Leni Riefenstahl, the woman known as “Hitler’s filmmaker,” made some of the greatest and most innovative documentaries ever made. They are also insidious glorifications of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Now, Steven Bach reveals the truths and lies behind Riefenstahl’s lifelong self-vindication as an apolitical artist who claimed to know nothing of the Holocaust and denied her complicity with the criminal regime she both used and sanctified. A riveting and illuminating biography of one of the most fascinating and controversial personalities of the twentieth century.
I was the punk. I was born punk. But she was my rock. The only one I ever had. 1976. Fran and Leni meet in a North London comp. Three years later they are The Rips. Girls with guitars, bored of playing nice. Music, sex, fishnets, tits and spitting. A two-girl escape from everything sugar and spice. Fran & Leni is punchy two-hander about punk rock and life-long friendship from the writer of the critically acclaimed Pramkicker. This edition was published to coincide with the play's production at Assembly, George Square, during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, after its world premiere at Latitude Festival 2016.
Leni Riefenstahl, now aged 101, achieved fame as a dancer, actress photographer, and director, but her entire career is colored by her association with the Nazi party. This overt tension between the political meaning of her work for National Socialism and its essential aesthetic quality forms the basis of the compelling account. Appointed by Hitler, Leni Riefenstahl directed the Nazi propaganda film Triumph des Willens along with her bestknown work Olympia, a documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. By 1939 Riefenstahl was arguably the most famous women film director in the world; yet, after World War II, she was never again accepted as a filmmaker. Rainer Rother's book is a remarkable account of the fascinating life and work of Germany's most controversial photographer and filmmaker.
Dancer, actress, mountaineer, and director Leni Riefenstahl's uncompromising will and audacious talent for self-promotion appeared unmatched—until 1932, when she introduced herself to her future protector and patron: Adolf Hitler. Known internationally for two of the films she made for him, Triumph of the Will and Olympia, Riefenstahl's demanding and obsessive style introduced unusual angles, new approaches to tracking shots, and highly symbolic montages. Despite her lifelong claim to be an apolitical artist, Riefenstahl's monumental and nationalistic vision of Germany's traditions and landscape served to idealize the cause of one of the world's most violent and racist regimes. Riefenstahl ardently cast herself as a passionate young director who caved to the pressure to serve an all-powerful Führer, so focused on reinventing the cinema that she didn't recognize the goals of the Third Reich until too late. Jürgen Trimborn's revelatory biography celebrates this charismatic and adventurous woman who lived to 101, while also taking on the myths surrounding her. With refreshing distance and detailed research, Trimborn presents the story of a stubborn and intimidating filmmaker who refused to be held accountable for her role in the Holocaust but continued to inspire countless photographers and filmmakers with her artistry.
After considerable controversy over the bold appraisal of Riefenstahl in his first two editions, Hinton continues to celebrate the life and films of this brilliant woman in the absence of the repetitious clichés that so often accompany a discussion of such a controversial filmmaker. Provided with access to Leni Riefenstahl's personal archives and film collection, the author explores her career. In addition to examining her most famous wartime works, Triumph of the Will and Olympia, the author also investigates her less recognized Tiefland, her unrealized film projects, and her African and underwater films. David B. Hinton drew on recent interviews with the filmmaker to update this edition. (Previous edition is No. 29 in The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series.) Reviews of the Previous Edition: "Raises significant issues involving the relationship between art and politics." —CHOICE "...a solid piece of research....the author is able to illuminate aspects of the production of Triumph of the Will and Olympia previously unknown."—FILMS IN REVIEW "It's best to read her [Leni Riefenstahl] memoirs, anybody's memoirs in fact, with some independent scholarship at hand, and the best place to start is David B. Hinton's thoroughly researched The Films of Leni Riefenstahl."—THE MAGAZINE
Leni Riefenstahl will always be remembered for her brilliant film of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin - still rated as one of the best documentaries ever made. Before that she was acclaimed for her roles in silent feature films, when German cinema was in its artistic heyday in the 1920s. She pioneered the box office success of such classic mountaineering dramas as The White Hell of Piz Palu and then began to direct her own films. The Blue Light was admired by Hitler and led to her filming the Wagnerian Nuremberg Rally of 1934. After the war she was shunned by the film industry, despite a court in 1952 proclaiming her not guilty of supporting the Nazis in a punishable way. Her undoubted charisma led to many affairs and grandiose schemes - deep sea diving in her seventies and still filming wildlife in her nineties. Audrey Salkeld has sifted the fact from the legend and gives us a moving portrait of the great movie `star' who suffered more in the `wilderness' than her enduring fame suggests.
LENI RIEFENSTAHL's LAST WORDS ABOUT HITLER, GOEBBELS, NAZIS AND THE JEWS This book is based upon Maximillien de Lafayette's book: The Complete Story of the Planned Escape of Hitler: The Nazi-Spain-Argentina Coverup. Published by Times Square Press, New York and Berlin www.timessquarepress.com The true account of what LENI RIEFENSTAHL thought about Hitler, the Nazis, the SS, Goebbels, and the events which surrounded and shaped Nazi Germany. A candid interview with her reveals the true identity of this extraordinary woman, whether you like it or not. Leni spoke about her passion for cinema, Hitler's double, Hitler's escape from Germany, the dreadful Goebbels, and how she was harassed by her military interrogators, her pain, and imprisonment.
Leni Riefenstahl is best known as director of Triumph of the Will, a film of a Nazi Party Rally, and Olympia, the classic account of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In this memoir, the author finally discusses her motivations, her history, her important friendships, and, most of all, her art. 40 pages of black-and-white photos.
Leni Riefenstahl's four-hour film Olympia deals with the major propaganda achievement of Nazi Germany in the 1930's, the Eleventh Olympic Games that were held in Berlin in 1936. Graham has scrutinized the history of the film and shows that it was deeply involved with the regime, both in its stages of production and in its later distribution. He also argues that the film can be regarded as a masterpiece of propaganda, and further, that virtually any work of this nature is bound to have a propaganda effect, whether intended or not. The author relates the film's subsequent history against the background of the worsening political situation in Europe. The book will be of value to film historians, sports scholars and those interested in the history and culture of Nazi Germany.
