![]() ![]() Personally, after reading the book I felt the ambivalence towards Riefenstahl stemmed largely from her badly timed 1938 trip to America in which she found herself, quite rightly, denying any knowledge of Kristallnacht, an event which occurred during her voyage there. To a degree it is down to her sex – how dare this woman try to be a powerful figure in the film industry, a business that even almost a century later is still gender unequal? As Salkeld points out, if she had not made the film so well then her association with Nazism would likely have been more of a footnote in her career than a millstone around her neck. The hatred towards Leni for Triumph of the Will seems to be more about her than her film. So why then did Leni Riefenstahl’s career collapse in the post-Hitler years? Nobody else involved in making the film seems to have had difficulty with their career after the war, and for that matter, for the most part, neither have other German film-makers responsible for some of the vilest of anti-Semitic propaganda, of which Triumph is not in the least bit guilty. Winning the Gold Medal for Artistry from the French at the 1937 World Exhibition and void of any anti-Semitic dialogue, Salkeld effectively suggests Triumph’s notoriety is almost entirely retrospective and applied by those with a dislike for Leni. ![]() While the film is undoubtedly propaganda it is also consistent with Leni’s style from previous films and more a part of her oeuvre than a tool for brainwashing. She was cleared of being a Nazi by a post-war investigation TWICE, and then spent many years doggedly interrogated off and on by the French who still failed to label her as such.ĭespite being Nazi propaganda, the making of her most famous film Triumph of the Will (1934) was met with resistance by the SA, who smashed up some of her equipment, and the Wehrmacht, who she had to appease by promising to make a film for ( Day of Freedom - Our Armed Forces, 1935). ![]() She was not anti-semitic, having many Jewish colleagues, and even hired blacklisted people to work on her films during the Nazi era. She emphasises important points such as the fact Leni was never a member of the Nazi party and was more a devotee of Hitler the man than the ideology he espoused. While other authors, biased against the film-maker, may like to skim over some of the ‘inconvenient’ facts which make Leni seem less villainous, Salkeld lends a voice to them. Unlike many of Riefenstahl’s detractors, Salkeld reviews all the apocryphal stories surrounding her subject and exposes the truth behind them. ![]()
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