
Later at home, Philipp von Hessen
and Leni Riefenstahl called 'very nice'
I never went there
Nor to Schwanenwerder, where
everyone went
I wasn't even invited. Not once
Saw a film with Hitler starring
Hans Albers, terrible rubbish
Gerda, Maria and Leni Riefenstahl
were there. Three beautiful women
This makes me so angry.
What you say is incredible
Let me show you
That I was on social terms... there's
nothing about that in the diaries...
It's simply not true. Herr Müller
OK, show me where it says I was
in and out of their houses, socially
What to believe? The diaries of Goebbels
or the memories of last surviving witness
Goebbels was a master of the lie
Nuremberg, the imperial castle of the
Holy Roman Emperors, the Kaiserberg
A place special significance for Hitler
In his imagination, Hitler saw himself
in the tradition of the German Emperors
And like them based his ideal of the
Führer on an image of the Roman Caesers
That's why the congresses of the
Nazi party were organized in Nuremberg
Today, very little remains
of the Nazi buildings,
the popular enthusiasm for the big
courage is no longer comprehensible
This is where the great march pasts took place
involving as many as a hundred thousand men
Riefenstahl's film of the 1934 Party Congress
was the turning point in her life
It changed everything
{\a8}38,000 workers on parade for the ceremony
Later Congresses were filmed
by other directors
But they've long been forgotten
The first film was to have been
the one and only
Never two or three.
Just the one Party Congress film
But the first one in 1933
was never completed
We only filmed a few metres
before we were interrupted
The Party didn't want us to make
the film despite Hitler's commission
It was boycotted
Until recently, Riefenstahl's first film
of the Nazi Congresses in Nuremberg,
Victory of Faith, was
thought to have been lost
Many doubted that it was
ever actually been made
Grotesque as it may sound, the Party
who were supposed to make the film...
...didn't want me to make it
But you were involved in the other
film? You brought that up yourself
I know, but it's very hard
to keep them apart
We can cut it out
It's hard to keep it separate
I'm happy to talk about it
but not in this bloody light
Reporting to the Führer
{\a8}100,000 Storm-Troopers, Stahlhelm...
In those days,
Hitler and Ernst Röhm
were still the partners
in the struggle for power
{\a8}...and SS on parade before the Führer
Heil, SA
You talked about the first film
and the second. You can't do that
I have to say what the first film is.
You can't talk about both at once
- You mentioned the second film
- And you the first
- That's the one I want to discuss
- Not me. I hardly did anything on it
With its amateury shots of Hitler,
and rather elementary camera angles
Victory of Faith is perhaps understandably a
film Riefenstahl is very reluctant to talk about
To this day, she is annoyed about
the conditions in which she had to film
and which made it impossible for her
to achieve her usual perfection
No, the first one wasn't
a proper Party Congress film
It was just a few shots I put together,
because Hitler wanted it
It has nothing to do with
my technique
You can only discuss technique
in 'Triumph of the Will'
In the first film there was
no technique?
No, we couldn't prepare. When I arrived
the Congress was in progress
Let me explain why. My dear
Herr Müller, I could do nothing
The party forbade it. Hitler and
Goebbels had had a row
If you mention the first film...
...I must say why I couldn't use
my techniques
Go ahead
But, my God, it's too important
to discuss here!
Not only was the camera work shoddy,
but the organization of the event itself
seemed uncharacteristically chaotic
The Nazis have not yet learned
how to march like Nazis
It is quite obvious that both Hitler and
Riefenstahl were still trying to get it right
The first wasn't a proper film
Just a few scenes of them running
around here, which we put together
Didn't you edit it yourself?
Yes I did. I had to put it together
but I had scarcely any material
{\a8}A society...
However some sequences already have
the characteristic Riefenstahl touch
{\a8}...without regard...
...to origin, class...
...profession, wealth or education
A society...
...which feels itself bound
together, united...
{\a8}...in one great faith and one great purpose
In places like this, the mark of
Riefenstahl was unmistakable
{\a8}Not for position...
A dramatic intensity humped up by
the composition and the editing
{\a8}...and not for party
Not for profession...
...and not for class...
...but united in our one Germany
Your clients were satisfied?
They'd have been happy with any old
newsreel provided it showed swastikas
Nevertheless the film had to be
edited. It became a short
It was shown in some cinema
or other, I forget where
Hitler and the others liked it
It was interesting
but they weren't satisfied
Hitler insisted I make another film
the following year
Were you dissatisfied too?
To me it wasn't a proper film.
Just some shots
Again and again one can see clearly that
Hitler was not yet in sole command
Beside him, and on the
same level stands his
storm trooper commander, Ernst Röhm
Shortly afterwards, Hitler had
him assassinated
An attempt by the the party
to boycott her filming angered
angered Riefenstahl so much that she
immediately complained to Hitler
I explained exactly what
the problem was
Goebbels was present, and you can
imagine what happened next
Goebbels went white as a sheet
Hitler was furious, beside himself.
He said:
"This must never happen again.
You will make the film next year"
I said I can't. I'll never do
another one"
I'd made up my mind not to
I ran out in floods of tears...
...and soon after I got home,
there was a phone call to say...
...I had to go and see Goebbels
It was the day Goebbels went
to Geneva...
...to announce that Germany was
leaving the League of Nations
That's why I remember
I got to his office in the Propaganda
Ministry and he screamed at me:
"If you were a man and
not a woman...
"...I'd throw you downstairs
"You're a dangerous woman.
Never let me set eyes on you again"
That's how it ended
And everything that came later
resulted from this hate
In 1934, Riefenstahl was back
filming in Nuremberg
This time she was given a free hand,
a triumph of her own will,
{\a8}TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
or a pact with the devil
Today it's easy to think that
Now that we know all the terrible
things he did and got others to do...
then clearly it was
a pact with the Devil
But we didn't know then
Hitler probably was schizophrenic,
both a devil...
...and its opposite, but we could
only see one side of him
Not that terrible, dangerous side
I just wanted to act
I didn't want to take on
this terrible workload
I wasn't against it for political
reasons. Not at all
I just wanted to do something
different
But Hitler's wish was his command
It would have been difficult
if not impossible to get out of it
I made one last attempt by driving to
Nuremberg where I knew Hitler was
I saw him at a meeting with Speer
and others, and he had the plans
He said:
"Fräulein Riefenstahl, give me six
days of your life, just six days
"I want this film to be made by an
artist and not a Party film-director"
"I'll make it", I said...
