the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

Riefenstahl made films for the Nazi party, yes.

But you realise that hindsight is 20/20?

In the doc she regrets terribly making Triumph, but you guys are completely forgetting the times.

The early thirties in Germany was a time BEFORE the war.
Optimism was the vibe of the day, a new frontier for Germany.

The absolute horror that was to follow came after Riefenstahl worked for the Reich- after she made the films.

AFTER AFTER AFTER!

Am I getting it across here?

Leni had NOTHING to do with shaping the government or the Reich's policies. People love to dump on her and lump her in with the Nazi's. She doesn't hate Jews, she was no architect of ANYTHING anti-Semitic. Prove me wrong. And don't give me "she was in bed with Hitler! She was in deep with the Nazi's!"
Yeah, we know that.
What else you got?

Are we talking about Leni Riefenstahl here or are we talking about Hitler?

They are two separate stories, folks...

The fact is she wasn't a Nazi. She is asked point blank in the doc:
What is your visual idea of a fascist
She says she doesn't know.
She says: The Hitler salute? The seig heil?

She was employed by Hitler to make films. She did.
That's where it ends.
She doesn't endorse the Nazi's, never was a Nazi, she talks in the doc of how her views about Hitler changed when she started hearing about the sick shit he was perpetrating, and how the whole bottom fell out.

Johann wrote:

The anti-semitic sentiment didn't explode until later.
The German people thought it was POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING.

How little did they know...


You act as if anti-Semitism (you're supposed to capitalize the S, Johann) didn't exist in Germany before Hitler's rise. Wrong, very, very wrong. Just look at Richard Wagner, whise anti-Semitism is virulent but also a product of the century in which he lived (the century before Nazism). And Wagner is but one example, it's just the first that comes to mind.

You also imply that a nation is so gullible as to see anti-Semitism as "POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING". Give me a break. While I will admit that Nazi propaganda was a clever conditioning of the German people, it was a conditioning for the Final Solution; the hatred had already begun, crystalizing with Hitler's ascent to power.

Frankly, as a Jew whose parents survived the Holocaust, I'm a little offended by your rather flippant remarks. ("Dude had the charisma." "Ooh, we've hit a nerve!") Your history is specious at best, if not blatantly incorrect, and the manner in which you present yourself tells me you aren't thinking things through before you write them or you aren't policing yourself well enough. I shudder to think that either of them might not be the case.

Shudder away Bix.

I may be flip, but I'm also right.

Of course anti-Semitism was there. I'm not saying it wasn't.
I'm saying it didn't EXPLODE until later.

Am I wrong?

Are you looking for threadbare weaknesses in what I write?

I think before I write, even if that doesn't appear to be the case.

This discussion should be about Leni Riefenstahl.

I'm not a historian. I write from my heart.

Johann wrote:

Shudder away Bix.

I may be flip, but I'm also right.

Of course anti-Semitism was there. I'm not saying it wasn't.
I'm saying it didn't EXPLODE until later.

Am I wrong?

Right about what? Explode later? When is later? Hitler took power in 1933 and the persecution began immediately. Kristallnacht was in 1938, before he invaded Poland. Is there some sort of demarcation point where cruelty begins just because mass executions have begun? Is death the only explosion worth talking about?


This discussion should be about Leni Riefenstahl.

This is a quote from your original post:

"90% of the people supported Hitler before the war.
He was all about social justice and lifting Germany into a world power.
Work and Peace was the message.
Not "kill all Jews"- all of the anti-Semitic stuff came later.
It started small- people thought it was just political campaigning.
They didn't think people were serious about the Jewish hatred.
Then there was Goebbels. Then the shit hit the fan."

No mention of Riefenstahl there. Just some stuff about Hitler being all about "Work and Peace" and blaming anti-Semitism on Goebbels.

You're right, Johann: you're not a historian. And I don't think your heart's in the right place.

Later is HOLOCAUST LATER.

That "stuff" about Hitler is in the fucking documentary.

The documentary is about RIEFENSTAHL.

