From JOHN007 at prodigy.net Mon Oct 1 13:28:35 2007 From: JOHN007 at prodigy.net (John) Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:28:35 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Memoiren in English -- drastically cut? Message-ID: <47012E43.5070107@prodigy.net> Hi everyone -- I'm only now getting around to reading Steven Bach's book, and I was suprised to read there that around 300 pages were cut from Leni's memoirs for the english translation. I hadn't known this! Since the english memoirs is still a very thick volume I assumed we had the whole thing. Does anyone have any idea what was cut? Have any of our multi-lingual members done any comparisons? 300 pages lost seems like such a lot to be missing! Judging by the size of what we do have, as well as by Bach's mention that the original is almost 1,000 pages, this would mean that english readers are missing roughly 1/3 of the original book! I suppose some of it might be due to linguistic differences (can english be that much more compact than german??), however, Bach implies that it is material which was actually cut. Did the editors drop whole sections in the english version --or-- did they go through and drop many smaller embellishing details here and there? I'm shocked to learn that Leni's memoirs which I've been referencing for the last 10+ years or so in my film studies are this incomplete. I guess I need to learn german. :-) I'm half entertaining the idea of purchasing the german version (can it still be had??) and trudging through it with OCR and internet translation ... although I know those internet translation sites often give gobbledygook, and it seems that german doesn't often translate literally into english anyway. And, of course, that would take a great deal of time to do. Has any student or Leni enthusiast undertaken to write an english summary of what is missing from the english translation? I'm just wondering what other english readers think about this. It's very frustrating to think that we are missing 1/3 of what Leni wrote! Best wishes to all, John From luc.deneulin at skynet.be Tue Oct 2 13:54:22 2007 From: luc.deneulin at skynet.be (Luc Deneulin) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 19:54:22 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] LR Memoiren Message-ID: <060BF831-8395-4D23-A0D6-2EB7DA82A96C@skynet.be> Indeed the English translation of the Memoiren has been cut. 300 pages is abit exagerated. Why? Just for commercial reasons back in 1992 when the English translation was made, it was considered too thick French and other versions seem complete. I made a page by page comparaison: you can see that this Autobiography consist of numerous rather smal paragraphs (a few pages- Some paragraphs were omitted, other shortened. Here you find a bit more info : http://users.skynet.be/deneulin/ Memoirs.html Kind Regard Luc Deneulin, PhD Filmstudies/Research Free University Brussels luc.deneulin at skynet.be From luc.deneulin at skynet.be Fri Oct 5 18:02:58 2007 From: luc.deneulin at skynet.be (Luc Deneulin) Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2007 00:02:58 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] A new book about Riefenstahl Message-ID: <8319C739-21BD-4933-B8B4-20CDCAC14ED7@skynet.be> Hi, In March 2008, a new book in German will be published: (see eg Amazon.de) Leni Riefenstahl (Broschiert) von Kirsten von Hagen (Autor), Mario Leis (Autor) Luc Deneulin luc.deneulin at skynet.be From ron at psymon.com Tue Oct 9 11:43:59 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 11:43:59 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Leni died of cancer? Message-ID: <20071009154424.209DA2BC8C@mailwash40.pair.com> Hi folks! I've been out-of-the-loop for a while now, I know, but I came across something the other day that left me wondering... The web site for United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a one-page biography of Leni at... http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007410 ...which concludes with "She died of cancer in Pocking, Germany, on September 8, 2003, a few weeks after her 101st birthday." That's the first I've heard/read that she died of *cancer* -- the only thing I've heard before is Horst's comments to the press that "Her heart just stopped" (or words to that effect). Has anyone else heard anything about her having passed away due to cancer -- and, if so, what type of cancer was it? Any additional details would be of interest, too, of course. Ron :? Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From easternwindow at freenet.de Tue Oct 9 12:33:50 2007 From: easternwindow at freenet.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Thomas_K=F6hler?=) Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:33:50 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] Leni died of cancer? In-Reply-To: <20071009154424.209DA2BC8C@mailwash40.pair.com> References: <20071009154424.209DA2BC8C@mailwash40.pair.com> Message-ID: <470BAD6E.3050708@freenet.de> Hi Ron, I'm pretty sure this information is correct, I read them same in obituaries published here in Germany. I think she suffered from cancer for almost a year before her death, I'm not really sure anymore, but think it might have been lung cancer. Best Thomas > From ron at psymon.com Tue Oct 9 13:22:04 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:22:04 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Leni died of cancer? Message-ID: <20071009172224.4D1B32BCA0@mailwash40.pair.com> Just to answer my own question... ;) I just noticed that in Steven Bach's recent biography of her, he does mention that she had cancer. On page 296 he writes: "A few months before the end, she had experienced stomach pains, and doctors opened her up to find the cause of her complaint. They closed her up again and told her she was in amazingly good health for a woman of one hundred. Maybe she was, all things considered. The official cause of death was cancer, but it was finally the inevitable triumph of time." Apart from the aforementioned United States Holocaust Memorial Museum mini-biography of her on their web site, Bach's book is the only place I've ever heard any mention of Leni having had cancer (and the USHMM probably used Bach as their source, I can only assume). Interestingly, despite voluminous references for so many things in his book, Bach gives no reference at all for his statements about her cause of death, her having had cancer, her being "opened up". So is it true? Does anyone have another reference for that? This is one complaint (among several) that I have about Bach's book. On the one hand, he's done an admirable job of researching and referencing his biography of Leni, but on the other hand he hands out certain "facts" about her without providing any references at all, and comes to various quite negative "conclusions" about her based on what are *objectively* really quite innocuous (if not positive!) things. Personally, although as yet I've only just skimmed through various sections of Bach's book and haven't read it in its entirety, I have also read many, many reviews of the book, plus interviews with Bach, not to mention that television interview of him on the Charlie Rose show. All in all, I find his book quite troubling with regard to many of the things he says, if only because of the overt -- and admitted -- *subjectivity* (not objectivity) of them, and even more because of the quite overt *propagandistic*(!) nature of