"...if you promise me I'll never have to
make another film for the Reich...
"...for you or the Party"
At vast expense, Riefenstahl made
'Triumph of the Will', which to this day
is regarded by film historians as
the best propaganda film of all time
Riefenstahl has always maintained
that the making of this film
was just a job, which she
performed to perfection
When I began my documentary...
...I wondered what I could do to
make it better than the newsreels
In 1934, when I made
'Triumph of the Will'...
...newsreels were very static,
no movement, no travelling shots
I thought the shots should be made
mobile and thus more interesting
That's why my crew began trying
to shoot on roller-skates
But above all I needed
lots of different...
...camera positions
It doesn't look like a documentary,
more like an art film
How did you achieve this
artistic intensity?
It's a feeling for links
between images
A connection between one picture
and the next...
...or from one visual colour-range,
say from grey tones, to another
It's like a musical composition
It's very important...
...to put climax at the right point
in a film...
...so that there's a continuous
build-up
We stand here
We stand at the ready...
...to take Germany into
the new age
Germany
I tried a hundred different ways
at the editing stage
It took me over five months
First I was working 12 hours
a day, then 14, 18...
...and in the end 20
That meant I couldn't do anything
but sit at my editing-suite...
...trying to find ways to
avoid jumps...
...so it would all flow
in an interesting way
I tried hundreds of ways
Comrade, where are you from?
From Friesland
And you?
- From Bavaria
- And you?
From Kaiserstuhl
And you?
From Pomerania
And from Königsberg
From Silesia
From the North Sea coast
From Black Forest
From Dresden
- From the Danube
- From the Rhine
And from the Saar
One people...
...one Führer, one Reich
Germany
This artistic depth you mention...
...brought accusations against you later
of glorifying the Nazis
But those people should have tried
making the film themselves
Either one makes a newsreel
and those were made...
...or one can try to make
the material into a film...
...that's more interesting -
but without posed shots
In Flanders...
...in the west...
...in the east...
...in the south...
...on land and water
and in the skies...
...the Red menace and forces of reaction
have been brought down
Did you notice that in this film...
...there was no commentary
in the normal sense of the word?
There's no commentator
to explain everything
That's one way it differs...
...from a documentary
and a propaganda film
If it were propaganda, as many say,
there'd be a commentator...
...to explain the significance and
value of the occasion
This wasn't the case
The looming close-ups
of Hitler in this film
were the first that
the German people had ever seen
It wasn't hard because Hitler
never let himself be distracted
You could dance round him
all you liked
Didn't you build a track round him?
Yes, that was one idea. I had to film
3 or 4 of Hitler's speeches
How could I make each one different
and avoid repetition?
I thought, for one of the speeches,
of laying a circular track round him
The speech would be more interesting
than if shot from a fixed point
We want a final end to
class differences
You must not let them develop
among you
We want one day to see one Reich
You must make yourselves fit for it
We want this people one day
to be obedient...
...so you must learn obedience
We want our people to be
peace-loving but also brave...
...so you must be peaceable
You see that lift there?
We had such difficulty getting
permission for that. I'll run it back
We got permission...
...to build a tiny camera lift
into the flag-poles
The effect was very good
What's striking is the contrast...
...between the huge crowds
and one individual - Hitler
Is that a conscious technique?
There was nothing else.
Just Hitler and the people
Wasn't it difficult since you had
no idea about politics...
...to edit political speeches?
That has nothing to do with politics.
It's a technical matter
If a 2-hour speech,
regardless of it content...
...trees or fish or politics -
needs cutting down to 5 minutes...
...any editor will take out
everything he can
The speech must have a beginning
and an end...
...and two or three important
sentences in the middle
Everything else has to go. You need
a real beginning, an end...
...and in the middle
something which thrills the people
Any editor can do that.
It's not a problem
You were guided by the applause?
Yes, the effect, people's expressions
If you're an editor...
...and you can cut out
Hitler wiping his nose or coughing...
...you drop that and use the shots where
his expression is more interesting
Of course you do. An editor must
decide which shots work best
That isn't politics. Anyway, a speech
will only have one theme
We live by one great
commandment...
...and this was not given us...
...by any earthly authority
It was given us by God...
...who created our people
These Congresses were so well
staged, and still seem so today
Did you direct them
or who planned them?
Don't make me laugh.
Why should I be involved?
I wasn't even a Party member,
let alone an organiser
What makes you think I was involved?
They were great productions.
Who dreamed them up?
- Hitler and Speer
- All by themselves?
Yes. I had nothing to do with it.
I knew nothing. I'd no idea about it
I just observed and tried to film it
well
The idea that I helped to plan it
is downright absurd
Those crowd scenes look like
something out of a Wagner opera
You see such scenes in Moscow
and Peking
You saw those huge parades
a few months ago...
...in Peking and in Korea.
You see them everywhere
Those parades were vast
Far more grandiose than in
'Triumph of the Will'
You saw weapons and missiles
going past
Platform decorated with hundreds
of red flags. All on a huge scale
It had to be filmed the way
an artist, not a politician, sees it
Hitler didn't want a political film.
He wanted an artistic film
That's what he got.
I'd no idea I could do it
My not wanting to make the film had
nothing to do with politics
I just lacked confidence.
It seemed an insoluble task
Still, you were later accused of
seducing people with this film
OK, a few idiots say that
All I can say is
it's thoroughly stupid
It would mean that I staged it,
that I was Hitler himself...
...and I'd made all these people
pose for me
Didn't a film-maker have
terrific public influence...
...in the days before radio and
television?
Doesn't that artist have a special
responsibility?
What was my responsibility?
By that time 90% of the people
were in favour of Hitler
Should I have been a resistance fighter?
There were a very few of those
Should I have been one of them?
No, since you say politics didn't
interest you...
Not at all. To me the film wasn't
about politics, it was an event
I'd have made exactly the same film
in Moscow, if the need arose...
...though I'd have preferred not
Or in America, if something of
the sort had taken place there
I shot the subject-matter as well
as I could and shaped it into a film
Now, whether it was about politics or
about vegetables or fruit...
