watched The Triumph of the Will, the famous Nazi propaganda film by Leni Reifenstahl, and then a documentary about her life. Really quite fascinating, watching the spectacle of the Third Reich, the power of the speeches and iconography. Hitler was adored in 1935, even when The Night of the Long Knives was public knowledge. Who else, let alone in a generation still in living memory for many, had such a strong cult of personality, where symbols, exclamations, titles, even a movement of the body meant one man and his party. Bizarre, seeing all those smiling faces as this most hideous of monsters passed by, but a very real reflection of a time.
Debate waged after about whether Reifenstahl was as naive as she made herself out to be, whether she can be held accountable for glorifying Nazism. On one side people were condemning her, saying she could have refused, she had to think what her art was doing to people and on the other people were keen to point out that Hitler was immensely popular at the time, that she did the best she could filming a public event and that it is hard to imagine what kind of film she could have made of an event meant to instil wonder without seeming like a glorification.
Striking film that provokes a lot of thought, but not something I’m that interested in.
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