his book (and all his subsequent promotional lectures on the topic). In my estimation, it would seem that Bach himself hasn't learned the lessons of WWII, and has become exactly that sort of person which he so vehemently, and openly, detests. How ironic, indeed. Ron :/ Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From luc.deneulin at skynet.be Tue Oct 9 14:44:57 2007 From: luc.deneulin at skynet.be (Luc Deneulin) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 20:44:57 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] LR & Cancer Message-ID: Riefenstahl took Morphine during the last years of her life, she had stomach cancer, but it devolops sooo slowly when one is that old, (most people have some kind of slow progressing cancer at that age) it rarely is the cause of death, Helmut will confirm... , she died from her heart in her sleep. Luc Luc Deneulin luc.deneulin at skynet.be From ron at psymon.com Tue Oct 9 14:48:43 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:48:43 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Leni died of cancer? In-Reply-To: <470BAD6E.3050708@freenet.de> References: <20071009154424.209DA2BC8C@mailwash40.pair.com> <470BAD6E.3050708@freenet.de> Message-ID: <20071009184911.5D52A2BCA3@mailwash40.pair.com> At 06:33 PM 10/9/2007 +0200, Thomas K?hler wrote: >I'm pretty sure this information is correct, I >read them same in obituaries published here in >Germany. I think she suffered from cancer for >almost a year before her death, I'm not really >sure anymore, but think it might have been lung cancer. Ah, okay -- I guess our replies (i.e. your reply to me, and my reply to myself) must have crossed at the same time. ;) I still find it quite curious, though, that Bach says that the "official" cause of her death was cancer, and that she'd had a operation (or, at least, been "opened up"), but he doesn't provide a source for stating something so definitively -- and yet he provides so many sources for so many other statements. As I said earlier, this is one of the things I find so troubling about Bach's book. It seems almost as though his method (and goal) is to provide a voluminous amount of verifiable references for so many things which we do know to be true, and in the process he can then throw in the odd opinion (presented as "fact") which nobody will then question (because he has so many references). And perhaps, in the above case, the "official" cause of Leni's death really was indeed cancer -- but then why not provide an "official" reference for making what is, indeed, such a *definitive* statement (when so many references are given for far less important things)? It just makes me wonder, that is, Bach makes me wonder -- and not about Leni so much (there's hardly anything that I've read so far in his book that I didn't already know before from other sources) but, rather, Bach makes me wonder about Bach, himself. Ron 8! Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From JOHN007 at prodigy.net Tue Oct 9 18:19:08 2007 From: JOHN007 at prodigy.net (John) Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:19:08 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Bach's Book & Thanks for replies In-Reply-To: <20071009184911.5D52A2BCA3@mailwash40.pair.com> References: <20071009154424.209DA2BC8C@mailwash40.pair.com> <470BAD6E.3050708@freenet.de> <20071009184911.5D52A2BCA3@mailwash40.pair.com> Message-ID: <470BFE5C.1020408@prodigy.net> > It seems almost as though his method (and goal) is to provide a voluminous amount of verifiable references for so many things which we do know to be true, and in the process he can then throw in the odd opinion (presented as "fact") Ron, its almost uncanny that you mention this. I'm currently reading Bach, and several times I have exclaimed to myself the exact thing you say above. After many satisfying references, suddenly there will be a provocative statement thrown in with no attributed source! It seems somewhat inconsistent, and is a bit frustrating for readers who want substantiation. My copy of Rother arrived just today (I'm finally catching up on my reading!). What did you all think of the Rother book? Best wishes, John (PS: A word of thanks to Thomas and Luc who posted responses to my questions about Leni's home studio space, and about the english translation of Memoiren. I was away from the computer last week so I failed to say how much I appreciated their responses! Thanks to you both!) From luc.deneulin at skynet.be Tue Oct 9 18:44:19 2007 From: luc.deneulin at skynet.be (Luc Deneulin) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:44:19 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] Bach etc Message-ID: <571E23C2-3BBF-4AA9-A957-39377CCAC9BD@skynet.be> > This has been a problem with so many publications on Riefenstahl, > and PhD's as well. Sometimes to create a false positive image of > Riefentahl (D. Hinton, Ch; Ford) , sometimes a negative one. I think Rother eg should be read at the same time as Kinkel and Trimborn. Riefenstahl in her Memoiren and in the so many interviews in magazines, on TV, in Die Macht der Bilder, has also contributed to create a kind of selective, polished reality with many contradictions over time. There are many books now on Riefenstahl, in French, German, English, and a few to be published next year. At a certain moment a honest scholar should say: this we do no know, X says this, Y says that and Riefenstahl someting else in stead of giving interpretations. On the other hand, one should be careful, "believing" some of Riefenstahl sayings, means - since they are contradictory - to say "Luise Brooks, Lotte Eisner, Josef von Sternberg, Harry Sokal, G. W. Pabst, Hans Schneeberger, Arnold Fanck, Carl Mayer, Jean Cocteau all made false statements about Riefenstahl, sometimes about the same subject without knowing each other. Lotte Eisner eg, is partially positive on Riefenstahl (she saved Jews) on the other hand, she states that Riefenstahl told her "Lotte, you must meet my new Hitler, I'll introduce you to him". This is all very difficult... and should be handled with care. Sometimes, translations problems, lack of knowledge of German (or of English or French)from some scholars has lead to many misunderstandings. David Hinton, Charls Ford are certainely exagerating in the positive direction, others in the negative direction. Bach added something to the research but his reflextion on the facts is sometimes overinterpretation. Bringing this all together, the too positive interpretations, the too negative interpretations, Riefenstahl's own sayings and the facts remains a challenge for the future. > It seems almost as though his method (and goal) is to provide a > voluminous amount of > verifiable references for so many things which we do know to be true, and in the process he can then throw in the odd opinion (presented as "fact") Luc Deneulin luc.deneulin at skynet.be From ron at psymon.com Mon Oct 15 09:20:16 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:20:16 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Discouragement vs. Disillusionment In-Reply-To: <46EC87BE.7080305@prodigy.net> References: <46EC87BE.7080305@prodigy.net> Message-ID: <20071015132020.DA4312BC8D@mailwash40.pair.com> Going back a few weeks... At 09:32 PM 9/15/2007 -0400, John wrote: >Firstly please allow me to say that it feels so good to have found >this list again. I was a long time member on the Yahoo Group and I >had been wondering why things got so