...I couldn't give a damn.
I don't get it
If I'd been political...
...I'd have joined the Party
and I would have been interested
- I didn't mean it like that
- I never went to any meetings
I turned down all offers to make
other political films
I never made a single one
My question is this
If one works in the media, mustn't one
interest oneself in politics?
Nowadays, perhaps, but not then.
And anyway, who'd have done it?
Everyone was behind Hitler
If you were an artist today...
...what would you feel your political
responsibility to be?
The artist should maybe ask himself
what will be done with his creation
How are we to judge artists...
...who, for example, made films
during the Stalin period?
Like Eisenstein or Pudovkin.
What should we say...
...about those who made films -
very good ones - in the GDR?
What should we say about artists who
made good films in the Third Reich?
What does political responsibility mean?
And to whom is one responsible?
Take politics today.
How can you tell...
...who can assure us the right kind
of future?
It's our desire and intention...
...that this Reich shall exist...
...for thousands of years to come
We can be happy...
...in the knowledge that
this future belongs wholly to us
There's another thing I want to say
If an artist dedicates himself
totally to his work...
...he cannot think politically
That's true of practically every
artist in the past...
...who produced great works
Be it Michelangelo, Rodin, Rubens
or the Impressionists
None of these people...
...had any time a feeling
for politics
And even if they had, they shouldn't
see into the future
You also asked -
I'll answer that later...
...whether 'Triumph of the Will'
had any message
While I was actually filming,
of course I had no such thoughts
But when I was editing...
...I did discover a certain message
in it. You can find it yourself
It's firstly the creation of jobs,
through the labour-service scheme...
...and above all the speech by Hess
where he says:
You were...
...the guarantor of victory
You are our guarantor of peace
Adolf Hitler. Sieg heil!
At the time we felt that one
of the messages was peace
It recurs throughout the film
Other political motives or objectives
aren't mentioned
There's nothing about anti-semitism
or race-theory
Work and peace are the only messages
in 'Triumph of the Will'
There were films with far more
swastika-banners...
...full of political bias
'Triumph' had none of this...
...so I never felt I'd done anything
that could do any damage
If it had been harmful, the French would
never have given it a gold medal...
Olympic's film on camera
That was a week before war broke out
At the time she says, all that matter
to her was the aesthetics of film
...two years before the
outbreak of war
The National Film Prize for 1934/35
is awarded...
...to Leni Riefenstahl for her film
of the Nuremberg Party Congress...
'Triumph of the Will'
This work stands out as
a great achievement...
...in the year's film output
It is especially relevant because
it presents our age
It shows, in monumental images
never before seen...
...the thrilling events
of our political life
It is the great vision
of the Führer on film...
...presented in images
of a vividness never before seen
Politically speaking,
the significance of this film...
...was that it was in tune with
the times
That's to say, 90% of Germans,
and a majority of foreigners...
...believed in the peace
that was being proclaimed
When you look at
'Triumph of the Will' now...
...you must be proud of it
But it had also made the second
half of your life extremely hard
How do you see it?
I've never been proud of it.
Neither today, nor then
Proud of what? All that was slaving,
all that work - it was ghastly
I nearly ruined my health
editing the film, and for what?
True, the film was considered
a good documentary
But since the war it's been slated
because it's seen as propaganda
Before the war, of course, the film
got all the international awards...
...like the Gold Medal in Paris
and the one at the Biennale
But after the war
I not only got brickbats...
...I was castigated because of it
So not only am I not proud...
...I'm deeply unhappy I made it
If I'd known what the film would
bring me. I'd never have made it
Half a century later,
the terrible legacy
of the Nazis is still
being digested in Germany
After the war, Leni Riefenstahl,
the obsessed and politically
blinkered filmmaker was boycotted
and universally despised
To this day, she's not been able to
make another film, that is the price
she's had to pay for her
brilliant career under the Nazis
This shot is one of my favorites
I got the effect... I brought out
the festive quality...
...by using a telephoto lens
That's why the banners look
so densely packed
And here comes something else
It's the effect of the shots
taken from the lift
Now the camera swings...
...to one side...
...over to the right
And then the camera swings...
...the other way...
...to the left
These two angles produce
the form of a circle...
...thus making a powerful impact
Here the two lines of banners appear
to be cutting across each other
That was made possible by using
different camera positions
And the editing gives it
a balletic quality
It's cut in time to the music
Those are the banners of
the Stahlhelm
There were various formations
marching past
That's interesting too
{\a8}The way they walk down the steps
Today, Triumph of the Will
remains under lockened key in Germany
{\a8}Here, do you see?
People are still afraid to
examine the film seriously
{\a8}Precisely in time with the music
Can a film really be that dangerous?
Or is it too vivid a reminder of
something that many would prefer to forget
Interesting, isn't it?
End of the first part
In 1936, Leni Riefenstahl made the official
film of the Olympic Games in Berlin
After the war, this documentary was
listed in America as one of the
world's ten best films
I wondered, could I make this film?
Could I make it interesting?
And suddenly I had before my eyes
a picture...
...of the Olympic Games
in ancient Greece
Not only the stadium...
...but the whole culture -
the temples, the sculptures
The transition from the ancient world
to the modern...
...had wonderful dramatic
possibilities
It was easier to present it in purely
visual terms...
...rather than as a series
of actions
Riefenstahl was to direct the
entire film, even the sport sequences
Athlete models freeze by the
bold take for Riefenstahl's camera
Under Riefenstahl's direction,
the athletes would turn from
ordinary models into sporting Gods
- How did you prepare for the film?
- Mainly by training the cameramen
Everything depended on them
I had four or five young men
that I trained for months...
...at athletics meetings,
football matches and so on
Often without film, just to practice
camera movements...
...and get the quick reactions
we needed
Never before had so much been spent
on preparing to film a documentary
Officially Riefenstahl had received
the assignment from the Olympic committee,
but it was the German Ministry of
Propaganda which actually provided
the funds through indirect channels
Despite the economic problems
of the times, the resources put
to the director's disposal
were almost unlimited
For the first time in many years,
Riefenstahl is reunited
{\a8}You still look so well
{\a8}I've no complaints
with two of her old cameramen
{\a8}Congratulations
You never change, do you?
