Fatema post 3

Fatema Kermalli

PART A

Aesthetically speaking, Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will is a beautiful piece. A large part of its formal beauty lies in the way that the film is able to take otherwise stationary events, which the producer worried would bore the audience, and film them in such a way that the images are always moving. This method of catching and keeping the attention of her viewers was achieved through various means, including filming whilst roller skating and having tracks built all over the site of the rally. The way in which Hitler himself is filmed is, perhaps, the most important. Rather than having a stationary view of the leader speaking to the people, Leni Riefenstahl opted to film from a track built around the speaker’s podium, so that the audience’s view of him is always changing. The footage, in this sense, in unpredictable, and creates a feeling of anticipation within the viewers.

Another formal component which enhances the beauty of the film is the alternation between showing large masses of people and individuals, Hitler in particular. (One method used for capturing the large amounts of crowds was the installation of a camera that could take footage from a flagpole high above masses.) A kind of rhythm is created going from one to the other, and it is through this rhythm that the film itself is carried forward. The same is true for the way in which Riefenstahl deals with other opposites. Solemn scenes give way to excitement, and liveliness is followed by a more somber tone. The audience is never left with the same conditions for too long for fear of their losing interest. Instead, they are carried perpetually forward along with the events being shown to them on the screen. Riefenstahl’s method of building up to a climax through an increase in the tempo of the film and the activity seen within it is also necessary for keeping the audience’s attention.

Considering the facts that Leni ignored chronological order in putting the film together and had so much initial footage to choose from, another great achievement of this piece is the way in which each scene flows into the other. The average person watching may not have any idea that the events shown did not actually occur in the way that they are represented. From an artistic point of view, this in itself illustrates sheer brilliance. Being able to reorder the past without your audience being any wiser is testimony to great expertise on Leni’s part. This she herself alluded to in one of the clips where she mentioned the need for a “good eye” with regards to the colors and subjects when weaving so much footage together into a single, seamless film.

The last formal quality which I found to be extremely important for Triumph of the Will’s beauty as a film is the way in which Leni deals with sound. To go along with the rhythmic quality of the film itself, putting music to the images as opposed to simply allowing the natural sounds to filter through may be seen in itself as the artist’s masterstroke. The music is able to set the tone for the images. It also enables the producer to highlight what she feels are the most important sounds coming from the rally itself. As all other noise is covered over, those sounds that do filter through and are allowed to be heard above, or in the absence of, music are given special importance. In this way, the sound itself follows a type of rhythm, alternating between three main types of sounds: the music, the voice of the Fuhrer speaking, and the chants and cries of the masses at large. These chants also, formally speaking, add to the beauty due to the way in which all the people are shown to be acting as one. This theme also runs through the actions of the crowd, which is seen moving as one body, just as it speaks with one voice.

PART B

I believe that Riefenstahl ought to apologize for her work. Life in this world is interconnected; like ripples in the water, each thing that we do affects those around us. In the same way, art has the ability to lead the views of people in a specific direction. Films, such as Riefenstahl’s, have the power to affect a large amount of people. This ability in itself must have been known to Leni, as all artists are aware of the evocative nature of their works. The ability to awake a sense in others is indeed the reasoning behind art itself, for it is the only way through which the piece may be understood for its genius. Like was discussed in class, it is not possible for an artist to go into creating their masterpiece without any kind of direction; the way in which the film is put together lends itself to specific messages and motifs. These messages Leni must have been aware of, and messages are meant to be understood by the receiver. Thus we may say both that Riefenstahl knew of the ability of her film to send a message to large groups of people and that she herself created or polished this message so that it would be able to shine through Triumph of the Will.

Now the question that remains is: Is the message within Triumph of the Will reprehensible and evil? This question appears to me to depend on history itself. There are obvious themes within the film, but to say that the ideas of unity, discipline, obedience, admiration, or even “One People. One Leader. One Empire.” led in any way to the events that followed, such as the Holocaust, seems to be a bit of a stretch. Even if it were true, however, one could not blame Leni for not being able to see into the future. Thus, the only way to attach blame is by looking at events that occurred either before or during the film’s creation.