quiet! I found Ron's >explanation and couldn't believe that Yahoo had deleted the group. >What a story! Thanks, Ron, for gathering us back together via this >private list! Well, you're most welcome! No need to thank me though, really, for having gotten the list going again (after that fiasco with YahooGroups), as it's just as useful and informative for me as for anyone else, of course (even if it's dead quiet around here for weeks, sometimes months, on end). So, if anything, I thank you -- and everyone else -- for (re-)joining me/us over here! ;) With regard to your not realizing what had happened to the old list (i.e. Yahoo deleting it without notice or cause), immediately after that happened -- and once I got the new list up and running -- I sent out an email notice to every listmember that I had an address for explaining what had occurred, and (re-)inviting them to (re-)join the new list. Unfortunately, I can only suspect that you -- and, no doubt, many others -- never received that "personal" message from me, in all likelihood because of spam filtering that is so commonplace now. This really is too bad, because in the end we've lost about 80% of our old membership. Seriously: on the old Yahoo list, membership had hovered steadily around the 100 mark for a couple of years (with approximately an equal number of people unsubbing about as frequently as new members would subcribe), but our current list has only 21 members (as of today). Oh, well. There's not much else I can do about that now (short of "spamming" those still-absent past list members -- which I won't do -- in an effort to encourage them to re-join), and we can only hope that, like you, eventually more people will come back. In the meantime, though, the reason I thought I'd respond to you about this is because it does bring up a related matter, that is, the subject matter of this message: "Discouragement vs. Disillusionment". As the creator of this list, with the old YahooGroups list having been up for about 4-1/2 years (and over 2500 posts), it was naturally quite a shock and, indeed, splap-in-the-face when they just up and deleted the list (and all the archives) without any reason or warning. And without having had any reason from them, it just *seemed* (or *felt*) like this was just yet another "attack" against anything to do with Leni Riefenstahl. I don't know, of course, I'm just saying that's how it *felt* (for lack of any other logical reason). And then, right about the same time, those two very negative biographies came out by Bach and Trimborn -- not to mention Bach's going on what seems to be a "crusade" of public appearances all over the place, for months on end. Add to that the occasional "hate mail" that I get (some of which is quite vicious) attacking Leni -- or just attacking me for having a site about Leni, not to mention the attacks that I've observed in the press against others (Jodie Foster, Bryan Ferry, et al.) who have expressed an appreciation for her work... Needless to say, for myself it's been a rather difficult year with regard to my interest in Leni Riefenstahl -- and I guess that's what I mean about discouragement. It just seems like an almost insurmountable task to try to look at Riefenstahl's life and work in a *fair* and *objective* way, not to mention to try to bring greater awareness to others on that subject. People just don't seem to want to hear about it -- and I'm not referring to us here, of course, but to "most" people "out there". It just seems so easy for people to simply dismiss her -- if not out-right hate her, and condemn her -- and to me, at least, this seems like such a tragic folly. What do I mean by "folly"? Well, I mentioned in a recent post here that it seemed Steven Bach hadn't learned the lessons of WWII -- perhaps when I said that, it may not have been clear what I meant. What I was referring to was this whole subject of "hate", of pointing the finger at others, seeing "evil" in others, creating that "us versus them" syndrome -- and that's what WWII was all about, wasn't it? In Europe we had the Nazis espousing that it was the German/Aryan people's divine destiny to rule the world, labelling all other peoples and races as inferior (if not sub-human) and as the cause of all the former's problems -- not to mention coming up with all sorts of historical, scientific and other "proof" (no matter how far-fetched) to justify that perspective -- and in the Pacific war we had virtually the exact same sort of ideologies coming from the Japanese Empire. Such ideologies can only ever bring uprising and retaliation from those who are oppressed -- and the oppressed are virtually always the majority, not the minority, and thus the oppressed will ultimately always win -- but in the process of winning back their freedom it is also not unpredictable that they should become, if only for a time, mirror images of their oppressors. And so it was that in the European war (for example), just as the Nazis had labelled "all" Jews as "evil", in fighting the Nazis it similarly was a natural (that is, understandable and predictable) reaction for any soldier on the side of the Allies to hate all Nazis (if not all Germans) essentially lumping them all together, seeing them not as individuals -- as different within their own people, race and communities as individuals in any other -- but in essence as though they were all of "one mind". This sort of sentiment is natural (i.e. understandable and predictable) *during* any war, no matter how great or small -- but after the war is over and won, if we cannot see the *mistake* that we were fighting against, then the war has been for nothing, and the war has been lost. And this is, indeed, the issue that I have with what I find to be such *contemptuous* writing as Steven Bach (or Susan Sontag, or whomever else): these writings are driven by *hate*, an assumption (presumption) of guilt, not innocence, and a determined effort to come up with any sort of "evidence" (no matter how insignificant or even ludicrous) to justify that perspective, and a determined effort to promote hateful, hate-filled, finger-pointing, good-versus-evil, "I would never, could never, do that" conclusions -- and, ironically, in the process of espousing their theses, these writers are doing exactly what they claim to abhor and condemn. What the Nazis did to the Jews in macrocosm, they endeavour (and promote) to do to Leni Riefenstahl in microcosm. And to say this is frustrating is, of course, an extreme understatement. But despite all their efforts, through the absurdity of so much of those efforts it hasn't changed my mind about Leni. It's been very *discouraging* this past year, but I'm not *disillusioned* about her at all, despite everything. In all objectivity and fairness, I still think that her films and her photography are all beautiful (even at their most youthful and amateurish state, if one can accept them from that perspective), and her whole life story is truly fascinating, if not amazing, even astounding (at the same time that it is also very tragic). In that regard I'm not *disillusioned* about her, but at the same time that's not to say that I'm blind to the mistakes she made, blind to the very confusing things she's said at different times in her life -- that is, blind to her *humanity* -- or that I have any desire or inclination (like a "groupie") to idolize her and elevate her to some deified status (as some have). None of these latter things would be, I feel, the right thing to do (even as a response to Bach or Trimborn or Sontag or whomever else), but if I continue to struggle to do what I've been trying to accomplish with my site at all -- no matter how slowly those accomplishments might come about as a result of such great feelings of frustration and discouragement at times -- it's only because I can't help but believe that to hang Leni Riefenstahl up with all the other Nazis (figuratively, if not literally) is just wrong. And so when people ask me "Why bother with a site about Leni Riefenstahl?", I guess that's why: it's not because I love her and admire her so much, over and above so many other film makers and artists (so many of whom are worthy of a web site), but because so many, many people seem to *hate* Leni Riefenstahl, and it's that hate -- like any hate -- that is so very, very wrong. That's what that whole war was against, and all about. Aaaaaanyway... not that you asked, John, but how's that for a response (to what wasn't even a question on your part)? Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From luc.deneulin at skynet.be Mon Oct 15 14:06:11 2007 From: luc.deneulin at skynet.be (Luc Deneulin) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:06:11 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] Riefenstahl, why bother? Message-ID: <0D9BAC8C-D43A-4846-B8FD-3622FBB52743@skynet.be> Dear Ron, Many people have "discovered" Riefenstahl by seeiing the film Die Macht der Bilder and to a lesser extend reading her Autobiography. After the release of that film, interest in Riefenstahl was high, very high, especially since she still participated in the debate. I must say that before 1993 Riefenstahl was not that much known amongst a very large population, in spite of her Africa books etc. The film gave her fame, everybody wanted to know more and to see her films, which in 1993 was very difficult. Now all this has been done, and interest is fading globaly, also with fans who now have other idols. On the other hand, other books are being published by people who lived and worked in the Third Reich or in Europe during the war and these are also very very negative, sometimes for people who did not even met Hitler etc. Luc Deneulin luc.deneulin at skynet.be From easternwindow at freenet.de Tue Oct 16 06:20:50 2007 From: easternwindow at freenet.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Thomas_K=F6hler?=) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:20:50 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] Riefenstahl, why bother? In-Reply-To: <0D9BAC8C-D43A-4846-B8FD-3622FBB52743@skynet.be> References: <0D9BAC8C-D43A-4846-B8FD-3622FBB52743@skynet.be> Message-ID: <47149082.2060200@freenet.de> Hi to everyone, I agree with all that Luc and Ron have said, and I have to admit that it was "Die Macht der Bilder" for me as well which got me interested in Leni. Not knowing anything about her work or the way that she built up her personal myth (in other words, I believed what she said in the film), I really thought here was an unjustly maligned genius of filmmaking. Which of course would have interested me even if the images hadn't been as striking as they are. Probably this was one of the aspects that got Ron to investigate Leni and finally set up his site, as well. In a way, indeed everything has been said about Leni's involvement with the Third Reich, and probably that's one of the reasons why the interest seems to fade, as Luc points out. BUT: to my knowledge noone has ever attempted to do much more than this. There are no books that try to place Leni in the context of filmmaking, no books that have researched in detail how her works and filmic techniques relate to other filmmakers of the time. I think especially of the Russians: Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin. We still don't know for sure HOW new (if at all) her filmic strategies were, what her very special and personal innovations were. We don't have a book that compares the style of "Olympia" to other sports films made before and after ( a comparison of the 1928 Fanck "Winter Olympiad" film, Leni's "Olympia" and Ichikawa's "Tokyo Olympiad", for example). Noone has investigated the stylistic similarities of "Tiefland" and Cocteau's films, nor her professional relations to Cocteau and the abandoned film project on Frederick and Voltaire which she wanted to do together with Cocteau. I guess one could find many other neglected topics for book-length studies of Leni's works. But everyone seems to be revolving endlessly around her involvement with Hitler and her politics instead, a topic which indeed begins to smell stale. So, Ron, thanks again for setting up the site and the list, which at least gives us the possibility to discuss such other matters, even if it's a little quiet from time to time and the membership could be higher. Best Thomas > From ron at psymon.com Tue Oct 16 10:11:27 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:11:27 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Bach & Wege Message-ID: <20071016141147.2575F2BCC2@mailwash40.pair.com> When I first got Steven Bach's book (which, I confess, I've only read portions of as yet), the first thing I did was look at the various photos he included. I was immediately struck by the four frame enlargements he includes from "Wege zu Kraft und Sch?nheit", with the rather profound declaration below them which states (and I quote): In 1925 Leni appeared unbilled -- and largely uncostumed -- in the box-office sensation "Ways to Strength and Beauty". Though she later denied being in it or even having seen it, these never-before-published frame blow-ups confirm decades of unsubstantiated rumors. However, when I looked at the pics he has (one of which is similar to a production still featured in the "film debut" article on my site), I just couldn't bring myself to acknowledge that, indeed, that was Leni. On the contrary, the stills he included convinced me of the opposite, that it was *not* Leni! The woman that he shows -- or declares -- as her only looks a *bit* like her (like it could be her sister or something), but that doesn't convince me that it's her. Indeed, if one looks at photos of Leni when she was very young -- even at the age of 15 or 18 (as included in the biographical section of Five Lives, or her big Africa book), Leni *always* looked like... well, like Leni! She always, from her teenage years on until much later in life, had a very distinctive, easily-recognizable appearance. Just take a look at a pile of early photos of her and you'll see what I mean -- and then compare them with the woman depicted in Bach's book, and, again, you'll see what I mean. It would seem that the only -- and I do mean *only* -- reason that Bach so "authoritatively" declares that this particular woman is definitely Leni is because of that photo (and accompanying caption) from Der Querschnitt (as referred to in Bach's book, and also in the article on my site). I can find no other reason or reference in his book other than that -- but just because Der Querschnitt says it's her, that doesn't make it her, and after having viewed the film myself, and after Bach having viewed the film (and captured frames from) himself, I just can't see that it is, indeed, Leni. It may look "a bit" like her (or an imaginary sister), but it doesn't look "very much" like her. Indeed, Bach includes one frame of a close-up of the face of that actress in the film which