Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/01/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]These early alpine silent movies featuring Germanian hereos in Wagnerian style certainly are pioneering work. But for doing outdoor shooting rather than story. Leni Riefenstahl chiefly is remembered for her coverage of the Nuremberg NSDAP summit in 1935 and of the Berlin Olympics 1936. Both were propaganda events. The visual power of theses movies is nothing less than spectacular, and all that with limited technical means of the mid 1930s! Imagine what she could have done in Hollywood! Particularly the documentary of the 1936 party summit gives the impression that Riefenstahl did not simply "cover" the event, but that she was the choreographer. She was not a plain Nazi collaborator, naive and ignorant. She made the Nazis to dance for her. Maybe she wasn't a dedicated Nazi, but she didn't bother to do propaganda for them. And because of her work the allies wanted the trials to take place in Nuremberg, too. In the early 1930s she was a highly talented, young film director. A women. And many of her more established competitors had to leave Germany. How we would have decided in her place at the time? She preferrred to ignore the horror part and focussed on pure professionalism. Do your job as good as possible irrespective for whom and what. Secondary virtues we call that. This makes her story still interesting today. Regarding the Nuba thing, I think it is decent craftmanship, but not at all at the level of her pre-war work. I didn't know about the Magnum photographer who covered the Nuba before her. So her contribution is not original. The motivation to do it most likely was psychological. She wanted to take photos of "innocent" people this time. And she wanted to demonstrate that in the first place she is a good photographer. Later she was accused that her visits contributed to the deterioration of the Nuba culture. They began to wear baseball caps, addidas shorts and bikini tops. Of course she used contemporary Leica equipment from the early 1970s: two M5 and two Leiceflex SL mot with the complete line of lenses from 21mm to 560mm. How that 70+ year old women managed to carry all that? HP - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html