The main idea which the piece seems to propagate is the “beauty” of Hitler himself, both as a firm ruler to be admired (during the second two “portions” of the film mentioned by Devereaux and through views of him taken by a camera from below) and as one of the people (primarily during the beginning part where he is shown accepting flowers and such). The question as to whether this message in itself is evil, as stated earlier, depends on what Leni knew about Hitler. Had he done anything reprehensible himself that Leni would have known about such that advocating him as a leader would have, in itself, been reprehensible?

According to the facts stated in Devereaux’s piece, the footage was taken from a 1934 Nuremberg party rally and was shown as a film in March 1935. By the beginning of 1934 (before the filming and editing process), Hitler had been in power for about a year. The Gestapo (police force) had already been created and people were losing their freedoms. Jews had been banned from various positions and jobs within the community. And in the spring of 1933, Dachau-a concentration camp that ended up serving as a model for all those that followed-had opened (www.historyplace.com).

All of this would most likely have been known by Leni Riefenstahl, who apparently had close contact with Hitler himself. According to Sontag’s article, Riefenstahl, called “my perfect German woman” by Hitler, “was precisely the only German filmmaker who was not responsible to the Film Office (Riechsfilmkammer) of Geobbels’s ministry of propaganda.” This fact was also alluded to in the article by Devereaux which stated that nobody had seen her film in advance (it did not have to go through the censorship board). Besides this, the actions taken by Hitler against the freedoms of Jews, at least, were actual laws… leaving no room for ignorance on Riefenstahl’s part. Due to these historical facts, it would appear that Leni knew what Hitler was doing, and despite that, chose to support the regime and show him in a positive light. This, I believe, is a cause for apology by the artist.

*****

According to Devereaux, Triumph of the Will is powerful due to the vision it creates of Hitler and National Socialism. In the way that the film is put together, this vision appears to be good; not only the formal aspects of the film, but also its vision of a united people with a strong leader are appealing to the viewer. This, however, contrasts with the actuality of Hitler and his form of government. In other words, good and evil are extraordinarily intertwined within this film, a fact that causes a moral dilemma in deciding whether or not it is acceptable to praise and enjoy the work as art. Devereaux states that whilst the formal aspects can be appreciated separately, the vision of a strong leader is in itself flawed because of its misrepresentation of the truth, thus rendering the entire work of art flawed. It cannot be given the highest aesthetic praise, as good as it otherwise is.

As for Devereaux’s supposed answer to the question of an apology, I believe that she would indeed have put some of the blame on Leni Riefenstahl. This is evident in certain parts of the article, where, for example, she discusses the use of motifs in order to establish the ideas (in order) of one leader, one people, and one empire. The fact that Devereaux believes in Riefenstahl’s intentional use of editing to create such a message indicates that she would find it possible to lay some of the blame on her if the message were found to be harmful. This also appears apparent due to her calling the vision itself flawed and referring to it as a misrepresentation of the truth. Also, near the end, the article lists “preventing a recurrence of fascism” as a reason for watching the film itself, because doing so “involves understanding how fascism came to be thought attractive….” Thus we can see that Devereaux does indeed believe that Triumph of the Will shows the vision on Germany and Hitler in a false light, and that this “misunderstanding” is in itself an important factor in understanding why fascism came to be, and how to prevent it in the future.

*****

Sontag, I believe, would also agree that Riefenstahl and her art ought to apologize. The article itself talks about the “purification” of her reputation and attempts to disprove some of the things which have been said regarding Leni’s separation from the rally itself and her wish to only capture the film in (contrastingly) either a purely aesthetic or historical point of view. According to Sontag, Riefenstahl did indeed take part in planning for the rally, which was, in effect, “the set of a film which was then to assume the character of an authentic documentary.” She even talks about certain parts being re-filmed on Hitler’s orders after the fact. Regarding the idea of separating formal beauty from the content of the film itself, Sontag states: “Without a historical perspective, such connoisseurship prepares the way for a curiously absentminded acceptance of propaganda for all sorts of destructive feelings—feelings whose implications people are refusing to take seriously.” Thus, she appears firmly to believe in Riefenstahl’s accountability in creating a piece of propaganda for Nazi Germany. She makes the point that Riefenstahl knew what she was doing while creating the film, and that even now (within her work with the Nubas), she continues to advocate the same principles as before. Sontag is, in short, against Riefenstahl’s reputation’s “purification”; she apparently does not think that Leni deserves it.