You zeroed in on true points found in the documentary.

I apologize that I wasn't writing up to your holy standards of historical accuracy.

You got a bone to pick, but it ain't with me.

The seeds of Jewish hatred was there before the Holocaust- I'm not disputing that at all.

All I meant was that pre-war Germany was about Work and Peace, social change, lifting Germany up. That's it.

Anti-Semitism was obviously and undeniably there, long before the Holocaust. But it was the Holocaust and the sheer horror of what Hitler was doing that woke everybody up to what a mistake it was to be behind this man- kinda like what's happening with Bush now. The people were realizing what was happening and it was dreadful.

Just ask Leni Riefenstahl.

By the way, I'm also aware of the "culpability" factor of Riefenstahl's "involvement" with the Nazi's.

I'm not so naive to think that she couldn't have known what powers she was dealing with, but at the same time that documentary put the hook in me.

If she's lying through her teeth about everything she says then I am one sorry ass mofo.

I believe her.

Maybe she's a greater actress than I can ever know?

I just respond as best I can.

There are some shady parts of her past that do not add up: dining with Himmler?!, employing camp detainees for a film that were then executed?!

Johann wrote:

I apologize that I wasn't writing up to your holy standards of historical accuracy.

Quit being so insulting both to your audience and to yourself. Your foot keeps going deeper into your mouth with every e-mail.

You got a bone to pick, but it ain't with me.

On the contrary, it most certainly is, as it would be with anyone making such inflammatory remarks.

You zeroed in on true points found in the documentary.

If the comments I've quoted of yours are truly from the documentary (which I have not seen) then either the facts are being misquoted or the film is wrong-headed. I suppose now I'll have to check it out to see which might be correct but I do so with the memories of thinking "Triumph Of The Will" (seen in college thirty years ago) and "Olympia" (on public TV, also at about the same time) were exhausting. In fact, I recall "Olympia" reminding me of "Wide World Of Sports".

Yes, this is a hot topic, and I didn't want to be credited with making any provocative remarks about the Nazis. Riefenstahl in my opinion, going largely by the film but also by her beautiful photos of the Nuba people (who certainly weren't blond and blue-eyed--though the primitivism of her celebration of their bodies is also a bit suspect), was a remarkable photographer and filmmaker -- and an opportunist and shady character -- who like many who operated during the Nazis preferred not to talk about that later on. She had a long life after WWII, doing the Nuba series, and then taking a boyfriend 40 years her junior who collaborated in a series of underwater photos done scuba diving in her 70's, also remarkable for a woman of an advanced age. It is troubling to think that sometimes artists are not nice or admirable people or at the very least of dubious politics. The documentary is worth seeing and debating her relationship to Hitler, etc., but it's been too long since I saw it to comment in detail. Wikipedia:

Quote:

---

She became a photographer and was later the first to photograph rock star Mick Jagger and his wife Bianca as a couple holding hands after they were married, as they were both admirers. Jagger told Riefenstahl he had seen Triumph of the Will at least 15 times.

---

The article tells us she published an underwater photo book on her 100th birthday. I think one can argue that her aesthetics of the body developed in the Triumph of the Will film expresses a fascist sensibility. I understand Richard Wagner's ideas were none too democratic or egalitarian; J.S. Bach was a grumpy dad...etc. I wouldn't say every artist or writer or fiilmmaker I like is somebody I admire as a person or would want to even meet. Riefenstahl is a pretty extreme case of that kind of thing. Leni is too interesting and accomplished a figure to dismiss simply because of her questionable associations, but there's no way to excuse her either. "The Wonderful and Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"-- the moral ambiguity of her achievement is expressed in the title of Ray Müller's 1994 film that started this discussion. Take a look at the whole Wikipedia article on Leni Riefenstahl for more information. It contains some things that a later film has revealed and facts I didn't know from Müller.