could be said to look quite a bit like Leni, but in that exact same shot one can take other frames (literally just a frame or two away) that look nothing at all like Leni. I find this very disconcerting -- and disturbing, actually. Like I said, this is one of the BIG issues that I have with Bach's book, that he'll take some almost-insignificant reference and then spin it into some wild, supposedly-"definitive" declaration about her -- and in this case, I really have to wonder if it's not that Bach truly believes that it's Leni who is half-naked in that sequence in Wege, or whether he just *wants* it to be Leni (half-naked)! Indeed, he does seem to want to portray her in a lascivious, prurient way, and so (pseudo-) "proving" that it's her, here, does serve his own purposes. Anyway, I thought it would be quite relevant to address this issue, and allow anyone/everyone else to decide for themselves -- and so I've captured that whole "Roman bath" sequence (along with the Mary Wigman dancers sequence) and made an admittedly-provocative video for download... http://www.riefenstahl.org/downloads/video/controversial_clips.rm ...(about 32 megs). Please note that this is just a "draft" version of this video -- I'd really like some input as to what you all think of it before I "officially" add it in to the video downloads section of the site. Naturally, my main question is "What do you think? Do you think that's Leni?", but any other comments of a more technical nature are also most, most welcome (for example, if you have problems reading the explanatory title cards I made, or if the length of time these latter was too short to finish reading the text, or anything else, on any aspect). On a related note, one good thing from having acquired a copy of Wege on DVD is that many of the questions (and perhaps even assumptions) that I had in that film debut article are now resolved -- and this naturally also demands almost a complete revision of that article now! Ugh... I'll get around to it, one of these days... Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From ron at psymon.com Tue Oct 16 10:15:44 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:15:44 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Discouragement vs. Disillusionment (correction) In-Reply-To: <20071015132020.DA4312BC8D@mailwash40.pair.com> References: <46EC87BE.7080305@prodigy.net> <20071015132020.DA4312BC8D@mailwash40.pair.com> Message-ID: <20071016141615.CE1972BCBC@mailwash40.pair.com> Yesterday, I wrote (in part)... >Such ideologies can only ever bring uprising and retaliation from >those who are oppressed -- and the oppressed are virtually always >the majority, not the minority, and thus the oppressed will >ultimately always win Obviously I was shooting my mouth off without thinking. ;) Of course there have been cases where the oppressed were the minority... but whatever. Hopefully the gist of what I was trying to say in that paragraph (and the whole message) isn't lost because of that booboo. Ron ;) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From docio at nhaysom.com Tue Oct 16 13:01:23 2007 From: docio at nhaysom.com (Nick Haysom) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:01:23 +0100 Subject: [LEN-E] Discouragement vs. Disillusionment References: <46EC87BE.7080305@prodigy.net> <20071015132020.DA4312BC8D@mailwash40.pair.com> Message-ID: <00f501c81017$2d0e1910$0400000a@nhaysom> Hear hear! Naively I had thought that the Yahoo list had got deleted through the computer-equivalent of "clerical error". I'm involved with a few other Yahoo groups where strange things happen from time to time, tho' nothing quite this devastating. However, I realise of course now that likely as not someone "complained" to Yahoo and Yahoo ran scared at the thought that they might be hosting the rabid ramblings of a bunch of neo-Nazis. I think it deplorable that Yahoo made no investigations themselves into the nature of the list before removing it altho' I can understand their wish to head off the kind of contrived media storm which sadly the tabloid press seem to thrive on these days. Nick From docio at nhaysom.com Tue Oct 16 14:03:02 2007 From: docio at nhaysom.com (Nick Haysom) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:03:02 +0100 Subject: [LEN-E] Bach & Wege References: <20071016141147.2575F2BCC2@mailwash40.pair.com> Message-ID: <015d01c8101f$5f5efb70$0400000a@nhaysom> Thanks for that, Ron. Very interesting! The intertitles work perfectly (nice font) - in fact they look pretty authentic to me! As to "Who's that girl?" I'd agree: it *could* be her but I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd be more inclined to say it was Leni's stunt double... In fact, in the first sequence I actually thought the main dancer (on the right) was going to be the one who was claimed to be Leni. That said, if someone said to me (of the still) "That's Leni on the ground" I don't suppose I'd question it. The problem is, in part, that it is very easy to "see" what one expects to see: the brain always looks for familiar patterns it can latch onto. Once the brain is convinced about something it is very difficult to unconvince it. Without a signed affadavit to the contrary, Bach's version is as "true" as anyone else's. BTW I have to wonder whether Bach's judgement was based just on the facial similarity or did he use any other criteria? :) Nick From luc.deneulin at skynet.be Tue Oct 16 18:14:16 2007 From: luc.deneulin at skynet.be (Luc Deneulin) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:14:16 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] Wege etc/ cfr Thomas & Ron Message-ID: Hi As for Wege, with Riefenstahl in it or not, it's very difficult to use only visual material, there are eg photographs of Riefenstahl which are really her, but which could be - if you do not know it - be easily seen as photographs from a person who looks a bit like Riefenstahl. As for Thomas, I agree that Riefenstahl and The Third Reich can be considered finished for research. But: there have been numerous studies about Riefenstahl's filmic techniques, in PhD's, articles etc. In France her Olympia was compared to eg Tokyo Olympiad. When you name Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Vertov, these directors have written on film, had a film theory. Riefenstahl herself almost had none- my own research focused a lot on the influence of Belaz Balazs filmtheory which influenced, I think Das blaue Licht and Sieg des Glaubens, Balazs was eg very interested in Arnold Fanck's films and when Riefenstahl explained her story (well... hers...) of The blue Light, Balazs was very enthousiastic, since he saw a chance to put into practice his very interestin film theory (still available in German), he eg was more in favour of Fank films and quite negative - as a film theorician - about von Sternberg's Blue Angel. It took Riefenstahl almost 70 years to add Bela Balazs as co-director for Das blaue Licht (on her site) I have compared the winter Olympics from 1928 and 1936 with Olympia myself over 15 years ago. In France many research has been done on Cocteau/Riefenstahl, books and articles have been published, in French, Cocteau's partner and actor has been interviewed on this topic etc. Cocteau was not very interested in Riefenstahl's project, he saw some hom-erotics in Olympia and in Tiefland since he was in love with the actor who played Pedro. Scolars have made film analysis of Triumph, of Olympia. Tiefland is