Footnotes for
“Wherever you may run, you cannot escape him”: Leni Riefenstahl's
Self-Reflection and Romantic Transcendence of Nazism in Tiefland

An article by Robert von Dassanowsky

NOTES

My thanks to Sasha Torres and Teresa Jillson for their insightful suggestions, and to Peter Bondanella for including the genesis of this article in the “European Cinemas/European Societies 1895-1995: Conference to Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Cinema” at Indiana University, Bloomington.

1.  A 1993 international co-production of Omega/Nomad/ZDF/Channel 4.

2.  Stephen Schiff, 'Leni's Olympia,' Vanity Fair September 1992: 251-296.

3.  David Hinton, The Films of Leni Riefenstahl (Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1978); Renata Berg-Pan, Leni Riefenstahl (Boston: Twayne, 1980).

4.  B. Ruby Rich, "Leni Riefenstahl: The Deceptive Myth," Sexual Stratagems: The World of Women in Film, ed. Patricia Erens (New York: Horizon, 1979) 202-209.

5.  Cooper C. Graham, Leni Riefenstahl and "Olympia" (Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1986).

6.  Martin Loiperdinger, Der Parteitagsfilm "Triumph des Willens" von Leni Riefenstahl: Rituale der Mobilmachung (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 1987).

7.  Gisela von Wysocki, "Die Berge und die Patriarchen: Leni Riefenstahl," Die Fröste der Freiheit: Aufbruchsphantasien (Frankfurt: Syndikat, 1980) 70-8S; Eric Rentschler, "Fatal Attractions: Leni Riefenstahl's The Blue Light," October 48 (Spring 1989): 46-68; Eric Rentschler, "Mountains and Modernity: Relocating the Bergfilm," New German Critique 51 (1990): 137-161.

8.  Linda Schulte-Sasse, "Leni Riefenstahl's Feature Films and the Question of a Fascist Aesthetic," Framing the Past: The Historiography of German Cinema and Television, ed. Bruce A. Murray and Christopher J. Wickham (Carbonda le: Southern Illinois UP, 1992) 140-166.

9.  Thomas Elsaesser, "Leni Riefenstahl: The Body Beautiful, Art Cinema and Fascist Aesthetics," Women in Film: A Sight and Sound Reader, eds. Pam Cook and Phillip Dodd (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993) 186-197.

10.  Helma Sanders-Brahms, "Tyrannenmord: Tiefland von Leni Riefenstahl," Das Dunkle zwischen den Bildern: Essays, Porträts, Kritiken, ed. Norbert Grob (Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992) 24S-2Sl.

11.  The first attempts of feminist acceptance of Riefenstahl were documented by Susan Sontag who details the 1973 New York Film Festival poster created by a feminist artist promoting Leni Riefenstahl along with Agnés Varda and Shirley Clarke. "Fascinating Fascism," Under the Sign of Saturn (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980) 84. Not all feminists have moved towards an acceptance of Riefenstahl. Germans tend to remain unconvinced of her role in women's art. Sigrid Vagt considers Das blaue Licht to be the propaganda for totalitarian social polarization and idealization of the female. "Das blaue Licht: Logik des Entweder-oder," Frauen und Film 14 (1977): 28. Helge Heberle finds Riefenstahl's art to be hopelessly inseparable from its Nazi ideology. See, "Notizen zur Riefenstahl-Rezeption," Frauen und Film 14 (1977): 29-34. Nevertheless, Louise Heck-Rabi in Women Filmmakers: A Critical Reception (Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1984), Ally Acker in "Leni Riefenstahl," Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present (New York: Continuum, 1991) 298-303, and B. Ruby Rich all reject the "myths and emotionalism" (Rich 202) surrounding Riefenstahl and her work which has previously inhibited any real cinematic analysis or feminist discussion of her art.

12.  Richard Corliss, "Riefenstahl's Last Triumph," Time 18 October 1993: 91-92.

13.  Berg-Pan 164.

14.  David Stewart Hull, Film in the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973) 174.

15.  The recent publication of the autobiographies of Marika Rökk and Kristina Söderbaum, which deal with their exile from cinema in the postwar era, has not escaped German criticism. See, "Unendliche Geschichte," Der Spiegel 43 (1993): 2S9-260.

