Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/09/09

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Leni Riefenstahl has died at age 101
From: "Saganich, Christopher/Medical Physics" <saganicc@MSKCC.ORG>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 16:20:50 -0400

Well, I don't consider the Olympiad, or the Nuremberg rally propaganda films.  If you compare them to typical Fascist or Heroic Realism films they actually miss the mark for propaganda but capture the spectacle of the moment quite well.  She made other "true" propaganda films about the greatness of the German people, the evil anti-Germans mucking up society, and films like don't waste metal, save your bread and water, similar to Hollywood.  The Olympiad was brilliant film making, but Nuremburg was a pre-mass media propaganda speckle which was filmed from a few angles.  It is the spectacle which is bone chilling.

Of course anyone who knowingly supports murder of any kind will never have my support.  The evidence isn't there which would condemn Leni, they tried and only concluded she was a brilliant film maker and there was nothing else to say.  Why Hollywood didn't secretly employ her I'll never know.

Chris Saganich

- -----Original Message-----
From: bdcolen@earthlink.net [mailto:bdcolen@earthlink.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 3:06 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Leni Riefenstahl has died at age 101

Crude? Her work was brilliant! I have never doubted her genius. It's the
ends to which she put it that I question. And, yes, we in America
invented public relations - just as we invented, and in essence, if not
in fact, taught the Nazis everything they knew about eugenics. But that
doesn't make the perpetrators of the Final Solution any less inhuman or
any less guilty. Nor does the American invention of, and uses of PR make
Leni any less guilty.

B. D.



- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Saganich,
Christopher/Medical Physics
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 2:33 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Leni Riefenstahl has died at age 101


Hitler's success in swaying the public mind, the techniques he used,
were developed in the US for WWI.  In Mein Kampf, he described the
overall success of the American Propaganda system and how it led to the
German defeat.  While fascist Hitler was creating a totalitarian
propaganda system for Germany, democrat Harold Laswell was creating it's
democratic brother in the US.  
Why is totalitarian propaganda universality condemned in the West as the
loss of personal and democratic freedom, while the management of public
opinion in democracy is considered good business?  
Hitler came to power in a democracy, and only within a democracy could
he have harnessed the power of propaganda for such an irrational end.
In other words, the Soviets who have no democratic history, couldn't
manage their public mind. The system is powerful and not to be
underrated.  As we have today, propaganda is a mainstream industry known
as public relations and advertising.  The name has changed but the
techniques have been refined and improved.  If you wish to condemn Frau
Riefenstahl for her crude and obvious propaganda film making, fine, but
don't fool yourself in thinking we are any different or more righteous
in our actions or potential actions in this world.  There is plenty of
blood on our hands and we are not as democratic as we believe.

Chris Saganich


- -----Original Message-----
From: bdcolen@earthlink.net [mailto:bdcolen@earthlink.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:55 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Leni Riefenstahl has died at age 101

No, Chris, she was a Nazi propagandist who knew precisely what she was
doing, and who's film, which you view as a simply documentary, has been
oft credited with helping Hitler win broad support in Germany and
beyond.

We all make choices in this life, and we are ultimately judged by those
choices.

B. D.


- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Saganich,
Christopher/Medical Physics
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:44 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Leni Riefenstahl has died at age 101


BD,

How is that?  Was she GW Bush in disguise?

Chris Saganich

- -----Original Message-----
From: bdcolen@earthlink.net [mailto:bdcolen@earthlink.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:01 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Leni Riefenstahl has died at age 101

The world is a better place - for her having left it.

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Dan C
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 7:33 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: [Leica] Leni Riefenstahl has died at age 101


(CNN) -- Photographer and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, best known for the
Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympia, has died at the
age of 101. 

Dan C.


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