My two best cameramen here again
after half a century
Walter Frentz on the right
was an expert in handheld camera
On the left is Guzzi Lantschner
I'll tell you something.
Diving I can still do...
...but that film - I couldn't make it
again
Much too strenuous
We worked like mad
Late into the night.
We couldn't do that now
Look. Just as it was
Do you remember, Guzzi...
...how we looked for places to get
the best angles?
We turned the stadium into
a film studio
Many technical innovations
were tried out in Olympiad
It was the first film in which
pits were dug, so that the athletes
could be filmed against the sky
We had to fight for every hole we dug
You were always the one...
...with the exact eye...
...for a shot
Whether it should be half a metre
right or left
Riefenstahl now had the
full scope to apply the lesson
she had learned from Arnold Fanck,
her great mentor
The best idea we had - I think
it was your idea - was the catapult
We built a track with
a catapult on it which travelled...
...alongside the sprinters
It was fantastic but they banned it
We had lots of new ideas
Yes. The most important one was...
...digging a hole for
the pole-vault
Out in the field, to the left
And we filmed the whole thing...
...against the Olympic flame.
It gave us some marvellous shots
She was later reproached for many
of the images pioneered in Olympiad
Her critics felt that
the cult of the body beautiful
Riefenstahl's obsession with
strength and athletic perfection
were unmistakably fascist
The same was later said of her
photographs of Nuba tribesmen
It was important
that each cameraman...
...had a different lens and camera
You sometimes had a Bell & Howell
and sometimes Sinclair
- And you had a Bell & Howell
- With two speeds
Normal, 24 frames per second
and fast, up to 48
That was important for the diving
The body could be seen
so much more clearly
That was the first time...
Then we got the close-ups
with the Ascania
We had a special lens made for us -
a 600mm telephoto
They didn't exist then
Herr Shalck got those marvellous
close-ups
Even though we couldn't get near
the runners
We still got tight in on faces
Owens in the lead, Strandberg
behind him, Rosenthal creeping up
Metcalfe makes a spurt. It's over.
Owens wins the 100 metre sprint
I remember something else
The balloon. Do you remember?
Everyday we sent up a balloon...
...with a tiny 5 metre camera...
...to get an overall aerial view
Everyday it landed somewhere
different - on roofs and things
None of the shots were any use
Anyone finding this camera would
discover a little note in it
asking them to return it to
the Leni Riefenstahl production team
We had the balloon at the regatta
in Grünau
It crashed before the races finished
I cried. It was terrible
There was nothing they
did not try out
A many of these experiments have become
standard practice in film production
A break in the shoot
Leni and her old campaigners
stop for coffee
I had so many arguments
in those days
And them, in 1935, Churchill said
"I envy the Germans their Führer"
I thought "How can I be cleverer
than Churchill? He really said that"
Two years later, he said "The German
swine must now be slaughtered"
I like your style. You'll do
And you were well in there...
...because you flew to Moscow
with Ribbentrop...
...with the two copies of the Treaty
{\a8}Stalin wrote a letter which
the Russian ambassador gave me
Riefenstahl refuses to get drawn into
{\a8}That was a week before war broke out
a political discussion about the
Olympic's film on camera
At the time she says
all that mattered to her
was the aesthetics of film
I had 30 cameramen
Not all here. There were
other events in Grünau and Kiel
There were also indoor events and
the cameramen were spread around
Much of what is now a normal practice
in an age of electronic live reporting,
was first tried out then by Leni Riefenstahl
In Olympiad, she set new standards
for filming sporting events
and went far beyond the traditional
bounds of a sport documentary
Nothing was left to chance
Dramatic scenes, which her crew
could not get close enough to
during the competition, were
filmed in advance during training
and later spliced into
the final footage
In this way, many of the documentary
sequences had changed the dramatic impact
of a feature film
It was worst when there were
a lot of us
I had to assign jobs to everyone
I could only organise this
once the day's shoot had finished
There was a production meeting
every night
I'd have just 5 minutes
to talk to each person...
...and give out assignments...
{\a8}...according to people's skills
The logistics of the operation
were remarkable
They had no walkie-talkies or talkback
Riefenstahl planned the entire
shoot like a military campaign
Every camera angle was
deliberate and coordinated
I really admired her
She had an incredible ability
for composing shots
And a tremendous eye
The shots she selected
were always just right
The winner is England
She had such energy and
determination
When we began the Olympics film...
...we wanted to dig a hole beside
the pole-vault...
...so we could film the vaulters
against the sky
But the Olympic Committee said
it would endanger the athletes
So Leni said "Let me talk to them"
She went to the Committee and said:
"Our film will be ruined
if we can't do this"
She came back that night and said
"We can do it". I cried my eyes out
As a superbly organized sporting event,
the Berlin Olympics gave the Nazis
an opportunity to present
Germany as a peaceful,
tolerant and powerful nation.
And it is natural to assume
that Hitler would've welcomed the games
Hitler wasn't pleased
I was making the film
Hitler wasn't in the least interested
in the Olympics
He didn't like the Games at all.
He told me so himself
It was understandable
Hitler wouldn't enjoy watching
blacks win
Seeing all those international stars
when he was such a Nationalist
A new world record.
And gold for America
Wasn't this a chance to
present a certain image of Germany?
Possibly - but Hitler wasn't
interested
It took a lot of convincing
to make him come
Come to the Games and Germany
will do better, they said
He didn't care.
He didn't like the stadium
It was too small
He didn't like the architecture
Ask anyone who was there
They'll tell you Hitler had
no interest in the Games
The result of all this complicated
coverage was 250 miles of film
You shot 400 km of film. How did you
cope with so much material?
First of all, people don't understand
why we shot so much film
They should remember that
there were 136 different events
In the athletics heats, we never knew
if a record would be broken
So we had to film everything -
hence the quantities of film
Once again, Riefenstahl's
legendary sense of order
and impeccable planning
enabled her and her team
to keep a grasp on this vast project
Even so, the editing alone
took two years, as always,
she did it herself, obsessively
editing and re-editing her film
This little machine...
The Litax machine invented by
Dr. Fanck...
...made it possible to edit very fast
We didn't have to splice the
strips of film into reels...
...which was so time consuming
All we did was slot the film
into this machine...
...and snap it shut
We could then look and edit the film
accurately
If I don't like a sequence,
I throw the film into the bin...
