The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) Director: Ray Müller

This documentary examines the career of the filmmaker known as the official cinematographer of the NSDAP. It begins with the juxtaposition of three images meant to represent the stages of Riefenstahl's life: photographing fish in her later years during in a peaceful underwater deep-sea dive, shots of Nazi troops marching, and Riefenstahl taking part in Nubian ritual dancing in Sudan. The narrator asserts:

A film about Leni Riefenstahl can content itself with updating the old prejudices, or it can attempt to deconstruct her myth and look at it afresh: a feminist pioneer or a woman of evil? One thing is certain; she’s still the most famous film director in the world. This film will approach her without preconceptions.

And the film does present an objective view of Leni Riefenstahl, first as a dancer, then as a young star of so-called “Mountain Films.” At the point in which Müller begins to explore the stage of Riefenstahl's career as a director, Müller's real agenda becomes clear. He wants to address the question of Riefenstahl's war guilt. Captured on film is a portrait of a difficult, argumentative woman who does not want to reexamine a past that she "no longer concerns herself with."

She is also shown to contradict herself frequently. She claims to be sorry she ever filmed “Triumph des Willens,” a film that she says was created as "art" rather than for use as propaganda. Her pride in the film comes through in her excited explanation of the various shots and frequent mentions of the awards the film received.

Not afraid to ask Riefenstahl difficult questions, Müller once again shows the defensive, angry side of his subject with the following exchange:

RM: What was your relationship with the Propaganda Minister, Goebbels?

LR: The worst you can imagine… He wanted me as his mistress and so on, but he was not my type at all. I felt nothing for him and he never forgave me for rejecting him. […] Later things went from bad to worse.

RM: Reading Goebbels’ diaries for 1933, we get the impression that you were on visiting terms with him and Hitler.

LR: (Calmly) I’ve never read anything saying I was on visiting terms. It’s sheer fantasy.

But Müller doesn’t leave it at that. The narrator reads several entries from the diaries where Goebbels mentions having spent the evening in company of both Hitler and Riefenstahl. At the mention of these entries, Riefenstahl becomes wildly incensed. “There is nothing like that in these diaries, this is simply not true!” The narrator concludes, “What to believe - the diaries of Goebbels, or the memories of the last surviving witness?”

Riefenstahl was selected as the official filmmaker for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The film “Olympiad” was financed by German Ministry of Propaganda, although Riefenstahl claimed not to have known this at the time. Critics felt that this film, as well as her later, unreleased films of African tribesmen espoused fascist ideals of the “body beautiful”. According to the narrator, Riefenstahl refused to get into a political discussion of the Olympics -- on camera. She also purported not to understand what is meant by the term “fascist idealism.”

Throughout the film she denies having had a personal relationship with Hitler, and she repeats over and over again that she never joined the Nazi party. Like many Germans, Riefenstahl claimed to have been largely unaware of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the government. But here too, Müller finds a contradiction. Upon landing in Vienna during her European tour to support “Olympiad,” she tells the welcoming committee, “This is my first chance to see Vienna since our Führer came to power.” This sounds much like an endorsement. On camera she looks and sounds like an adoring fan.

When the war broke out in 1939, Riefenstahl served briefly as a war reporter. On her first day, was horrified by the mistreatment of the Poles, she left the assignment immediately. But by the time Germany invaded France, she seems to have forgotten the gruesome experience, as wrote a euphoric telegram to Hitler to congratulate him on invading France. Although the paperwork to the contrary still exists, Riefenstahl also denied that the film she worked on during the war, “Tiefland” did not make use of gypsy prisoners from a concentration camp near Salzburg.

After the war, Riefenstahl was arrested and stood trial in Nuremberg. It was found that although she was a Nazi sympathizer, she was innocent of any crimes, since there was no evidence of her having engaged in political activity. This official pardon did nothing for her career. She never released another feature film or documentary.

The film briefly explores techniques pioneered by Riefenstahl, which are now standard in the industry. But largely, this film concentrates on her possible fascist bent. After watching this documentary, I’m not surprised to learn that Riefenstahl, like many of her contemporaries deny having known that Hitler was a criminal. There is one very major difference between Riefenstahl and the common German citizen: she was there, and she was taking pictures.