Leni Riefenstahl is dead.
Maybe that doesn’t mean much to most, but film enthusiasts around the world felt the blow of her death. She’d always been heralded as ahead of her time, and pioneered camera angles, shot set-ups and editing techniques. Responsible for two of the most captivating pieces of German film ever created, Riefenstahl received numerous awards from a plethora of countries, especially her own.
Leni Riefenstahl, Nazi Germany’s queen of insidiously powerful cinematic propaganda, is dead at 101 years of age.
Her “documentaries” – “Triumph of the Will” and “Olympia” – depict the 1934 Nazi rally at Nuremberg and the 1936 Berlin Olympics, respectively.
The first shows troops marching through narrow city streets, mobbed by adoring Germans, followed by “stirring” speeches by the Nazi elite.
The second displays a Nazi-style Olympics full of Aryan athletes. In all his evil glory, Adolf Hitler prominently presides over both. They are not true documentaries in that they simply pump up and beautify the Nazi message. Rather than call them documentaries, we must identify them for what they are: propaganda.
Plenty of events open themselves up for exploitation by propaganda.
The rise of Hitler was one.
The entirety of World War II is another. As we enter a new age of warfare, where planes are missiles and bastions of democracy the targets, we must resist exploiting our tragedies. Today is a hallowed day; memorials shrink when compared to memories.
If there were days to be quiet and use that silence for reflection, this might as well be one of those days.
And to add onto silent reflection, there are those notions which every American should examine and carry within him or herself.
The list compiled below links us only by our humanity. We are all human, and we are all in this together, each person trying to merely survive.
We must be resistant to those who hate us.
We must use empathy.
We must be wary of those who vie for power.
We must use the power we have to help others.
It’s curious to think about these statements. It seems that every person fighting against the Axis in World War II used them. Why shouldn’t we?
Until her death, Riefenstahl claimed that what she was portraying in her Nazi-era films was simply reality. “I filmed the truth as it was then. Nothing more,” she once said. It was this belief that allowed her to become another cog in the Nazi propaganda machinery. Her complete inability to analyze what she saw – to think ahead, to ask questions, to be skeptical, to doubt leadership – granted the Nazis another mindless tool to use in their vile quest. Doubt, when coupled with reason, is one of democracy’s finest instruments.
We live in fiercely dangerous times, and changes to our society may come swiftly. Politically, the world has changed more in the past two years than in the past 10. And we must scrutinize our leaders no matter who we elect. We are citizens of a beautifully democratic country, and our duty to ensure its future and the freedom of its people lies in exactly what Leni Riefenstahl failed to do: to think ahead, to ask questions, to be skeptical, and to doubt leadership.