16.  David Gunston, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film Quarterly 14.1 (Fall 1960): 4-19.

17.  Michel Delahaye, "Leni Riefenstahl," Interviews with Film Directors, ed. Andrew Sarris (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1968) 387-402.

18.  Kevin Brownlow, "Leni Riefenstahl" Film Winter 1966: 14-19.

19.  Corliss 92.

20.  Budd B. Schulberg, "Nazi Pin-up Girl: Hitler's No. 1 Movie Actress," Saturday Evening Post 30 March 1946: 11-41.

21.  Tiefland, dir. Leni Riefenstahl, perf. Leni Riefenstahl, Franz Eichberger, Bernhard Minetti, Aribert Wäscher, Maria Koppenhöfer, and Karl Skraup, Leni Riefenstahl Produktion/Tobis, 1954.

22.  Sanders-Brahms 245.

23.  Das blaue Licht, dir. Leni Riefenstahl, perf. Leni Riefenstahl, Mathias Wieman, Max Holzboer, Benni Führer, and Martha Maire, Leni Riefenstahl Studio Films, 1932.

24.  Leni Riefenstahl, Memoiren (München: Knaus, 1987) 354. This work has also been translated as: A Memoir (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993). Henry Jaworsky (Heinz von Jaworsky), Riefenstahl's cinematographer on Das blaue Licht and Olympia, who continued his career in Europe and the US after 1945, believes Riefenstahl deliberately stretched Tiefland for seven years to avoid working on Party propaganda and dealing with the war. See, "Henry Jaworsky Interviewed by Gordon Hitchens, Kirk Bond, and John Hanhardt," Film Culture 56 (Spring 1973): 150.

25.  Triumph des Willens, dir. Leni Riefenstahl, camera, Sepp Allgeier, et al, Leni Riefenstahl Studio Films, 193S.

26.  Sieg des Glaubens, dir. Leni Riefenstahl, camera, Sepp Allgeier, et al, German Ministry of Propaganda, 1933.

27.  Olympia (Part 1: Fest der Völker, Part 2: Fest der Schönbeit), dir. Leni Riefenstahl, camera, Hans Ertl, et al, Olympia Film, 1938.

28.  Sanders-Brahms underscores the anti-elitist and anti-exploitation theme of the opera by noting that it has been a staple in Eastern Bloc opera houses (246).

29.  Riefenstahl, Memoiren 354. Max Reinhardt once considered Riefenstahl for the part of the Amazon queen in his own production of Kleist's Penthesilea (Schiff 291). Riefenstahl's very complete 1939 outline for the planned project and her production notes have been translated into English and published as "Why I Am Filming Penthesilea," trans. John Hanhardt, Film Culture 56 (Spring 1973): 192-215.

30.  Delahaye 399.

31.  Leni Riefenstahl, "One of Hitler's Favorites," interview with Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, CBS, 31 August 1980.

32.  Tag der Freiheit, dir. Leni Riefenstahl, camera, Willy Zielke, et al, Leni Riefenstahl Studio Film, 1935.

33.  Berg-Pan 145.

34.  Riefenstahl claims that Goebbels demanded she dismiss some of her staff, edit out the Black athletes from the footage, and ultimately intended to take possession of her film on the pretense that she had incurred a deficit of 80 Marks at the Filmkreditbank. Hitler ultimately acted on her complaints and removed Riefenstahl from Propaganda Ministry control, placing her under the administration of Rudolf Hess. Memoiren 278-280.

35.  Elsaesser 194.

36.  Riefenstahl, 60 Minutes.

37.  Riefenstahl, Memoiren 349-352. Riefenstahl does not claim they were Jews, as was previously reported by David Gunston in Film Quarterly (18). Her note of congratulation to Hitler upon his invasion of France and entry into Paris in 1940 has often been used as proof of Riefenstahl's undying loyalty to Hitler. It should instead be understood as an act of opportunism. Such a congratulatory message would maintain friendly relations with an all-powerful mentor who might have distanced himself from her since the Konsky incident, leaving her to the increasingly hostile inner circle lead by her nemesis, Joseph Goebbels.