...or put it round my neck for later
Then I take another sequence
and compare it
This enables me...
...without exaggeration...
...to work ten times faster
than otherwise
This system only works for
documentaries, not for features...
...because here the soundtrack
is put on later
One of the most difficult sequences
was the marathon.
The ultimate test of sporting endurance
Once again, she used
feature film techniques
to capture the sweat and the pain
I had to think hard how I could
shape the 26-mile race...
...into a few short minutes that
would be exciting and interesting
I soon realised
I couldn't achieve this...
...just by filming the race
step by step
Instead, I'd have to try...
...to show the feelings, the
mental state of the marathon runners
And I thought I could best
express that...
...by showing the exhaustion
in their faces
How, though their legs were
like lead...
...they didn't collapse but kept
going by sheer willpower
Willpower can't be shown visually
but can be indicated by music
If you listen, you'll hear the music
seeming to drive the runners on
The music expresses the will not to
collapse but to reach the stadium
The camera looks down the torso,
as we'd practised it...
...to the tired legs almost
sticking to the asphalt
And this difference,
this portrayal...
...maybe raised the film above
the level of ordinary reportage
Leni Riefenstahl, on an official
mission, visits the exhibition
The star of German cinema speaks
You've been invited here
to present your film
It was very hard work but I'm happy
the task was entrusted to me
People don't understand why 'Olympia'
has taken so long to release
We shot 400,000 metres of film
And it's a huge task,
sorting through this footage...
...putting it in order and
making a film out of it
Just viewing all the film
took 10 weeks
I spent 10 hours a day
in the projection-room
That gives you an idea
of what's involved
For the men's high diving,
we experimented a lot
Up till then it had been done
rather boringly...
...with a single shot of the man
plunging off the board
We set up three cameras
for this event
Guzzi Lantschner was up there
with a hand-held camera
And Hans Ertl below...
...with an underwater camera
Over there was
the slow motion camera...
...so that the diving could be filmed
from all angles
The most interesting experiment
was the underwater shooting
It had never been done before
Ertl had built himself a camera
and sat in the water
He followed the diver down
till he hit the water...
...switched to slow motion,
changed focus...
...and kept the camera on the diver
until he surfaced
It's the Japanese girl again
We experimented with
the swimming too
Over there for the swimming...
...we pushed the camera along on
a rubber raft, hanging from a rig...
...to get close-ups of
the swimmers' faces
But we couldn't use it
in the finals
Higgins
Yldefonzo...
Koike...
Ito
A fight to the finish
I wanted a crescendo of intensity
I began mundanely enough
with the women's diving...
...giving the diver's names.
With the men I left that out
I just edited to highlight the
diving itself and the movement
They looked like birds
swooping through the air
This looked very attractive...
...so, to heighten the effect,
I used different tempi when editing
If you look, you'll see
the first dive is at normal speed
Then the next one is a bit slower -
not quite slow motion but almost
And so on until full slow motion
But even that wasn't enough.
They really had to look like birds
Her creative editing
techniques are seen to
greatest artistic effect in high diving
It's only when you disentangle
her handy work on an editing desk
that you realize how some of the
sequences were printed backwards
and that the diver was actually
springing out of water
reversing through the air and
landing back on the spring-board
I achieved this by sometimes
splicing in a sequence back to front
But it was hardly noticeable. It just
enhanced the feeling of movement
It simply became a form
of artistic expression
The creative sport photography
in Olympiad has rarely been bettered
To what extent, though, of these films
an expression of the Fascist spirit
which prevailed in Germany at that time?
Is Riefenstahl no more than
an artist obsessed,
blind to events outside her cutting?
The question remains unanswered
Today, aged 90, she still repeats
what she has always said
that art and politics are
two different things,
that one has nothing
to do with the other
The premier of Olympiad took place
on Hitler's 49th birthday
Immediately afterwards, she went
on a European tour with her film
It was hailed everywhere as a triumph
and success
The German Film Prize 1937-38...
...goes to Leni Riefenstahl...
...for the film "Olympia"
April 1938, the premiere in Vienna
Eighteen months later, the
Second World War broke out
All Vienna welcomes you
Thank you for your kind words
I am so very happy to be in Vienna
and attending the premiere
I've not been here for five years
This is my first chance to see Vienna
since our Führer came to power
In November of that year, Germany
witnessed the notorious Kristallnacht
The persecution of the Jews
reached new extremes
But once again Riefenstahl
wasn't there to see it
It was on a boat sailing for New York
that she first learnt of the Kristallnacht
But her trip to Hollywood was a fiasco
The film industry which included many
German emigrants demanded a boycott
I didn't believe it. It seemed
impossible
I'd read so many false reports about
Germany in the American newspapers
I thought it was lies, so I said so
Its nothing true, what the American
newspapers write about the Nazis
I couldn't believe it but, when I got
to New York. I saw huge headlines
One page said "Synagogues burnt down,
shops looted. Jews persecuted"
On the next page:
"Riefenstahl says..."
Its nothing true, what the American
newspapers write about the Nazis
Whenever I was asked, I said
"It can't be true. It's impossible"
KILL THE JEWS
Now you're going to ask me
why I didn't leave Germany
You see, I loved my homeland
The ones who left were emigrants
and people who'd been banned
I could work. I was free. I hoped
it would never happen again
We all hoped it was
an isolated event
All true art must imprint...
...the stamp of beauty on itself
All that is healthy
is right and natural
What is right and natural
is beautiful
It's our task to discover
true beauty
We must not be led astray...
...by the mad, impudent drivel...
...of effete literati who decry...
...the natural and beautiful
as kitsch
The pictures were awful
They were all kitsch
I hardly saw a picture I liked
I was very disappointed at the time
because my great love was modern art
Along with the French Impressionists
and Cranach
But what the National Socialists...
...considered - or called or admired
as art - was for me kitsch
EXHIBITION OF DEGENERATE ART
ADMISSION FREE
Pure German artistic sensibility
means nothing to a rootless Jew
What he calls art must titillate
as depraved senses
It must be cloaked in corruption
as sickness
It must be unnatural, grotesque,
perverse...
...or pathological
These febrile fantasies...
...of incurably sick minds...
...were once flaunted before the public
by Jewish art critics...