very difficult, as I'm studying this subject myself, - there have been at least 4 co-directors or assistant directors, all with their ideas, after the war they were not keen (due to the gypsy case) to ask credit-- so what was Riefenstahl's own input? What is Riefenstahl's filmic style? Her editing? The camera (or the choice of camera men?) More and more, unfortunately,-- I know some of her work since I'm 16 years old, I have almost completely changed my opinion, from Riefenstahl as a director with a very own vision on film which she applied on "her" films to Riefenstahl as a person who was rather very good at finding people who could work for her. In other words, in the beginning it looked as if Riefenstahl was a "auteur" as the French call it, but now... what exactly did she do as a director? You can see eg many photographs of her during the filming of the Olympics but these are not "snapshots", taken like that, many have been staged. It's all too easy to say Riefenstahl couldn't work after the war because of her nazi past while Veit Harlan made about 10 more films. Harlan could make very cheap films, he could have only 3 hours of filming and cut a movie out of it. It's not something Riefenstahl could do. This being said, great, very big directors like Flaherty (the father of the documentary tradition), Joris Ivens, Henri Storck have never had such attention as Riefenstahl. http://users.skynet.be/deneulin/books.html On this site you can see how many works have been written on Riefenstahl and that's only a part, what I have studied myself. My aim is to gather more material and ad summaries of it., in the meantime I'm working on my book "Leni Riefenstahl's Films" which deals with a few topics Thomas wrote about, it must be ready within one year. In a way, indeed everything has been said about Leni's involvement with the Third Reich, and probably that's one of the reasons why the interest seems to fade, as Luc points out. BUT: to my knowledge noone has ever attempted to do much more than this. There are no books that try to place Leni in the context of filmmaking, no books that have researched in detail how her works and filmic techniques relate to other filmmakers of the time. I think especially of the Russians: Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin. We still don't know for sure HOW new (if at all) her filmic strategies were, what her very special and personal innovations were. We don't have a book that compares the style of "Olympia" to other sports films made before and after ( a comparison of the 1928 Fanck "Winter Olympiad" film, Leni's "Olympia" and Ichikawa's "Tokyo Olympiad", for example). Noone has investigated the stylistic similarities of "Tiefland" and Cocteau's films, nor her professional relations to Cocteau and the abandoned film project on Frederick and Voltaire which she wanted to do together with Cocteau. I guess one could find many other neglected topics for book-length studies of Leni's works. But everyone seems to be revolving endlessly around her involvement with Hitler and her politics instead, a topic which indeed begins to smell stale. Luc Deneulin luc.deneulin at skynet.be From l-femme at excite.com Thu Oct 18 05:03:38 2007 From: l-femme at excite.com (Laura Welch) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 05:03:38 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [LEN-E] LEN-E Digest, Vol 9, Issue 7 Message-ID: <20071018090338.775152F65E@xprdmxin.myway.com> Dear Everyone: I still have the new Yahoo Group called Dreaming of Leni Riefenstahl. It hasn't had any activity recently, but there was a great exchange and a new person joined in July. It has gone quiet since then, but the person who joined had a friend of hers who was a personal friend of Ms. Riefenstahl. It was pretty cool the discussion we had. Except for a few of you here, most people on the old Yahoo Group just "lurked". I hope some more people find the group that I made and join. Then there can be lively discussion about her again on Yahoo. If you want to go check it out, then go to this address : http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/lenidreaming/ I think the Yahoo Groups want things to remain lighter than the way things were carrying on with the old site. They want people to stay on topic, or else they can get flagged. I guess that's what happened with the old Leni Riefenstahl group. I haven't had any problems with Yahoo doing anything to the new Leni Riefenstahl group that I set up. Anyway, that's it from me, so have a great day !!! Laura :)+--- On Wed 10/17, < len-e-request at riefenstahl.org > wrote:From: [mailto: len-e-request at riefenstahl.org]To: len-e at riefenstahl.orgDate: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:01:05 -0400Subject: LEN-E Digest, Vol 9, Issue 7Send LEN-E mailing list submissions tolen-e at riefenstahl.orgTo subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visithttp://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/len-eor, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' tolen-e-request at riefenstahl.orgYou can reach the person managing the list atlen-e-owner at riefenstahl.orgWhen replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specificthan "Re: Contents of LEN-E digest..."Today's Topics:1. Re: Discouragement vs. Disillusionment (Nick Haysom)2. Re: Bach & Wege (Nick Haysom)3. Wege etc/ cfr Thomas & Ron (Luc Deneulin)----------------------------------------------------------------------Message: 1Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:01:23 +0100From: "Nick Haysom" Subject: Re: [LEN-E] Discouragement vs. DisillusionmentTo: "LEN-E List" Message-ID: <00f501c81017$2d0e1910$0400000a at nhaysom>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"Hear hear!Naively I had thought that the Yahoo list had got deleted through the computer-equivalent of "clerical error". I'm involved with a few other Yahoo groups where strange things happen from time to time, tho' nothing quite this devastating. However, I realise of course now that likely as not someone "complained" to Yahoo and Yahoo ran scared at the thought that they might be hosting the rabid ramblings of a bunch of neo-Nazis. I think it deplorable that Yahoo made no investigations themselves into the nature of the list before removing it altho' I can understand their wish to head off the kind of contrived media storm which sadly the tabloid press seem to thrive on these days. Nick------------------------------Message: 2Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:03:02 +0100From: "Nick Haysom" Subject: Re: [LEN-E] Bach & WegeTo: "LEN-E Discussion List" Message-ID: <015d01c8101f$5f5efb70$0400000a at nhaysom>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"Thanks for that, Ron. Very interesting! The intertitles work perfectly (nice font) - in fact they look pretty authentic to me! As to "Who's that girl?" I'd agree: it *could* be her but I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd be more inclined to say it was Leni's stunt double...In fact, in the first sequence I actually thought the main dancer (on the right) was going to be the one who was claimed to be Leni. That said, if someone said to me (of the still) "That's Leni on the ground" I don't suppose I'd question it. The problem is, in part, that it is very easy to "see" what one expects to see: the brain always looks for familiar patterns it can latch onto. Once the brain is convinced about something it is very difficult to