Adolf and Leni try synchronized pose-striking
Posted on 09/09/2019 6:40:43 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Eighty-five years ago today, the National Socialist Party was midway through its hugely successful rally at Nuremberg - the Reichsparteitag des Willens, or Rally of the Will. Unlike previous get-togethers, the 1934 rally would produce a hit movie, one that cinéastes still watch with appalled fascination to this day. Its creator was a brilliant cinematographer and editor who could compose and edit anything - except, in the end, her own life. If only she'd been able to snip one problematic decade out of her 101 years, we'd know Leni Riefenstahl as a game old gal who in her sixties went off to live with an African tribe, in her seventies learned to scuba dive, and at the age of 98 survived a plane crash in the Sudan. There was a documentary made about her a few years back in which she's seen getting off the boat at the end of a day's diving. The captain and her friend Horst walk up the pier ahead of her, lost in conversation. She follows behind, carrying her scuba gear and oxygen tank. She's 92, and it never occurs to either man to give her a hand. They don't think of her as a woman or as a nonagenarian.
Ah, if only it weren't for that awkward patch...
In the 1930s, Fräulein Riefenstahl put her formidable film-making talents to the cause of the Third Reich, and, after attending the Reichsparteitag des Willens in 1934, produced one of the most remarkable films ever made: Triumph Of The Will.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Adolf and Leni try synchronized pose-striking
Add Mussolini and Obama doing likewise and it would make for a great socialist "Mount Posemore."
If anyone reads the great Louise Brooks memoir “Lulu in Hollywood” they’ll find out what SHE thinks of old Leni. Not pretty.
Its amazing how the clever projection of images on a screen with accompanying music leads to destructive celebrity worship. Edison with his invention of the motion picture did more to destabilize and revolutionize culture than Marx.
I’ve seen the film and always thought it was too bad she didn’t make it in color since Germany had the best color film at the time and color would have made it more realistic.
I recall seeing that film at a small movie theater in Fairfax, California. It was around 1995. I saw it by accident , one could say. I had never heard of her or the film before then. I saw an interesting poster, I was accustomed to viewing films with subtitles, having been a fan of Ingmar Bergman and Fellini. One thing that struck me right away with Triumph was how organized it all was.
The troop scenes were as choreographed as a Busby Berkley dance movie. Only much later, did I understand the significance this movie had at that time in cinematic history.
My closing thought on Leni Riefenstahl was a few years after that, maybe around year 2000. While looking in a big, glossy magazine,
I saw a photo of 100 year old Leni in a swimsuit, walking along a sunny beach while smiling and chatting with Mick Jagger. I found that ....surprising.
It took her 18 months to make the film about the 1938 Olympics. We’re a bit faster now days.
Add in Television, with its ability to be used to program millions of minds...
Steyn writes as though Hitler were an anomaly.
I do not believe it is the correct way to view the situation.
Rather, Hitler shows the weakness in human nature to move toward totalitarian power in one man.
History is full of examples from Pharaohs and Emperors to Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler.
America came very, very close with FDR.
The Will to Power - Friedrich Nietzsche.
Bookmark
We shoulda hung the ****.
Mark Zuckerberg, Jeffrey Zucker, and Andy Lack are fawning disciples of Leni, whether they realize it, or not.
Leave it to Mark Steyn to make the point.
The Will to Power - Friedrich Nietzsche.
Thank you....I thought I was the only one that saw that.
That’s funny I live in Fairfax
It’s definitely at Far left he kind of place
But mostly the granola crunching types
Or these days mountain biking types
The most instantly recognizable moustache in the world...
This was the theater near Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
About two blocks from Bolinas St. I think it’s still there.
A plain, non-descript movie house. Safeway supermarket is nearby.
“The most instantly recognizable moustache in the world...”
Now, sure, but as I understand it, the style was not unique, but trimmed to accommodate a gas mask. It was common among German soldiers with facial hair.
And yet Sergei Eisenstein is still universally praised and didn’t face the same backlash that Riefenstahl did.
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