38.  Riefenstahl, Memoiren 395.

39.  See Frankfurter Allgemeine 28 April 1954, and Filmwoche 6 February 1954.

40.  Berg-Pan 166.

41.  See Geoffrey Donaldson qtd. in Gunston (18). Sanders-Brahms believes that Riefenstahl's expressionistic intensity may not suit popular taste (251).

42.  Joe Hembus and Christa Bandmann, Klassiker des deutscben Tonfilms 1930-1960 (München: Goldmann, 1980) 241.

43.  Riefenstahl, Memoiren 525.

44.  See Berg-Pan 166 and Riefenstahl, Memoiren 525. Although G.W. Pabst and Veit Harlan had directed some secondary scenes for the film, neither directed Riefenstahl nor did they receive any credit. Berg-Pan believes neither wanted to be mentioned because Riefenstahl's status had become increasingly problematic after her criticism of the Polish campaign and with Goebbels's increase in power during the war (165).

45.  Schiff 295.

46.  Mary C. Gentile in Film Feminisms: Theory and Practice (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985) lists Riefenstahl in the roster of women filmmakers (Dulac, Arzner, Lupino, Deren) who represent an "alternate film tradition" and the "oppositional cultural practice" to the male dominated film art (4).

47.  Rich 207.

48.  Sontag 76. Sontag bases her discussion of Riefenstahl on Siegfried Kracauer's condemnation of the Bergfilm and the filmmaker in From Caligari to Hitler (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1947). Tiefland had not yet been released at the publication of Kracauer's study.

49.  Rentschler believes Das blaue Licht to be Riefenstahl's attempt to strengthen the female role in the Bergfilm genre. He also considers that Riefenstahl learned well the sexual objectification of women in film and offers, in the character of Junta, a consummate crafting of male fantasy. The film is perhaps also a premonition of Riefenstahl's life in Hitler's Germany: "A woman stars in and directs, her own fantasy of self destruction, creating a film about the fateful sacrifice of a woman for the sake of a community, a martyr role" (160).

50.  Rentschler 158.

51.  Rentschler 160.

52.  Berg-Pan 165.

53.  Leni Riefenstahl, interview with Keith Dewhurst, Review, 23 June 1972, BBC transcript, 26.

54.  See Klaus Theweleit, Männerphantasien: Frauen, Flüten, Körper, Geschichte, Band 1 (Frankfurt: Roter Stern, 1977) and Männerphantasien: Männerkörper-zur Psychoanalyse des Weißen Terrors, Band 2 (Frankfurt: Roter Stern, 1977) for a study of the homoerotic nature of German militarism and its artistic representation. Udo Pini's excellent photo-journalistic look at the body cult in Nazi Germany, Leibeskult und Liebeskitsch: Erotik im Dritten Reich (München: Klinkhardt und Biermann, 1992) arrives at a similar conclusion.

55.  Sanders-Brahms sees Pedro as a near-caricature of Rousseau's natural man. She also compares his pose with a lamb over his shoulder to 'kitsch" pictures of Jesus Christ (247).

56.  Riefenstahl attempts the female opposition to André Bazin's theory of erotic film, "one that is capable of provoking the audience to desire the heroine sexually and of keeping that desire alive" (Gentile 55). Gentile understands Bazin's theory as aimed toward a male or male-identifying female audience. Riefenstahl's appreciation of the male form is central to her film aesthetic, thus she may serve the female audience even as she imitates the male gaze. Both Eric Rentschler and Gisela von Wysocki consider Riefenstahl expert at creating images stimulating male desire.

57.  Laura Mulvey, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Feminism and Film Theory, ed. Constance Penley (New York: Routledge, 1988) 62.

58.  Berg-Pan 169.

59.  Berg-Pan 170.

60.  In the original libretto, the Marquez finds the gypsy "Marta" starving by the roadside and later forces her to yield to him. See Ricardo Mezzanote, et al, eds., The Simon and Schuster Book of the Opera: 1597 to the Present (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985) 335.

