[LEN-E] Article on Olympia in DER SPIEGEL / "Das Reichsorchester"

[Ron Koster]

At 04:53 PM 4/26/2008 +0200, Thomas Köhler wrote:

>Interesting, I wasn't aware that this poster was unseen.


Well, I've seen that picture of Leni before (all 
over the place), but never in that poster -- that 
doesn't mean that the poster was unseen, just 
that *I* have never seen it, of course. ;)

I'd *love* to have a print of that (i.e. a 
reprint -- I certainly couldn't afford an 
original!), actually. Indeed, in that regard I'd 
also love a print of either of the two (that I'm 
aware of) colour posters for Das blaue Licht, too 
-- I wish some poster company would come out with 
these (if, of course, they could get permission to do so).


>Are you sure that's Leni?


Well, according to Henry (Heinz von) Jaworsky, 
one of her cameramen -- and, indirectly, Leni herself -- it is!

For reference, the spring 1973 issue (number 
56-57) of the journal "Film Culture" features an 
interview with Jaworsky (conducted by Gordon 
Hitchens, Kirk Bond and John Handhardt), which 
includes this exchange concerning the shooting of Olympia (pp. 123-124)...

         HITCHENS: Here is a photograph of a woman, nude,
         shot full-figure from the rear, on a bench, with her arms
         upraised in a stylized manner. She [Riefenstahl] told me
         this was of her, used in the Olympia prologue.

         JAWORSKY: No... but it could be. Yes. Yes, that's her.
         There was a cameraman on Olympia by the name of
         Willy Zielke, who was an absolute genius. He was a
         great artist, and with him she shot a whole prologue.
         She went somewhere in the Baltic, I think on the beach,
         and with a couple of nude girls, including herself, they did
         this prologue because she wasn't very happy with what
         they did in Greece. As I told you, she tried in Greece to
         arrange the whole thing, but it wasn't enough. So she did
         this prologue with Zielke. Yes, that's her, that's for sure.

So here, firstly, we have second-hand information 
from Hitchens stating that Leni herself asserted 
that it was a photo of her, which is then confirmed by Jaworsky.

David B. Hinton also talks about this in his "The 
Films of Leni Riefenstahl" (3rd edition) -- in 
fact, he includes the actual photo (i.e. the 
exact same one featured in that aforementioned 
poster) with a caption which reads: "Riefenstahl 
made an anonymous appearance as a nude dancer in the Olympia prologue."

Further, in the main text for his book (on p. 
50), in describing the prologue, he states...

         A close-up shot shows the shot-putter tossing the ball
         from hand to hand in rhythmic, dance-like motions.
         This shot becomes another dissolve, as the masculine
         arms of the shot-putter become the feminine arms of
         dancers. An erotic and very expressionistic dance is
         performed by several nude women, including Riefenstahl
         herself (although her anonymity is protected by the
         camera angle). The dance was conceived by Riefenstahl
         and shot in the sand dunes of a Baltic beach.

HOWEVER, with that said, I do believe that Hinton 
is jumping to conclusions! His reference for 
making these statements is, in fact, solely the 
above interview with Jaworsky -- but Jaworsky 
does *not* say that Leni was actually in the 
*film* itself, just that the described *photo* 
is, indeed, of her. I've looked very closely at 
the dancers in the prologue (from the film) to 
see if I could find anyone who might be Leni, and 
although some of them are indeed only very 
vaguely shot, even still I just can't really see 
anyone who genuinely looks like she could be Leni.

In any case, while I do feel that Hinton is in 
error about that (her being in the actual film), 
at the same time I also believe he is perfectly 
correct in which particular photo is being 
referred to. In that regard, it's probably worth 
mentioning that quite often I'll see various 
people (eBay sellers, etc.) who state that this 
is the photo (also from that article) which is Leni "in the nude"...

http://einestages.spiegel.de/hund-images/2007/10/18/48/484a418cf011cdf0da61c9ef59b243ac_image_document_large.jpg

...but it's not. For one thing, that girl's nose 
isn't shaped liked Leni's rather 
distinctively-shaped nose, and for another thing 
-- er, another two things ;) -- neither are this 
girl's breasts. Leni certainly wasn't overly 
"buxom" by any means, of course, but she was 
quite obviously (even fully-clothed) discernably 
more-so than this young girl. Indeed, in watching 
the actual footage from the film, it's these two 
(or, uh, three) physical aspects -- along with 
the shape of Leni's chin -- which make it fairly 
easy to reject the silhouetted dancers as being 
her, one by one. The only ones which one can't 
reject are, of course, the ones which can't be 
clearly seen at all (such as the beginning shots 
featuring only the dancers' legs, etc.) -- but 
that's certainly not any evidence that Leni 
actually appeared (if only her arms or legs or whatever) in the final film.


>"Reichsorchester" is out on dvd, in both Germany 

>and the UK. And the latter will have English subs, I would assume..


Oh! Thanks! I guess it would've helped if I 
actually bothered to *look*, of course -- thanks 
for going to the trouble, though!

Ron ;)