...as the highest form of
artistic expression
Surely speeches like this
would've made any sensitive artist
stop and ponder
After everything that had happened
it was the least one could expect
Hitler made a speech about art
and it was so wrong that I thought:
"If he can be so wrong and yet
sound so convincing about art -
"...so convincing
many believed him -
"...maybe he's making
political mistakes too"
That's when I began to have
real doubts
I became much more critical
when I listened to his speeches...
...but I must admit I was never
an opponent
In 1939, German troops marched
into Poland
Riefenstahl was sent to
the front as a war reporter
But on her first day there she witnessed
the brutal ill treatment of Polish civilians
A photograph seems to
testify to her horror
Riefenstahl made an official complaint
to the Nazi General in charge
And left Poland immediately
In August 1940, the German troops
marched into Paris
The Blitzkrieg in the west was over
Riefenstahl sent a
Euphoric telegram to the Führer
Mein Führer, it is with indescribable joy,
deep emotion and warm gratitude,
that we share your greatest
and Germany's greatest victory,
the entry of German troops into Paris
Your deeds exceed the
power of human imagination
they are without equal
in the history of mankind,
how can we ever thank you?
Simply to offer you my congratulations
is an inadequate expression of the feelings
that have stirred me
I didn't send the telegram...
...because our troops were in France,
and because of our victory...
...but because we thought the war was
over. We were in a frenzy of joy
For three days the bells rang
and people kissed on the streets
We all believed this terrible war
was over
It was in this mood that I sent
Hitler my enthusiastic telegram
However there was
no question of peace now.
after Germany's attack on Russia
the conflict in Europe escalated
and became a World War
But Riefenstahl has retreated
to the mountains again
She had begun work on
Tiefland, the lowlands
A film version of d'Albert's opera
It was forced on me...
...because I wanted to keep my head
down and avoid making war films
"Tiefland" was a neutral subject
Since "Olympia" had paid off...
...I was completely free and had
enough money to make a film...
...from a purely artistic perspective
Once again, Riefenstahl had an
opportunity to dance.
Set in Spain, the story
tackles the social conflict
between farmers and land owners
When the production was later moved
to Bavaria, they needed characters
who looked Mediterranean
Gypsies were brought in from a
Gypsy concentration camp near Salzburg
to be used as extras
This is one of the main accusations
that continues to be levelled
at Riefenstahl to this day
List of extras from detention camp
in Leopoldskron
With Hitler's support at the beginning
of the project, Riefenstahl was given
{\a8}Come to the castle.
{\a8}She shall dance for me
as much foreign currency as she needed
to start filming in Spain
But the production was dogged
by misfortune
It was a disaster from the start
We began by looking for
our locations in Spain...
...to keep costs down
But the war came and we couldn't
stay in Spain
Our crew left by the very last plane
We then had to build all the sets
with mountains behind
We had to build an entire
Bavarian village. It was very hard
Then the snow came and destroyed
the village and it had to be rebuilt
As we weren't part of the war effort,
we waited 2 years for a studio
We had to tear our sets down
so propaganda films could be made
Many of these look like paintings.
How did you achieve this effect?
It was my intention,
with this film...
...to concentrate on the visual...
...and maintain the art of filming
in black and white
At that time there was a big switch
to colour
Most films were in colour and hardly
anything was in black and white
Black and white is a special kind
of art, like graphic art
I wanted to make a film...
...which would prove there are
effects in black and white...
...that can't be bettered - or
achieved at all - with colour
God be with you, Pedro
Good day to you, Nando!
- I'm glad to be up here again
- You're up from the Deep Valley?
I've brought flour and salt.
Up here, Pedro, I feel so much freer
I worked a lot with filters
Here I used an orange filter
so this shot - I remember clearly...
...had to have an aperture
of around 3.2...
- For depth...
- No, for an airy, atmospheric effect
In my films I always made sure
the men...
...actors or not, were lit
differently...
...from the women
They were lit...
...from the side
so their features stood out
Whereas, what's important with
women is to make them look...
...young and lovely
The same lighting can make
a woman look...
...20 years youngers or olders,
depending on the angle
Make yourself beautiful
That's how you must look
With a young woman, who must
look beautiful...
...you need a very soft light
from the front
No side-lighting at all, so no
facial lines or flaws are visible
The only really pretty subjects
to photograph are babies
They've absolutely no wrinkles
Even if a woman has only slight
lines on her face...
...they'll appear worse on film
Lighting is very important
Marlene Dietrich always had
the same lighting
Same lighting with a lamp
right above her
It shone down on her face, gave
her shadows, and made her look thin
Another woman would need
different lighting
What kind did you need?
I needed a soft front light - quite
high, but not as high as Marlene's
I didn't want to look as gaunt as her
but I did need soft front-lighting
Wait till I'm sitting
I just want to see what I need
Better go in a bit closer
To achieve this picturesque effect...
...you must look for subjects which
make a composition in themselves
You can't set up a camera
just anywhere
Outdoors, the aperture is generally
reduced because there's so much light
This gives a sharp focus and robs
the shot of air and atmosphere
To avoid this sharpness and still
keep a feeling of realism...
...I used very strong filters
I could filter out the light
without reducing the aperture...
...and achieve this picturesque effect -
sometimes with coloured filters
The hut wasn't built
and then filmed
First we chose it, selected the
background and set up the camera
Then, using the eye of the camera...
...we incorporated the hut
into the whole composition
That's how we achieved
this harmonious effect
- Can I have something to drink?
- Yes, I've plenty of milk
The film was almost finished
when the war ended
Everything was carted off to France
where it lay for 10 years
The French hacked it about
and tried to make it into a film
A lot of footage was lost
I had to employ several lawyers
to get the material back
Then I had to put it together.
It was quite a saga
While Riefenstahl was working on
Tiefland, the war entered its final phase
As the bombs rained down on Berlin,
Riefenstahl took her production
company, and set off for the Tirol
She acquired a farmhouse at the foot of
the Wilder Kaiser mountain near Kitzbühel,
an idyllic refuge, in the
midst of total war
Here she continued to edit Tiefland,
right to the final days of the war
Obsessed with her work,
she can hardly to have heard the allied bombers
flying over daily on their way to Berlin
At what point was her
image of Hitler shattered?
