Leni Riefenstahl

As previously mentioned I have recently been delving into the life of Leni Riefenstahl and very interesting it has been. For the uninitiated Leni was a mediocre actress cum dancer with a talent for social climbing and narcissistic behaviour. She also ended up becoming one of the greatest and most innovative film makers of the 20th Century. Her documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Olympia is a masterpiece of aesthetic composition and pays homage to the body beautiful.


However she is most infamously remembered for her film of the 1934 Nuremburg rally for the newly empowered National Socialist Party (that's the Nazis to you and me) Triumph Of The Will. Leni arouses a great deal contentious opinion whenever her name comes up in conversation or the press. Artist or Nazi? Supreme aesthete or propagandist tool of the authors of the Holocaust?


The film itself IS an incredible historical document and consummately made. This was Lenis first major film making exercise and is really awe inspiring in its grandiosity (she had tried to make a film the previous year at Hitlers behest but fallen foul of a lack of co operation and finance and Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith) made in 1933 became a practice run for the following year) Of course the subject matter makes it uncomfortable viewing at times but it shouldn't detract from the innovation used, techniques which where to be copied decades later and which we still see today. This really ushered in the beginning of the 'moving' camera. Until this time films consisted of static cameras shooting actors, dialogue and action. Leni had learnt a lot from Arnold Fanck a director whom she had been an actor for in his then popular mountain climbing films. Leni rounded of her ' propagandist' films with Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces) in 1935 another Nuremburg party film mainly featuring the German Army (they complained that they weren't featured strongly enough in Triumph of The WIll so where given a film all to themselves.




Both Olympia and Triumph of the Will where fated both in Europe and America and won several high profile festival awards. So, what was Leni? Heartless Nazi harlot or naive creative? Well in the final analysis a bit of both. The almost hysterical reactionism that surrounds the mention of her name I find a little revisionist for my liking. For sure Leni was an admirer of the Nazis but then so where 90% of the German people at that time (and half of the British royal family) One has to remember this was before the war and before the Jewish pogroms and kristellnacht. She was never a member of the Nazi Party and after the war was cleared of any 'wrong doing' in several trials (whilst a sizeable number of Nazis went straight to work for the new German government). I detest the number of uninformed people who decry her as if she personally built Auschwitz with her own hands and is some sort of devil incarnate (and inaccurately state that she used slave labour from the death camps for one of her movies - she did use Sinti gypsies from the Salzburg-Maxglan transit camp as extras on Tiefland in 1940 which was before the death camps where operational and also from Marzahn detention camp near Berlin in 1944)




Did her films encourage people to commit war crimes, I think not. Merely a case of art reflecting life and a very good record of the zeitgeist of pre-war Nazi Germany. After the war despite great efforts she never made another film, although she did find time to edit and release her magnum opus Tiefland one of the most expensive films in history and holder of the record for longest film production ever. (started in 1940 and finished in 1954 - although scripting began in 1934!) She also made a tidy career pursuing anyone who suggested she was anything other than a film maker and won every libel and slander case (in excess of 50) she entered into.



After the failure of Tiefland Leni created a new career (and and a new self) as a photographer in Africa mostly documenting the Nuba tribe (and herself of course) in Sudan and latterly became an underwater film maker/photographer. She lived to be 101 years old and worked almost to the day she died and remained defiant in defence of her work. Just before she died she was involved in a serious helicopter accident, When asked what message she would like to leave behind should it be her last interview, she said " Say yes!! to life!! " Asked if she regretted anything she said " My connection to the Third Reich "



Leni may have been a self seeking nymphomaniac whose political naivety closed her eyes to some of the worse aspects of the Nazi regime, she may even have been anti-Semitic (as where many Germans) but her artistry and innovative creativity cannot be discounted. So feel free to watch her films guilt free whilst never forgetting what the regime she worked for represented.



Like many high achieving, driven individuals Riefenstahl managed to accomplished great things, often at the expense of others (including friends and mentors) whilst not being a particularly nice person. However, I would say that these less pleasant aspects of her character directly contributed to her ability to accomplish her lifes work.

Watch:
The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl on DVD
or read:
Leni: The Life & Work of Leni Riefenstahl .. and make up your own mind.

Related:
Das Blue Licht (co-directed with Bela Balazs) (1932)
Triumph of the Will (1934)
Olympia: (1938)
Olympia 1. Teil — Fest der Völker (Festival of Peoples) Olympia 2. Teil — Fest der Schönheit (Festival of Beauty).