61.  Berg-Pan 171.

62.  Berg-Pan 17S.

63.  Berg-Pan 171.

64.  Both Stalin and Mussolini presented Riefenstahl with film offers. (Riefenstahl, Memoiren 187).

65.  Hitler relied on German industrialists and wealthy Junkers to finance his rise to power and later allowed capital to remain in private hands using the threat of intervention to produce cooperation. See David Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany 1933-1939 (New York: Norton, 1980) 5l.

66.  See Ann Rosalind Jones's discussion of Wittig (80ff) in "Inscribing Femininity: French Theories of the Feminine," Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. Gayle Green and Coppélia Kahn (London: Routledge, 1988).

67.  Berg-Pan 173.

68.  An excellent example of the male-dominated Nazi art and egalitarian Socialist Realism can be seen in the German and Soviet pavilions at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. Both structures are equally pompous and neoclassical. The German pavilion designed by Albert Speer features Josef Thorak's 23-foot tableau of "Family" (with the female figure dominated by the male) and the as-male "Comradeship." The Soviet pavilion of B.M. Iofan features a male/female couple equally tall and triumphant in their display of the hammer and sickle. See Peter Adam, Art of the Third Reich (New York: Abrams, 1992) 242-247.

69.  Riefenstahl writes of her upset and shame upon her 1942 return to Germany from the Dolomites to find Jews wearing yellow stars (Memoiren 395). Despite this and her experience at Konsky, Riefenstahl claims she knew nothing of the death camps until her Allied imprisonment. All her Jewish acquaintances (Béla Balàzs, Manfred George, Stefan Lorant) had left Germany. She records that Hitler was in a trancelike state during her visit in 1944, and that she was repelled by his tirade against the Russians and his lack of interest in the destruction of German cities (Memoiren 395-397).

70.  The extramarital affairs of Joseph Goebbels were known in Nazi Germany and have been widely recorded.

71.  Riefenstahl, Memoiren 26S-267; 269-270. Berg-Pan 44.

72.  Berg-Pan 173.

73.  Sontag 102.

74.  Riefenstahl, 60 Minutes.

75.  Berg-Pan 171-172.

76.  Berg-Pan 173.

77.  Sontag 70.

78.  Sontag has also accused Riefenstahl of lying about making Sieg des Glaubens and Tag der Freiheit, when in fact Riefenstahl has mentioned these films in interviews dating back to 1960 (77-78; 81).

79.  Wilhelm Bittorf, "Blut und Hoden," Der Spiegel 44 (1976): 228-230.

80.  Sontag 91.

81.  Hembus and Bandmann, who are no fans of the film or the director, consider Riefenstahl at age 40 to have been too old to play the part! (241). None of the personal and technical difficulties Riefenstahl experienced during the filming of Tiefland appear to have adversely affected what is a convincing, if somewhat restrained performance and a luminous presence. The older female lead adds to the iconoclastic message of the film and the unusual relationship between the characters of Martha and Pedro. Sanders-Brahms praises Riefenstahl's look in the film as Garboesque (251).

82.  Sontag 95.

83.  Jean Cocteau, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Marais, Vittorio de Sica, Caesare Zavatini, and Anna Magnani all intended to work with Riefenstahl in unrealized film projects during the 1950s. See Riefenstahl, Memoiren 512-515 and Berg-Pan 183-185.

84.  The spectacle of Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens is quoted in Lucas's Star Wars (1977), Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). The black and white pseudodocumentary style of Spielberg's treatment of the Holocaust, Schindler's List (1993) appears to be both homage to Riefenstahl's style and condemnation of Triumph's substance. It is an anti-Triumph des Willens, offering sweeping Riefenstahlian shots of the masses and impressive individual visages of those hated by Hitler's Reich. Spielberg's close-up shots of the Ghetto Jews calling out their names to be added to Schindler's factory detail is a clear quote from Scene 5 of Triumph: close-ups of the workers of the Reich Labor Service calling out the various regions of Germany assembled for inspection by Hitler and Reich Labor Service Leader, Konstantin Hierl. Whereas the men of Triumph identify themselves by region, ritualistically supporting Nazi concepts of race, geopolitics, and the anonymous mass, Spielberg's version enforces the importance of, and battle for, the individual in a genocidal order.

85.  Elsaesser 187; 194.

86.  Sanders-Brahms 250.

87.  Riefenstahl, Memoiren 400.

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