MovieChat Forums > Triumph des Willens (1935) Discussion > Documentary?

Documentary?

posted 18 years ago by reel_movies
7 replies | jump to latest

Can this really be classified as a documentary? If I'm not mistaken, pretty much all of this was planned in advance to be shot in a particular way. What do you think?

[–] sezza899 18 years ago

As I heard it in a documentary on Leni Riefenstahl, apparantly Hitler and the Nazi party had no input into how it was directed at all, they just told Leni to do it.
In the documentary, when interviewed, Leni also says that she saw it as a piece of art (ie a documentary) and didn't film certain parts of it certain ways to satisfy Hitler, she did it because cinematically it made it interesting. At the time she didn't think that she was making a propagranda film, and in the interview she still didn't see it as propaganda, but as a doumentary on the Nazi party.

But even though she saw it just as a documentary, obviously the Nazis didn't and still turned it into propaganda.

[–] mooning_out_the_window 18 years ago

I am also undescided as to whether this is a 'true' documentary. I understand that a documentary can mean different things to different people. But to me, it means documenting the real, true events that would happen with or without the documentary. The question I ask myself is this: would there have been a rally without Triumph des Willens? Can the two be seperated? Was everything planned just for the making of this film? etc.

"Thank God I'm an atheist"
Bow down to Bunuel
Borderline obsessive

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] klaus_ga 17 years ago

"Obviously"...

I for one do not think it is as obvious that the movie is propaganda. It is obvious that the events portrayed is meant to sway the people there and to exemplify the glory of the Third Empire, but whether the MOVIE is meant as a propaganda platform is not totally clear.

At least not to me.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Kinematico 17 years ago

It's pure propaganda, no doubt about it. One of the best pieces of propaganda ever made (if not the best). It's not a documentary.

Here you can read a very insightful review about this film and about the controversy on being a documentary or merely a propaganda tool.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s232will.html

I recommend you also to rent Synapse DVD and to turn on the audio commentary. It was done by a very knowledgeable historian.

[–] southwestern71 17 years ago

Triumph des Willens is the best propaganda film ever made, & to a lesser degree one of the best documentary films ever made. Don’t forget this film covers the events of the Sixth Nuremberg Party Congress. This rally initially did not have a theme. Later it was labelled "Rally of Unity and Strength" (Reichsparteitag der Einheit und Stärke), "Rally of Power" (Reichsparteitag der Macht) or "Rally of Will" (Reichsparteitag des Willens). The Leni Reifenstahl film Triumph des Willens was made at this rally in 1934.The honour of best documentary films ever made would go to Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker & Olympia 2. Teil - Fest der Schönheit about the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, both films also directed by Leni Riefenstahl. Politics aside Leni Riefenstahl is without question the best documentary film maker ever.

Leni Riefenstahl’s first documentary in 1933 Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith) is a prequel to Triumph of the Will (1935). Riefenstahl was hired despite opposition from Nazi officials that resented employing a woman — and a non-Party member. Her film recounts the Fifth Party Rally of the Nazi Party, which occurred in Nuremberg from August 30th to September 3rd 1933.

After the war the Americans wanted to try Leni Riefenstahl as a war criminal largely on the strength of Triumph des Willens, fortunately they came to their senses & she was never tried. The power of Triumph des Willens is so strong that even knowing full well the outcome of the Second World War you think to yourself had I been around at the time & enlisted in the SS maybe my contribution would have made a difference, which of course it wouldn’t have done. A good friend of mine who happens to be a North London Jew saw this film at a film retrospective & came out the cinema with anti-Semitic thoughts before he reminded himself he is Jewish. Now that’s what I call propaganda!