Lux Interior

I was saddened to hear of the death of Lux Interior front man for erstwhile 'psychobilly' band The Cramps last week.




from the Chicago tribune: By Greg Kot

The erstwhile Lux, whose real name was Erick Lee Purkhiser formed the Cramps in New York in 1976 with his wife, guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach (a.k.a. Kristy Wallace). From the get-go, the group anticipated punk and put its own demented twist on it, with songs that blended campy B-movie imagery, rockabilly fervor and surf-music reverb. Though the band's early records are prized by punk aficionados, the band excelled onstage, and its shows were as theatrical as they were chaotic. With their gender-bending stage outfits, the Cramps flipped the script on rock's sexual role-playing: Lux was the sexy vamp, while his wife played the impassively mysterious guitarist shrouded in shadows. For all the chaos he caused, Lux Interior was a thoughtful, passionate fan offstage. He could talk for hours about early rock 'n' roll, with a musicologist's knowledge, and would share the treasures in his vast collection of obscure 45-r.p.m. singles with anyone who visited his home.




I discovered The Cramps as part of the punk explosion in the UK in the late 70s and early 80s and can remember playing in a band doing a passable cover of Human Fly. At gigs Lux was a livewire outdoing Iggy in the insanity stakes and like Iggy kept performing despite the onset of the years and with the same levels of almost suicidal energy.

In 1978 the band performed at The Mental Institue at Napa Calafornia. It makes for a slightly bizarre but always entertaining watch and says much about Lux and The Cramps that they would play such a gig.

For your viewing pleasure here is a clip :

It only remains for me to say au revoir Lux, the world will be a duller place for your absence.

Little Red Boats and Asthmatic Children

Lets get something clear, I pretty much hate the way that Humans use cars. I hate the way that everyones lives have become subordinate to the automobile, where cyclists are second best and pedestrians often third best. Its a danger to walk the streets and cross the roads and 1 in 4 children in this country suffer from Asthma (due to traffic pollution).
Having said that, I can drive, I don't own a car, never have and never really wish to BUT I do like the aesthetics and design of automobiles.

Look at this beauty. A 1938 Phantom Corsair Prototype. Unfortunately the designer Rust Heinz (another German!) died before the car could go into production.

I wouldn't mind being run over or barged off the road by cars that looked like this. It would definately appeal to my sense of irony and aesthetic to be mowed down by a piece of art.

If I could have ANY car in the world it would be this cheeky little number. A 1957 Alfa Romeo Barchetta (meaning little boat) I can definately see myself cruising the winding roads of the South of France in this and maybe even running over a few asthmatic children just for the hell of it.

The Italians certainly know a thing or two about design, especially when it comes to cars.

Express Yourself ..

I seem to be in something of a German phase at present (expect this to continue). I have been watching a lot of German expressionist movies this week and have recently finished reading a biography about Leni Riefenstahl, which in turn, has led to an interest in Wiemar era Berlin and the incredible surge of decadence and creativity which took place there after the first world war and lasted until the rise of the Nazis. (more about Leni later)

The breathtaking Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari (1919)

Although the film itself is poor quality, not having being digitally restored like Metropolis or Nosferatu, the expressionist painted sets are a delight. One can only hope (like the finest film snob) that someone gets round to restoring this slice of cinematic history.

Many of the German directors, cameramen, cinematographers and designers from this period ended up in Hollywood as the Wiemar republic ended and Hitlers persecution of the Jews and purging of 'degenerative art ' drove Germany's' film makers abroad. Lucky Hollywood! You can see their work stamped all over Universal Horror movies and film noir of the 30s and 40s.

Set design by Hermann Warm and painted by Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig.

When producer Eric Pommer began to have doubts about how the film should be designed, they had to convince him that it made sense to paint light and shadows directly onto set walls, floors and background canvases and to place flat sets behind the actors. The studio at the time only had a limited supply of lights and electricity!

The star of the film was undoubtedly Conrad Veidt, an actor who later on ended up in Hollywood himself after leaving Germany and living in Britain for a while. Conrad left Das Reich shortly after marrying his Jewish girlfriend.

One of Conrad's later roles 'The Man Who Laughs ' (1928) ended up being the inspiration for The Joker in the Batman comics. The movie was a silent film made in America and was directed by German expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni.

Looks familiar huh?