riefenstahl colder than ever

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leni riefenstahl has expired at 101.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:11 (twenty-two years ago)

has anyone on ilx ever seen any of her pre-hitler movies: the mountaineering ones?

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Only clips.

This will probably make Jody Fosters Riefenstahl movie a lot easier to make.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw a clip from one once, but not an entire mountaineering movie.

I was surprised this wasn't mentioned on ilx earlier, I heard about it very early this morning.

― Larcole (Nicole), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Weird, was thinking about her the other day -- I do own a pretty sharp scholarly edition of Triumph on the Will on DVD with some excellent commentary from an American historian on the context and intent of the film.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Huzzah!

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

what a life.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

thought she was supposed to be immortal.

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Only until someone said her names three times (or was that Leni Rumplestiltskin?)

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 15:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I have seen one or two of her mountaineering movies -- unfortunately, it's a case where what was very likely groundbreaking work at that time has been so completely subsumed into the work of later filmmakers that there's not much for the non-historian to say other than that they're gorgeously filmed.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Did anyone see her new one, the underwater picture? Sight and Sound (if I'm not mistaken) gave it a really devastating review.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

to be fair, she'd had over 60 years to crawl up her own ass.

olympia really is a wonder. i still can't bring myself to watch triumph of the will but i hear that lots of it is regurgitated in star wars anyhow.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's the last scene of Star Wars that tends to get the Riefenstahl comparisons...

― s1utsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

i think she is interesting in that she is a living (or, uh, dead) example of one of the biggest moral questions ever for artists.

"I don’t know what I should apologize for. I cannot apologize, for example, for having made the film ‘Triumph of the Will’ — it won the top prize. All my films won prizes.”

artistic vision (or maybe, more acurately, furthering your artistic career) in the aid of one of the most reviled men/causes of the last century C or D? i'd say big fucking dud. and i'd defer to the almighty jarvis "...you have to remember it's more important to be a human being than it is to be an artist. "

― lolita corpus (lolitacorpus), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Agreed. And she downplayed her relationship with the regime considerably. to be fair, however, it's only the one film which is unquestionably in the service of Nazi ideology. Olympia was part of a propaganda machine to be sure but the actual film's relationship to the Nazi regime is more ambiguous. It's a beautiful film. Get the BFI Film Classics book, written by a sports documentarian/scholar, which explains how it is the critical film in changing the filming of sports events. Also to be fair, she did serve time I believe, when lots of Nazi-allied industrialists got of scot-free as a result of bargains cut with the occupying forces.

I figured she wouldn't be here much longer when she was too ill to attend a big 100th birthday party that was thrown for her last year. She did however survive a plane crash (!!) in Africa not long ago, so there was reason to think she was indestructible.

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 9 September 2003 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Hate on hattaz! Your still here while she's in Hitler heaven.

― Mr. Love, Wednesday, 10 September 2003 05:18 (twenty-two years ago)

She's gone to the great big Nuremburg rally in the sky.

― Shmuel (shmuel), Thursday, 11 September 2003 06:44 (twenty-two years ago)

cheap shot

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 11 September 2003 08:35 (twenty-two years ago)

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