Julie Christie won an Oscar for her role as a young jet-setting model in the developing world of mod England, circa the mid-60s. As screenwriter Frederic Raphael envisions her, and as Christie plays her, she's an innocent naif getting windblown from relationship to relationship, casually destroying families in the process while trying to find true happiness, but Raphael's script is too conflicted about her to either embrace or condemn her--there seems an indifference to providing her any depth, preferring to play out the film's real drama in the reactions of her male suitors, played by a psuedo-intellectual Dirk Bogarde and an effectively slimy Laurence Harvey (who steals the show). Raphael does score some points in his caustic humiliation of Britain's upper class, shown appearing to care for the Third World's poverty but coming off as merely posturing. (The opening credits--in which a large advertisment highlighting Christie's face is whitewashed over a poster of a malnourished African child--is in fact the film's cleverest moment.) Directed very professionally--without a trace of blood--by John Schlesinger; just think of what "Darling" could've become in the hands of Richard Lester. Not a bad film--in fact, I find myself recommending it--but not what it could have been.

Hey Bix- you jumped all over something that was in the film.

I wouldn't have said it unless I could point to something that gave me that perspective.

How about you quit being a reactionary?

FRANKLY, I don't think there's anyhing inflamatory about what I said.

Hitler DID have the charisma, I HAVE hit a nerve.

I respect your sensibility to the subject matter- I feel for your parents. I feel for anybody who lived during that horrific time.

But don't overreact- there are two sides to every story.

That documentary provides a view of someone who was living through that history- by all means check it out.

I would love to discuss it further, Chris is right.

You cannot dismiss Riefenstahl as "just a propaganda filmmmaker".
She was an artist of considerable merit who did other things.
She also has some shadiness to her life that needs to be addressed.

Is that it?
That's all anybody wants to say?

Well let me expand on what I said.

The whole thrust of my argument for Riefenstahl was that she worked for Hitler before the war. When optimism was the rage.

When she made Olympia Hitler attended the games but he didn't care one iota about it.

Do you think he wanted to see a black man beat Germans?
Would he have enjoyed that type of spectacle?

Do you think he would've approved of Leni filming the Nuba tribe?

If she was such a Nazi then wouldn't she be towing the line?

I'll say it again: she agreed to make Triumph of the Will only if it was the last film for the Reich.

Before she met Hitler was she anti-Semitic? No.
When she was in the mountains shooting her daredevil stunts, was she secretly thinking of exterminating Jews? No.

Is there anything on record of her saying or doing anything that proves she shared Hitler's views? No.

Are major combat operations over, Bix?

You got something to say about Riefenstahl or do you just want to attack my style?

Johann wrote:

Are major combat operations over, Bix?

You got something to say about Riefenstahl or do you just want to attack my style?

No. Now that this has devolved into acrimony and insults, I'll just withdraw from this conversation. Thanks for writing!

I simply fell in love with Julie Christie... in 70mm. This definitely was her year. She appeared in the two top films of the year, this and Dr. Zhivago, both presented in the large screen format. Of course, Schlesinger (nominated for Darling) went on to win the best director Oscar for Midnight Cowboy, shot only a few small budget features before he tackled the big budget, Darling.

Sitting in the State theater, with its 100 plus foot screen and watching Darling probably twenty or more times, I fell in love with Julie Christie. To me, she is one of the great stars from the 1960's. She had incredible screen presence, and could recite the telephone book beautifully. (Remember Far from the Madding Crowd, Heaven can Wait, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Shampoo, etc???) Unfortunately, she fell into obscurity after the 1970's only to be resurrected recently in Neverland. When Zhivago came out, we all fell in love with Julie, as she clearly became everyone's darling being the notorious, Laura.

Who can forget Zhivago, clutching his heart as the gorgeous Christie, just feet away, walks down the street oblivious to the fact her greatest love dropped dead right behind her. I fell a long time ago to Julie Christie. See her at the zenith of her career in Darling, for which she rightly won the year's top honor as Best Actress of the Year. (Omar Shariff, by the way, got robbed that year!)

I goofed: Only Zhivago was presented in 70mm. I forgot that Darling was shot almost docu style in Black and white, despite its ads saying, "Darling... in dazzling color!" Sorry... anyway, watch both.