Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl, Die. aka "The Wonderful Horrible Life Of Leni Riefenstahl." [Home-copied video cassette of over 3 hour documentary film on life & career of filmaker Leni Riefenstahl]

by Muller, Ray (Written & directed)

Price: $14.95
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Book description: np, , 1994. Video cassette in box. VG. Home copied onto quality VHS video cassette from PBS TV special. 188 minutes long. German-produced. In English & German with English subtitles. Done w/ Riefenstahl's participation when she was past 90 years old. Riefenstahl (1902-2003) in many long interviews & trips back to Berlin & other places reconstructs her long career, where she started as a beautiful dancer & actress, in the 1920's, & was in her first film (an Otto Fanck mountaineering avalanche film) in 1926 & besides Fanck who was enamored with her performed in Pabst films & others. She was taken by Fanck's mountaineering cinematography & artistry & decided to become a filmaker and after the rise of Hitler gained fame & infamy gained fame & infamy as the woman documentary filmaker for the Nazi Party employing many novel filmaking techniques in "Triumph of the Will" (the 1934 Party Congress) and "Olympiad" on 1936 Berlin Olympics, also travelled with the Wehrmaht to photograph invading German troops (& sending congratulatory telegrams to Hitler about his leadership & German success) and also later kept active as a documentary filmaker post-war & into her very old age. She sought in "Triumph of the Will" (showing Nuremberg Pary Congress & Nazi rallies) to influence German populace into seeing Nazis as heroic & German race as mythical using many film techniques, angles, camera heights & motions, etc. for the first time. Films showed Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, Hess, other high Nazis, marching troops, crowds. Later in her career she took an interest in scuba diving, exploring the ocean bottom & photographing African tribal natives. Riefenstahl's prominence in the Third Reich & her personal friendship with Adolf Hitler & Joseph Goebbels thwarted her film career in Germany after World War II & she was shunned. Remarkably in "Wonderful Life" she adamantly denies any deliberate attempt tor create Nazi propaganda and said she was disgusted "Triumph of the Will" was used for this purpose and looking back is sorry she made the film of the 1934 Party Congress. She says at end of film she was never anti-semitic, never a Nazi Party member & is not guilty of anything & death would be a welcome relief for her in the face of all the accusations she has endured for years. Her last line is "Where does my guilt lie?" Color & black & white. Well-done & controversial film on aider of the Nazi regime, a favorite of Hitler, & an important 20th century propaganda film filmaker & filmaker, who, after her death, was described by Associated Press as an "acclaimed pioneer of film & photographic techniques." A seldom seen film.

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