My image of Hitler was shattered
much too late
Right at the end of the war
When I saw he wasn't visiting
the bombed cities...
...and seeing the misery for himself
And that he even recruited old people
and children for the 'Volkssturm'...
...I was appalled. His image
was totally shattered
When did you last see Hitler?
After my war-marriage,
which was on 21st March, 1944
My husband and I were invited...
...to the Berghof
That was the last time
He was very distracted and kept up
a continual monologue
He no longer seemed like a man in
touch with reality, more like a ghost
The final battle for Berlin
By the beginning of 1945, it was
all over for Germany
The country lay in ruins
First French and then American
troops marched into the Tirol
And Riefenstahl was arrested in Kitzbühel
It was a time that
beggars description
So sad, so dreadful.
All our ideals were shattered
One just could not comprehend it all
It was a terrible fall
into the abyss
It was only when I was interrogated
by the Americans in Dachau...
...that I saw pictures of the camps
I'd never seen any pictures
or heard anything about them
It was such a terrible shock
I couldn't believe...
...human beings could do such things
And these things had been done
on Hitler's orders
It was quite a time
before I could believe it
And, when I did, my life fell apart
because I'd believed in Hitler
It was so shattering...
...that one's own life seemed
utterly unimportant
There were only two possibilities
Either to live with this appalling
burden of guild weighing us down...
...or to die
It was a constant dilemma,
to live or to die
This bloody struggle had so far caused
60 million human lives in Europe alone
After you discovered the crimes
of the Third Reich...
...did you look on your work
differently?
No. I was just appalled and confused
to have lived through that period
I did look at it differently...
...to the extent that I put myself
into the minds of the victims
How awful for them to see those
swastikas, the SS men and the SA -
...people we'd never thought of
as criminals
It was a breakdown that's
actually been permanent
I've never recovered from the horror
People say of me:
"She's blind. She doesn't want
to know
"She'll always be a Nazi"
But none of this applied to me
I was never a Nazi,
so I can't be one still
I condemn all that happened but it
doesn't help. They don't believe me
At the denazification trial in Freiburg,
Leni Riefenstahl's connection with the
National Socialists was scrutinized closely
Most of the witnesses who testified
at the trial are still alive
and continue to confirm the statements
they made then
Riefenstahl's trial attracted
huge attention from the world's press
Finally the court declared that
she couldn't be condemned as a Nazi
but classed as a sympathizer
The judges found no political activity
in support of the Nazi regime
that would justify punishment
There were many however, who
remembered Riefenstahl's
prominent position in the Third Reich
and were unhappy with the verdict
Character assassination is
all too easy
I've been attached countless times
The most incredible things
have been said about me
For instance, that I was Hitler's
mistress, his lover...
Goebbel's lover, or Goering's -
or of all of them
That I'd used gypsies from
a concentration camp for a film...
...which I never did
All this was stated...
...to try and finish me and
ensure I never worked again
After the war, for over 20 years,
Riefenstahl lived alone with her
mother in an attic in Munich
She was never to make another film
Despite this, she still receives
fanmails from all over the world
For in the 1960s, she made a well
publicized comeback
In her travels she had discovered
a new continent
and a fresh inspiration in Africa
In 1962, Riefenstahl travelled to
the southern Sudan to visit the Nuba
a remote community of around a 100 tribes
who'd had a little contact
with the outside world
Her love of Africa had begun
some years earlier,
when she visited Kenya to make a film
about the modern day slave trade
The film was called Black Cargo,
and was never finished
On her way back to Nairobi, Riefenstahl
was involved in a major car crash
and nearly killed
It was a grave setback, but she never
lost her passion for the dark continent
Her first book of photographs of
the Nuba was published in 1973
How did your fascination
with the Nuba begin?
With a photo
An ordinary photo that I happened
to see in an old issue of 'Stern'...
...when I was lying in hospital
in Nairobi, after a car accident
This photo, which I always keep
on my desk...
...where I'm working with the Nuba,
had changed my life
It shows two wrestlers...
Nubas, just what I wanted
for my film 'Black Cargo'
I needed men like that but in Kenya
and Tanzania I couldn't find any
The Masai were slim and graceful...
...but black athletes of the kind
I needed weren't to be found
So I went looking for them
At the age of 60, Riefenstahl went
to live alone with the Nuba
for eight months
This is the little bed where I slept
for months...
...with hundreds of wild dogs
around me
Strangely enough, I was happy
Wrestlers from different tribes assembled
to play for a wrestling festival
Funded by a friend, August Arnold,
who ran a camera company in Munich,
Riefenstahl took both
photographs and film footage
of the Nuba during his stay
Her Nuba footage has never
been shown publicly before
But it was her Nuba photographs
that brought her back to prominence
The photos weren't so important. I
went there to get to know the people
But, as always when I'm travelling,
I took a few shots
Whatever appealed to me - their
lifestyle, the way they moved...
...their physical types, their faces,
their rituals
I never thought I'd publish
the results
The Seraba, a herdsmen's encampment
The young men would live in
the Seraba encampment,
cut-off from the village,
and prepare themselves for
the traditional wrestling contests
The adolescents go through
an initiation rite
Only then can they take part
in the wrestling
As a mark of their membership
of the Seraba, the young men
cover themselves with ash
and paint their bodies
The ash has a ritual significance.
It is meant to give them
strength and beauty
The Nuba were strange beings to me
I'd never met native Africans
before
They surprised me by their character
They were poor
They only had their land and
a little water but they were happy
They weren't suspicious. We soon got
to know each other using a few words
They were so warm and cheerful
It made me think "How little
one needs to be happy"
I've often been back and
I've always felt at ease there
Over 3000 metres of film footage
of the Nuba is stored in
Leni Riefenstahl's basement
But the film about the Nuba,
a pet project for so many years
has never been completed
It is true that some important material
was destroyed during processing
But what prevents such an enthusiastic
editor from cutting her own work
Just before setting off on her
second Nuba expedition
Riefenstahl was to have a decisive encounter
She met Horst Kettner,
40 years her junior, he
nevertheless became her companion
working and travelling with her
as he still does today
For the next Nuba expedition,
Riefenstahl would be better equipped
Horst would be her cameraman
She had trained him herself
in the course of her travels
A wrestling festival
among the Masaki Nuba
These Masaki Nuba wrestling
festivals begin
after first harvest in November
and last until the end of March
The contests never end brutally
The wrestler who throws his
opponent on his back wins
There is a referee to oversee
the fair play
A 160 miles away,
is another tribe
with very different customs and language
These are the Nuba of Kao.
