Say what you will about her involvement with Germany, but she was a true innovator of cinema.
Riefenstahl died Monday night at her home in the Bavarian lakeside town of Poecking, mayor Rainer Schnitzler said.
Riefenstahl's companion Horst Kettner said she died in her sleep.
"Her heart simply stopped," Kettner told the online version of the German celebrity magazine Bunte.
A tireless innovator of film and photographic techniques, Riefenstahl's career centered on a quest for adventure and portraying physical beauty.
Even as she turned 100 last year, she strapped on scuba gear to photograph sharks in turquoise waters. She had begun to complain recently that injuries sustained in accidents over the years, including a helicopter crash in Sudan in 2000, had taken their toll and caused her constant pain.
Despite critical acclaim for her later photographs of the African Nuba people and of undersea flora and fauna, she spent more than half her life trying to live down the films she made for Hitler and for having admired the tyrant who devastated Europe and all but eliminated its Jews.
Even as late as 2002, Riefenstahl was investigated for Holocaust denial after she said she did not know that Gypsies taken from concentration camps to be used as extras in one of her wartime films later died in the camps. Authorities eventually dropped the case, saying her comments did not rise to a prosecutable level.
Speaking to The Associated Press just before her 100th birthday on Aug. 22, 2002, Riefenstahl dramatically said she has "apologized for ever being born" but that she should not be criticized for her masterful films.
"I don't know what I should apologize for," she said. "I cannot apologize, for example, for having made the film 'Triumph of the Will' — it won the top prize. All my films won prizes."
Biographer Juergen Trimborn, who wrote "Riefenstahl: A German Career," said she could not apologize because the Nazi films were the centerpieces of her career.
"One can't speak about Leni Riefenstahl without looking at her entire career in the Third Reich," Trimborn said. "Her most important films were made during the Third Reich — 'Triumph of the Will,' 'Olympia,' — that's what's she's known for."
Riefenstahl said she had always been guided by the search for beauty, whether it was in her images of the 1934 Nuremberg rallies with thousands of goose-stepping soldiers and enraptured civilians fawning for their Fuehrer, in her dazzling portrayal of the 1936 Olympic athletes in Berlin, or in her still photographs of the sculpted Nuba men.
"I always see more of the good and the beautiful than the ugly and sick," Riefenstahl said. "Through my optimism I naturally prefer and capture the beauty in life."
Born Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl in Berlin on Aug. 22, 1902, she was the first child of Alfred Riefenstahl, the owner of a heating and ventilation firm, and his wife, Bertha Scherlach.
Riefenstahl's artistic career began as a creative dancer until a knee injury led her to switch to movies.
After she saw one of Arnold Fanck's silent films set in the mountains, Riefenstahl presented herself to him as his new star, and he accepted, as much for her blue-eyed, high-cheekboned beauty as her daredevil spirit.
She climbed rocks barefoot for the camera and was buried in an avalanche for the death scene in the 1926 film "Mountain of Destiny." Soon, she was making her own films, fairy tales such as "The Blue Light" celebrating Germany's Alpine mystique, in which she was star, screenwriter and director.
She heard Hitler speak for the first time at a 1932 rally and wrote to him — again offering her talents to a powerful, inspirational man. In her memoirs, Riefenstahl rapturously describes her first impression of Hitler's charisma.
"It seemed as if the earth's surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth. I felt quite paralyzed."
Though she said she knew nothing of Hitler's "Final Solution" and learned of concentration camps only after the war, Riefenstahl said she confronted the Fuehrer about his anti-Semitism, one of many apparent contradictions in her claims of total ignorance of the Nazi mission.
Likewise, she defended "Triumph of the Will" as a documentary that contained "not one single anti-Semitic word," while avoiding any talk about filming Nazi official Julius Streicher haranguing the crowd about "racial purity" laws.
Many suspected Riefenstahl of being Hitler's lover, which she also denied. Nonetheless, as his filmmaker, Riefenstahl was the only woman to help shape the rise of the Third Reich.
She made four films for Hitler, the best known of which were "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia," a meditation on muscle and movement at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
She married once, in 1944 to army Maj. Peter Jacob, but the couple split three years later. She had no children, and her only sibling, Heinz, was killed on the eastern front during World War II.
Riefenstahl spent three years under allied arrest after the war, some of the time in a mental hospital. War tribunals ultimately cleared her of any wrongdoing but suspicion of being a Nazi collaborator stuck. She was boycotted as a film director and sank into poverty, living with her mother in a one-room apartment.
She reclaimed her career in the 1960s when she lived with and photographed the Nuba.
"I've never laughed so much as I did when living with the Nuba. I became reconciled with myself," she said.
She next turned to underwater photography, diving in the Maldives, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and off Papua New Guinea. She learned to dive when she was 72, lying about her age by 20 years to gain admittance to a class.
Around this time, she met Kettner, or "Horsti," as she called him, a fellow photographer half her age who became her live-in assistant and companion.
At age 100, she released a new film based on her dives, "Impressions Under Water."
She said she hoped she would be remembered as "an industrious woman who has worked very hard her whole life and has received much acknowledgment."