unconvince it. Without a signed affadavit to the contrary, Bach's version is as "true" as anyone else's.BTW I have to wonder whether Bach's judgement was based just on the facial similarity or did he use any other criteria? :)Nick------------------------------Message: 3Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:14:16 +0200From: Luc Deneulin Subject: [LEN-E] Wege etc/ cfr Thomas & RonTo: LEN-E Discussion List Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowedHiAs for Wege, with Riefenstahl in it or not, it's very difficult to use only visual material, there are eg photographs of Riefenstahl which are really her, but which could be - if you do not know it - be easily seen as photographs from a person who looks a bit like Riefenstahl.As for Thomas, I agree that Riefenstahl and The Third Reich can be considered finished for research. But:there have been numerous studies about Riefenstahl's filmic techniques, in PhD's, articles etc. In France her Olympia was compared to eg Tokyo Olympiad.When you name Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Vertov, these directors have written on film, had a film theory. Riefenstahl herself almost had none- my own research focused a lot on the influence of Belaz Balazs filmtheory which influenced, I think Das blaue Licht and Sieg des Glaubens, Balazs was eg very interested in Arnold Fanck's films and when Riefenstahl explained her story (well... hers...) of The blue Light, Balazs was very enthousiastic, since he saw a chance to put into practice his very interestin film theory (still available in German), he eg was more in favour of Fank films and quite negative - as a film theorician - about von Sternberg's Blue Angel. It took Riefenstahl almost 70 years to add Bela Balazs as co-director for Das blaue Licht (on her site)I have compared the winter Olympics from 1928 and 1936 with Olympia myself over 15 years ago.In France many research has been done on Cocteau/Riefenstahl, books and articles have been published, in French, Cocteau's partner and actor has been interviewed on this topic etc. Cocteau was not very interested in Riefenstahl's project, he saw some hom-erotics in Olympia and in Tiefland since he was in love with the actor who played Pedro.Scolars have made film analysis of Triumph, of Olympia.Tiefland is very difficult, as I'm studying this subject myself, - there have been at least 4 co-directors or assistant directors, all with their ideas, after the war they were not keen (due to the gypsy case) to ask credit-- so what was Riefenstahl's own input?What is Riefenstahl's filmic style? Her editing? The camera (or the choice of camera men?) More and more, unfortunately,-- I know some of her work since I'm 16 years old, I have almost completely changed my opinion, from Riefenstahl as a director with a very own vision on film which she applied on "her" films to Riefenstahl as a person who was rather very good at finding people who could work for her. In other words, in the beginning it looked as if Riefenstahl was a "auteur" as the French call it, but now... what exactly did she do as a director? You can see eg many photographs of her during the filming of the Olympics but these are not "snapshots", taken like that, many have been staged.It's all too easy to say Riefenstahl couldn't work after the war because of her nazi past while Veit Harlan made about 10 more films. Harlan could make very cheap films, he could have only 3 hours of filming and cut a movie out of it. It's not something Riefenstahl could do.This being said, great, very big directors like Flaherty (the father of the documentary tradition), Joris Ivens, Henri Storck have never had such attention as Riefenstahl.http://users.skynet.be/deneulin/books.htmlOn this site you can see how many works have been written on Riefenstahl and that's only a part, what I have studied myself. My aim is to gather more material and ad summaries of it., in the meantime I'm working on my book "Leni Riefenstahl's Films" which deals with a few topics Thomas wrote about, it must be ready within one year.In a way, indeed everything has been said about Leni's involvement with the Third Reich, and probably that's one of the reasons why the interest seems to fade, as Luc points out. BUT: to my knowledge noone has ever attempted to do much more than this. There are no books that try to place Leni in the context of filmmaking, no books that have researched in detail how her works and filmic techniques relate to other filmmakers of the time. I think especially of the Russians: Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin. We still don't know for sure HOW new (if at all) her filmic strategies were, what her very special and personal innovations were. We don't have a book that compares the style of "Olympia" to other sports films made before and after ( a comparison of the 1928 Fanck "Winter Olympiad" film, Leni's "Olympia" and Ichikawa's "Tokyo Olympiad", for example). Noone has investigated the stylistic similarities of "Tiefland" and Cocteau's films, nor her professional relations to Cocteau and the abandoned film project on Frederick and Voltaire which she wanted to do together with Cocteau. I guess one could find many other neglected topics for book-length studies of Leni's works. But everyone seems to be revolving endlessly around her involvement with Hitler and her politics instead, a topic which indeed begins to smell stale.Luc Deneulinluc.deneulin at skynet.be------------------------------_______________________________________________NOTE 1: PLEASE TRIM THE QUOTED PORTION(S) OF YOUR REPLIES!NOTE 2: BE SURE YOUR SUBJECT HEADING REFLECTS THE MESSAGETHAT YOU'RE REPLYING TO, NOT THE DIGEST!List Info: http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/len-e/Your List Options: http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/options/len-e/List Archives: http://four.pairlist.net/pipermail/len-e/To Unsubscribe: mailto:len-e-request at riefenstahl.org?subject=unsubscribeEnd of LEN-E Digest, Vol 9, Issue 7*********************************** _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! From luc.deneulin at skynet.be Thu Oct 18 20:27:11 2007 From: luc.deneulin at skynet.be (Luc Deneulin) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 02:27:11 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] J. FOSTER Message-ID: <08F74ECC-4440-4FDB-A98D-DC7F03011610@skynet.be> Hi Could anyone inform me what the latest news is about J; Foster's film plans about a a Riefenstahl film? Thanking you Luc Deneulin Brussels Luc Deneulin luc.deneulin at skynet.be From josechan1 at yahoo.com Fri Oct 19 09:02:05 2007 From: josechan1 at yahoo.com (by way of Ron Koster ) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:02:05 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Bach & Wege Message-ID: <20071019130218.A7B6B2BCAF@mailwash40.pair.com> [Note: this message is from Jose, not me, but was meant for the list -- not just me!] Hi Ron, I for one was struck immediately by the similarity between the still from Wege of "Leni" in the dance sequence and of a photograph that appears in her memoirs of one her dance numbers. As far as I can see, in both images, she is wearing what appears to be the exact same garment......and her posture, expression and even hair-do in the memoir photo is very similar to that of the dance clip in Wege. I also recall that in the memoirs Leni states that her mother made all her dance costumes but it appears that all the