[LEN-E] Riefenstahl, why bother?

[Thomas Köhler]

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




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