Triumph Of The Will Movie Analysis

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Prama Neeraja 14F122 Final Paper Art and Artist - Identity in times of Conflict? One of the most crucial question any artist faces is defining his identity identity with respect to his art. There are many schools of thought that argue that art has its own identity, its appreciation or criticism has very little relevance to the artist or the context in which it was created, rather it is with its theoretical aspects - subject, form, color and process of its creation. Not denying the significance of the theoretical aspects of the paintings, it has been observed, more often than not, the identity of the artist and context has held, if not more, an equal amount of significance with respect to the art. Evaluating entire history will perhaps …show more content…

Leni Reifenstahl’s brilliant piece of film, Triumph of the will, considered a successful propaganda of the neoclassicism and Reich Chancellery is a great example to context of this paper.8 This movie has been criticised inspite of the use of spectacular filmmaking as a advocacy of a profound unethical system. In Germany, this movie is classified as Nazi promotion and is restricted to be watched only under post-war denazification laws, unless used under educational context. But Riefenstahl later claimed that she was naïve about the Nazis when she made it and had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal or anti-semitic policies. She also pointed out that Triumph of the Will contains "not one single anti-semitic word", although it does contain a veiled comment by Julius Streicher, the notorious Jew-baiter (who was hanged after the Nuremberg trials), that "a people that does not protect its racial purity will perish." Inspite of artist coming clean about her political agenda, her claim to declassify the movie as propaganda and plea for its consumption as art has been met with deaf ears. Her work of art is just not objected because of content, it might be the case to an extent, but her political inclination at the time and perception of the larger audience when it was released make a strong case for banning this movie in

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