[LEN-E] S. Sontag

[Luc Deneulin]

Thanks Ron, for this! S. Sontag, as S. Bach points out is not  
completely negative about LR in that sense: she finds Triumph and  
Olympia probably the two best documentaries ever made. Besides sales  
of the Nuba book raised immediately after the publication of her  
article.
Daviud Hinton has a point against Sontag, but he is also very very  
selective and his book published in 1978 on Riefenstahl contains  
twice as much mistakes as Susan Sontag's article, however to create a  
positive image.

As I pointed out in my PhD, Kracauer was at the origin of all this,  
in a much larger context (about all the Weimar films expressing the  
desire of the Germans for a Führer) - however Kracauer nor Sontag  
take in account that for Fanck and Riefenstahl's work during that  
period the contribution of Jews was extremely important - as well as  
one can wonder whether without Sokal or Balazs - some of Fanck films  
and certanly Das blaue Licht would have been made. Then we must  
conclude that exactly these opponents of the nazis Jews and communist  
were concerned in making these protonazi films which is nonsense of  
course. Both haven't given this idea a thought although one must say  
that Riefenstahl has minimised Sokal & Balzs' influence/importance in  
the making of the film for decades; as she found Kracauer and Sontag  
her biggest ennemies my point to Riefenstahl was exactly for Das  
blaue Licht to mention Sokal (as co-producer) and Balazs (as co- 
director) again. It was difficult for her since she wanted on the  
other hand show that she had worked completely on her own on a film  
before Hitler came to power and liked to use that in her deferse to  
her being labelled as a filmmaker of the Third Reich.
As you know, finally, she did do something on her site about that, at  
least concerning Balazs. But when the 1932 version of Das blaue Licht  
came out... she choose to cut their names again.



Susan Sontag's "Fascinating Fascism" article can easily be found in  
several places on the 'net, but I just came across this version...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/9280

.