They're Nuba too but quite different
Their nature is quite unlike
the Masaki Nuba
They're wild.
Not as peaceable as the other Nuba
It's difficult to work with them
but worth the effort
They're artists
More gifted than any other tribe
I've seen
They paint wonderful masks
Each one more interesting
than the last
And they do them in just
20-30 minutes
What are they for?
Purely to beautify themselves.
It's just decoration
There's a ritual symbolism to
the signs found on many of them
For instance...
...some have exaggerated their eyes
They want to make their eyes
seem larger
And on others the lines are
stylised representations...
...of gazelles and other animals
they know
It's amazing. Every mask is different
I'm more attracted by an aesthetic
subject than by an ugly one
I can't be creative with
a negative subject
I only become creative
and have ideas...
...when dealing with something
which stimulated my enthusiasm
That's been true of all my films
A dance ceremony of the Nuba of Kao
These ceremonies take place
after the traditional knife contests
Only virgins are allowed to dance
The girls woo the fighters
with their dancing
According to an American anthropologist
the Nuba consider their own bodies
as the highest form of art
It's not just the masks of these Nuba
that are interesting...
...but also their hair decorations
Here you see, for example,
this notch in the hair
And here too. That means he's a
Kaduma - they're the only men...
...allowed to fight
Comparing her famous Nuba photographs
with the massive film footage,
it is easier to understand why her
promised Nuba film never materialized
Working without a professional cameraman
and unable to dictate and
influence all the actions,
Riefenstahl, the obsessive perfectionist
couldn't be in total control of the material
and could not reach the aesthetic
heights to which she aspired
You mean Susan Sontag?
It's a mystery to me...
...how such an intelligent woman
can talk such rubbish
I took these pictures...
...of the Nuba, just as they live,
unobserved, without posing
What can be fascist about that?
I don't understand
Her involvement with the Nuba led
once again to doubts about her intentions
and questions of her aesthetics
The cult of the body beautiful
The celebration of masculine power
and strength
Riefenstahl had heard these
reproaches before
It's a lot of rubbish
If you're living among such natural
people and carry a camera...
...and they don't want to be
photographed...
...you can still take shots
because they get to know you
But what has that got to do with
Strength and Beauty?
I've not changed these people
They're very healthy human beings.
There's no sickness in the tribe
The old people sit in dark houses,
in shadow, so you can't film them
Those who walk about outside
are mainly young, healthy
Many also happen to be beautiful
But I didn't create them. God did
Have you ever thought how one
might define a fascist aesthetic?
I don't understand the question.
I've no concept of fascism...
...unless it be the Hitler salute...
...or the fascist salute with
the raised right hand
- I can't imagine anything
- No visual aesthetic?
No, I've no idea
what that might mean
In the 1970s, Riefenstahl
discovered another refuge
far from the madding crowd,
underwater
Horst, could you kindly bring me the
reel with the sharks in close-up?
We've a shot somewhere of Herbert...
...with a fish in his mouth
and the shark snatching it
I'd like that shot
I think it's in Reel 3.
I'll fetch it for you
Please, it's important
At the age of 70, Riefenstahl
passed her scuba diving test
In order to be allowed to
take the test at all,
she had to claim to be only 50
Since then, she has dived
with Horst in some of
the world's most spectacular
underwater locations
She trained Horst to be her cameraman
Horst uses an underwater
video camera that is protected
by a casing designed by himself
They are now working on an
ambitious underwater epic
that would probably prove to be their last
How long can we stay underwater?
- Twenty minutes maximum
- We'll need to shoot all the scenes
As always, Riefenstahl takes stills
and supervises the lighting
while Horst operates the camera
At the age of 90, Riefenstahl is
probably the oldest diver in the world
Her increasing concern about
the threat to marine life
has led her to become
a member of Greenpeace
Give me the mouthpiece
- There's no air in it
- Yes, look
It was great
The 'crown of thorns' we filmed today
was good
But you didn't hold the camera
steady
I was being pushed by the current
The visibility is very poor
We should really shoot it again
- There was too much plankton
- That's quite good
Well done. That's a good shot
I tried a bit of side-lighting
But you kept telling me to
take the lamp away
I meant the one with the blue filter
I see. You wanted the red
That's very good.
I like that very much
This is too dark, as if you had
under-exposed it
- That was deliberate
- Why deliberate? It was too dark
Now that's a good shot
Diving up a depth of a 100 ft.
they encounter a giant stingray
One touch of its tail
would be lethal
That's really fantastic.
We were so lucky
In 18 years' diving, we've never
had that
We've never had it before
Is that the first or the second?
That's the big one eating
From great mountain heights
and worldwide fame
Riefenstahl has descended
in the twilight years of her life
to a silent world
It is no longer the noble
human form that preoccupies her
but the exotic marine life
of the underwater kingdom
Underwater, far from the public gaze
is where she is happiest
But, even here
she cannot escape
the long shadows cast
by her past
I feel this country...
...is still waiting for you to say
publicly:
"I made a mistake. I'm sorry"
Being sorry isn't nearly enough
But I can't tear myself apart
or destroy myself
It's so terrible. I've suffered
anyway for over half a century
And it will never end, until I die
It's such an incredible burden,
that to say sorry...
It's inadequate, it expresses
too little
Doesn't it hurt to read again and again
that you're irredeemable?
Of course it hurts.
It makes me very, very sad
But because it never stops and
people keep on saying it...
...I have to live with it
It casts such a shadow
over my life...
...that death will be
a blessed release
I feel people are expecting...
...an admission of guilt from you
Well, what do you mean by that?
What am I guilty of?
I can and do regret making the film
of the 1934 Party Congress...
...'Triumph of the Will'
I regret... no, I can't regret
that I was alive in that period
But no words of anti-semitism ever
passed my lips. Nor did I write any
I was never anti-semitic
and I never joined the Nazi Party
So what am I guilty of? Tell me that
I didn't drop any atom bombs.
I didn't denounce anyone
So where does my guilt lie?