German film maker Leni Riefenstahl (1902 – 2003) and cameraman Walter Frentz being wheeled along by an assistant at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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If anyone in Germany had the ability to tailor their image and avoid retribution following the devastating carnage of World War II, it was Leni Riefenstahl.
As a seasoned filmmaker and chief propagandist for the ruthless Nazi regime, she not only knew how to spin a captivating yarn, but also how to execute it in such a way — adjusting the frame, coaching performances, editing out pieces here and there — until it possessed a dangerous power to manipulate human thoughts and emotions.
Riefenstahl had proved as much with Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938), a pair of cinematic propaganda coups blessed by that preeminent manipulator of truth and head of the Nazi lie factory: Joseph Goebbels.
When the fascist dictatorship founded on grotesque principles of anti-Semitism and racial purity fell before advancing Allied forces in early May of 1945, Riefenstahl claimed she knew nothing of the unspeakable Nazi atrocities that resulted in the death of 11 million people, six million of them Jews (these crimes against humanity are, of course, collectively known as the Holocaust).
After several rounds of denazification trials, Riefenstahl received the designation of Follower/Fellow Traveler (Mitläufer). The second-best level after Exonerated, or non-incriminated persons (Entlastete), those dubbed Mitläufer faced mild repercussions, which included everything from a fine to a temporary employment ban.
A slap on the wrist, in other words.
Adolph Hitler gives a Nazi salute, as German men and women look on and laugh. (Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
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It seems almost laughably absurd that someone who moved in the highest echelons of the Third Reich, regularly brushing shoulders with Adolf Hitler himself, could, essentially, get off scot-free. And until her own dying day on September 8, 2003 at the ripe old age of 101, the Führer’s favorite director maintained a dubious myth of total innocence.
That translucent fable of absolution is now being challenged, in Riefenstahl’s own words, by way of an audaciously illuminating documentary from native German writer-director, Andres Veiel, who gained unprecedented access to the late subject’s estate.
Aptly-titled Riefenstahl, the portrait of a serial narcissist in denial, required two years of preparation, during which time numerous archive researchers went through and digitized hundreds of boxes containing hundreds and thousands of photographs, documents, recorded phone calls, and films.
“We were the first people to get access,” explains Veiel,” who subsequently spent around 18 months editing the feature together. “It takes time and there are a lot of dead ends. “It was a rollercoaster ride. But in the end, I can say it’s the film I wanted to make.”
Expecting to see a pre-sanitized curtation of Riefenstahl’s life, Veiel was surprised to find that she had left behind “a lot of contradictions” among the “legends and lies,” he says. “She was not able to sift through everything. This was our chance, and we grabbed it. After a couple of weeks, I saw all these contradictions and new findings.”
Perhaps the most damning evidence presented in the film is a 1952 letter from an adjutant, who labeled Riefenstahl as the root cause of one of the very first massacres of Jews in Poland shortly after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Riefenstahl, who was on the ground as a documentarian of the so-called “blitzkrieg” campaign, allegedly gave the order to remove Jews from a marketplace in the town of Końskie. If so, the order eventually led to the shooting of 22 innocent people.
“For sure, she was an eyewitness — or maybe even a catalyst, giving stage directions like, ‘Jews out of the image,’” Veiel says.
He continues: “Of course, she remained with all her legends, but the interesting question is, ‘Why?’ What are the necessities to keep on lying, to remain with all her legends? It’s not a moral question. It’s more a question to understand deeply what she had to repress and what the necessities are. Why is the guilt is so big that she had to lie? Not in terms of exoneration. I don’t want to apologize or excuse her for anything, but [I wanted] to understand the mechanisms of guilt, the repression of guilt, and how deeply infected she was, being part of a system responsible for all these cruel deeds.”
Aside from a handful of voiceover moments (courtesy of Andrew Bird), Riefenstahl cleverly relies on archival images, footage, and audio — allowing the titular subject to highlight her own potholed narrative.
“It’s her,” affirms, Veiel, who realized there was no need to hold the audience’s hand by overly pointing out the inconsistencies every single time. “She tells us the contradictions by telling one story and then a second story … You can discover it as a spectator. That’s much better than me being the guide, telling you how to think about it.”
‘Riefenstahl’
Courtesy of Vincent Productions
In fact, the nearly two-hour film is “just the tip of the iceberg,” notes the director, revealing that documents from the estate show that the heating and sanitation business run by Riefenstahl’s father, Alfred, aided in and profited from the construction of concentration camps. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Was it on purpose, or was she maybe too old?’’ he muses. “Is there a need to come to terms? Not in her lifetime, but let’s say Andres Veiel gets the estate and he will arrange something? I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s a message for me, ‘Please show me in the right light with all my flaws and mistakes.’ No, I think she [just] made mistakes [leaving all this evidence behind].”
For Veiel, the documentary is just as much a history lesson as it is a cautionary tale about rise of fascism in present-day. “It’s a prophecy of what is happening today. A warning of what could happen, and is about to happen right now,” he concludes.
“In the beginning we thought, ‘Okay, we have to work work with archive footage of Putin, of Xi Jinping.’ No, it’s not necessary. Because when somebody watches it from Russia or, let’s say Poland, he or she will have other associations. But everybody will connect it somehow with the presence in his or her country … [Riefenstahl] always said, ‘I would love to work for Stalin.’ And maybe now she would say, ‘I would love to work for Donald Trump or for Putin or for Xi Jinping.’”
Riefenstahl is now playing at Lincoln Center and Quad Cinema in New York City. The film will open in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal and Laemmle Town Center 5 next Friday — September 12.