University of Connecticut, Department of Political Science
Lecture: Politics, Propaganda and Cinema, Fall 2005

Leni Riefenstahl: Propagandist or Documentarist?

by: Claudia Baczewski

1 Table of Contents

2 Introduction 3

3 Definitions 4

4 Triumph of the Will  5

5 Olympia  7

6 Conclusion  8

7 Bibliography  9

2 Introduction

Berta Helene Amalie Riefenstahl, born on 22 August 1902 in Berlin was a German dancer, actress, documentarist, director and photographer. Leni Riefenstahl is a complex, controversial, and enigmatic individual. She was one of the most controversy figures of film history because of her closeness to National Socialism in general and to Adolf Hitler in particular. Her films, at the head “Triumph of the Will“, are accused to glorify the nation socialist ideology - a critic Leni Riefenstahl rejected all her life.

At the same time she has also created an aesthetic being even to her opponents considered as pointing the way to a new form of film shooting. After 1945 Leni Riefenstahl was other than in the US or Japan boycotted in Germany. Her trademark was the idealized portrayal and display of perfect bodies and of large crowds. Furthermore, she introduced a new revolutionary way of a dynamic cutting technique. Leni Riefenstahl died on 8 September 2003 in Poecking, Germany.

3 Definitions

Propaganda films are produced for the express purpose of propaganda: convincing the viewer of a certain political point. Propaganda films, also often documentaries, are not limited to non-fiction films. Propagandists try to influence people′s opinions actively. The specific type of message presentation in propaganda films aim at propagating a certain point of view.

A documentary on the other hand is a film which aims at portraying aspects of the world, at narrating or at examining. There are hardly any engaged actors. Instead real people, places and situations reflect the story of a documentary. The staging of the director plays an important role. How does the director use the images that prevail to her? What is being added, supported, or cut? Another factor is the reenactment of scenes, which could not be taped because they have taken place in the past. It lies in the hands of the director to which extent she can portray the actual events.

4 Triumph of the Will

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