Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will Propaganda

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Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will Propaganda

I am going to discuss whether Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will

(1934) was propaganda, or a representational recording of an event.

Riefenstahl was considered “an intricate part of the Third Reich's

propaganda machine[1]”, yet she claimed that:

"If you see this film again today you ascertain that it doesn't

contain a single reconstructed scene. Everything in it is true. And it

contains no tendentious commentary at all. It is history. A pure

historical film... it is film-vérité. It reflects the truth that was

then in 1934, history. It is therefore a documentary[2]”

It is clear that there are two very different parts to this story,

with general consensus being that Hitler wanted it to be propaganda,

and with his influence on Riefenstahl he could get what he wanted, but

with Riefenstahl’s wish that there would be no political agenda, she

insisted that she created it to be a record of the events at the

rally.

Riefenstahl had been making films for 10 years, and Hitler approached

her to make an artistic film about the Nuremberg Rally, after he had

been impressed by her previous work, which included Victory of Faith

(1933), a short film about the 1933 Nuremberg rally. Triumph of the

Will was to be an extravaganza, with “an unlimited budget, crew of 120

and between 30 and 40 cameras[3]”. Hitler didn’t want anything to

stand in the way of Riefenstahl, and although he gave orders that she

should have unlimited access in Nuremberg, she was not aided by the SS

men in any way. “Once some SS men pushed our sound van into a ditch;

our tracks were dismantled, and I was not allowed into...

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[1] Leonard Maltin, “Biography for Leni Riefenstahl”

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0726166/bio, (1994)

[2] David Thomson, “A Biographical Dictionary Of The Cinema”, Secker &

Warburg, (1964)

[3] Ellen Cheshire, “Leni Riefenstahl: Documentary Film-Maker or

Propagandist?” http://www.kamera.co.uk/features/leniriefenstahl.html,

(2000)

[4] Leni Riefenstahl, “The Sieve Of Time”, Quartet books ltd, (1992)

p160

[5] Alexander Kimel , “Hitler’s Popularity”

http://www.kimel.net/popularity.html (No date available)

[6] Riefenstahl, op. cit p158

[7] ibid p162

[8] Ellen Cheshire, op. cit

[9] ibid

[10] Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf” Volume One, Chapter Six: “War

Propaganda"(1924) Germany. Translated by Ralph Manheim (1943),

Houghton-Mifflin.

[11] Riefenstahl Op Cit p158

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