women in the clip are wearing the same garment except for that "Leni's" version of the costume seems to be of a more shimery almost metalic fabric than the others......again, the same one that is presented in Memoiren. On the other hand, I do not see a strong resemblence in the bath scene. The face is dificult to focus on, but based on the physicality of the back and sholders, in my opinion, it is not Leni.......the actress in the film, again in my opinion, has a much broader back and sholders than does Leni. Jodi Foster's website is vague about the Leni Riefenstahl project.....simply lists it as "pre-production." However I did find this mention: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2067946,00.html This other site has also has a blurb and also a blog .....kinda interesting. http://www.afterellen.com/blog/karmankregloe/jodie-foster-to-star-in-leni-riefenstahl-biopic Cheers from damp & foggy Boston! Jose From JOHN007 at prodigy.net Fri Oct 19 09:11:32 2007 From: JOHN007 at prodigy.net (John) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:11:32 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] J. FOSTER (+ Nightmare Years) In-Reply-To: <08F74ECC-4440-4FDB-A98D-DC7F03011610@skynet.be> References: <08F74ECC-4440-4FDB-A98D-DC7F03011610@skynet.be> Message-ID: <4718AD04.2070209@prodigy.net> Hi Luc, I did an internet search a few weeks ago and the most recent information I found was this, dated April 30: "The on-again, off-again project has been in the works for at least seven years, but now a script is being written - by British writer Rupert Walters - and a director is being negotiated. People involved in the movie say the director should be announced within two or three months and shooting should start by the end of next year at the latest. 'I am hoping to be shooting before then,' said Gabriele Bacher, a producer at Primary Pictures, who will make the film along with Foster's own company." To my knowledge, however, a director has not yet been signed or announced. I am looking forward to seeing what Foster does with the story, especially since she has delcared herself to be an admirer of Riefenstahl. A few weeks ago, just for fun, I compiled all the "Riefenstahl" scenes from the TNT telemovie THE NIGHTMARE YEARS together onto DVD from my old VHS tapes. (Those scenes were cut from the commercial VHS release, I would suspect due to a lawsuit by LR. However, they DID air on TV in the USA). To my suprise, there was some 32 minutes of the Riefenstahl character (pointedly re-named "Filmmaker Helga Bauer" of course). She was played by British actress Frances Barber, and Barber did a good job, I thought, with what she was given. Of course it was presented as a one-dimensional totally ambition-driven character, guilty of misplaced loyalty to Hitler, so it was not written as a well rounded character. But it is interesting to see this portrayl, and to see Leni "in action" doing her filmmaking work (well, sort of). :-) Best wishes, John From ron at psymon.com Fri Oct 19 09:24:29 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:24:29 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] J. FOSTER In-Reply-To: <08F74ECC-4440-4FDB-A98D-DC7F03011610@skynet.be> References: <08F74ECC-4440-4FDB-A98D-DC7F03011610@skynet.be> Message-ID: <20071019132441.C43962BCAA@mailwash40.pair.com> At 02:27 AM 10/19/2007 +0200, you wrote: >Could anyone inform me what the latest news is about J; Foster's film >plans about a a Riefenstahl film? Here's an article... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/11/entertainment/e114646D70.DTL ...which says: Foster is just finishing the family flick "Nim's Island" and has been toiling for years to star in a film about Leni Riefenstahl, the filmmaker vilified after World War II for her propaganda pieces about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. "I wish I was better at making these things happen fast. That particular project is really hard to get right," Foster said. "It's going to be an interesting, challenging experience to make the movie and to defend it. I think that's what's going to be fun about it, really, is the discussion about it, these big, moral questions." I'm glad she thinks it's "fun", because I'm sure she'll be getting a lot of heat about this project! That's the way it always seems to go, anyway... Ron :/ Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From ron at psymon.com Thu Oct 25 13:27:56 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:27:56 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] =?iso-8859-1?q?Ewige_Sch=F6nheit?= Message-ID: <20071025172805.2662E2BCD9@mailwash40.pair.com> I was just poking around amazon.de, and came across this documentary... http://www.amazon.de/Ewige-Sch%C3%B6nheit-Todessehnsucht-Dritten-Reich/dp/B000BEQO4Q/ ...called "Ewige Sch?nheit - Film und Todessehnsucht im Dritten Reich". I'm not sure what "Todessehnsucht" means ("longing for death"???), but it apparently includes some sort of analysis of Leni's films (from the description: "Er analysiert, wie Albert Speer und Leni Riefenstahl die Realit?t inszenieren (Reichsparteitage) und ritualisieren"). Anyone know anything about it? Obviously it deals with NSDAP films more generally, and I suppose there's only a small portion devoted to Leni's films, but I wonder if it says anything interesting/relevant? Ron :? Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca From easternwindow at freenet.de Fri Oct 26 06:49:11 2007 From: easternwindow at freenet.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Thomas_K=F6hler?=) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:49:11 +0200 Subject: [LEN-E] =?iso-8859-1?q?Ewige_Sch=F6nheit?= In-Reply-To: <20071025172805.2662E2BCD9@mailwash40.pair.com> References: <20071025172805.2662E2BCD9@mailwash40.pair.com> Message-ID: <4721C627.3060007@freenet.de> Hi Ron, I remember very vaguely to have seen this film a few years ago on TV. It's basically an overview of how Third Reich aesthetics were promoted in films of the time. Unfortunately the film still holds up the old Kracauer thesis that the aesthetics of silent Weimar cinema seem to have announced or even prepared the way for Hitler. I can't recall exactly what is in the film, but definitely some excerpts from Leni's films, and probably also some bits of the infamous Veit Harlan films, "Jud S??" and "Kolberg". In this respect, certainly interesting, though I wished that someone would dare to release these films in full, with a good commentary and background material. I guess they will be rather appalling, but I think people should be able to assess and study their atrocities for themselves, as they surely form an important part of the history of (propaganda) film. I don't think there's anything new about Leni in this documentary, and certainly not a very differentiated view. And yes: "Todessehnsucht" means "longing for death", and it's an old topos in German art since Richard Wagner probably. Best Thomas > From ron at psymon.com Mon Oct 29 14:43:36 2007 From: ron at psymon.com (Ron Koster) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:43:36 -0400 Subject: [LEN-E] Ernst Udet in America Message-ID: <20071029184337.E440D2BCCC@mailwash40.pair.com> Just came across this video on YouTube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2CBx7x5GCI I don't know much about flying, but it sure looks impressive to me (as usual for Udet)! Ron :) Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca