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Leni Riefenstahl

posted 10 years ago by Camelot_2000
2 replies | jump to latest

It's unfortunate she made films for the evil Nazi regime, but she was truly excellent at her craft. She devised so many clever camera angles to perfectly capture an event, such as the 1936 Berlin Olympics. She's definitely the Queen of Film Making. It's just too bad all her talent and dedication was under Hitler. That was sufficient enough to ruin her career afterwards. She made it to the old, old age of 101.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leni_Riefenstahl

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[–] pitviper_90 10 years ago

It is rather unfortunate that such a wonderful talent was purely utilized for such evil propaganda campaigning. I do think that Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will is one of the perfect examples of cinema which forces us to differentiate between the artistry and craft in the creation of the film and with what intent it is created. Propaganda doesn't always have to mean it is simply reduced to advertisement and is without artistic merit. Triumph of the Will was for Germany what D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation was for America.

I don't however agree with Riefenstahl being labelled the greatest female filmmaker of the 20th century. There were better ones, and more influential ones, namely Agnès Varda and (my personal favorite) Chantal Akerman.

[–] jazzgirl1920s 10 years ago

I met her at the Cincon when it was held in Glendale, California. She was the honored guest and talked about her films and life which was quite an amazing one. Don't remember the year she was there. There were some protesters but mostly she was appreciated as a great film maker. I agree she is the Queen of Film Making.

"50, count 'em 50, ambassadors will definitely appear at the peace conference."