[LEN-E] Bach & Wege

[Ron Koster]

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 Schönheit", 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