If you can separate art from politics she was a genuinely great filmmaker. Her work inspired everybody from Welles to Kubrick to Lucas. I called a short film of mine 2 years ago "Triumph of the Will, Part II" -- not as an homage, but to show the way intentions, no matter how naively positive, can ultimately have negative consequences.
Indeed, her films are astonishing and scary as well.
In what way, do you think, has she influenced Welles and Kubrick?
Quote from: chriskelvinIn what way, do you think, has she influenced Welles and Kubrick?
big balls.
Anachronism weeps today
Quote from: PQuote from: chriskelvinIn what way, do you think, has she influenced Welles and Kubrick?
big balls.
nah no balls , i know this guy
i meant that kubrick and welles had big balls. that was their trademark and greatest talent. Leni also had big balls, probably bigger, considering.
the real question here is: were they hairy?
Quote from: Pi meant that kubrick and welles had big balls. that was their trademark and greatest talent. Leni also had big balls, probably bigger, considering.
::ironic:: oppps my bad
i was talking about mutinyco and the fact that he kinda fruity
most AINT IT COOL NEWS talk backs are gay but they are having a good one going over hitlers bitch
go over and read it
Damn nazi biatch! I'am sure she's having sex with Hitler in hell as we speak.
Quote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalonesAnachronism weeps today
Hehehe! Yeah, our nazi-minorty is weeping.
Quote from: SigurQuote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalonesAnachronism weeps today
Hehehe! Yeah, our nazi-minorty is weeping.
well hitler was a socialist as well so maybe a few others not just Anachronism are weeping
i always said socialisum leads to coruption which leads to dictatership which leads to fucking nazis
i hope she burns in hell
geee maybe bin laden was a great at the hula hoop should we now forgive him for what he did because we all love hula hoops
Quote from: mutinycoIf you can separate art from politics she was a genuinely great filmmaker. .
i never bought that shit about seperate the art from the artist , because if your art is not a extension of yourself then your a hack
mutinyco as somone who makes their living off of asking people like bill paxton " so hows your new movie"
your are in deed a hack , your the studios bitch pavlovs fucking dog you get paid to push product
so dont try and get all deep on us, shouldnt you be interviewing Fez from that 70's show right now anyway ?????
What happens if a jew, with a hard on, by accident collides with the Wailing Wall?
OK, nobody wanted to guess it so here's the answer:
He breaks his nose! :-D
Just a little joke to make you lads cheer up!
Quote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalonesQuote from: mutinycoIf you can separate art from politics she was a genuinely great filmmaker. .
i never bought that shit about seperate the art from the artist , because if your art is not a extension of yourself then your a hack
I wouldn't say Riefenstahl is a "hack," but neither is she a great filmmaker without any caveats. There is no denying that her cinematic skills were highly developed. But it is also true that those skills were used to serve evil ends.
I do agree that the art and the artist are inseparable, so the fact that Riefenstahl made Nazi propaganda films should not be ignored.
Riefenstahl was an important and innovative filmmaker, but, in the end, should be held accountable for what her films helped bring about. (How much her films helped to stoke the Nazi fires is forever debatable.)
In an educational system of unlimited resources, students would watch "Triumph of the Will" ... followed immediately by "Shoah."
Quote from: RaviQuote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalonesQuote from: mutinycoIf you can separate art from politics she was a genuinely great filmmaker. .
i never bought that shit about seperate the art from the artist , because if your art is not a extension of yourself then your a hack
I wouldn't say Riefenstahl is a "hack," but neither is she a great filmmaker without any caveats. There is no denying that her cinematic skills were highly developed. But it is also true that those skills were used to serve evil ends.
I do agree that the art and the artist are inseparable, so the fact that Riefenstahl made Nazi propaganda films should not be ignored.
i just had a one hour PM back and fourth discussion saying that she was not a hack she had a gift and brotha she used it for evil, filming gypsy kids right before they were to be killed just for the realalistic look on their faces is sick and twisted
she may of had a gift and hell maybe charles manson could of been the worlds best bongo player , but he choose another path
and she knew what she was doing, all those later day interviews was all bullshit in certain circles its still hip to be down with the nazi's, and she was held up as a cool icon of taboo era
even one of my heros david bowie gave a heil hitler sign to a crowd and flirted with nazi'isums , then later he went all Kabbalah on us so he goes with the flow i guess , whats hip he is down with
still for a guy who chases trends ( no hip genra has he yet tried to jump on the band wagon with) he makes great music
but this chick was hitlers bitch she wrote about how his speechs captivated her, and she made two films one she thought wasnt good enough then she re made it as " Triumph of the Will" IF HER HEART WASNT INTO IT AND SHE WAS FORCED TO MAKE IT WHY DID SHE NOT LIKE THE ORIGINAL PRODUCT AND SHE WENT AND DID IT OVER
Fuck her i hope she is getting a pineapple lodged in her ass in hell right now by harvy keitel
Little Nicky references are part of what makes you great
8)
Quote from: SoNowThenLittle Nicky references are part of what makes you great
8)
thank you ma man
Quote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalones
even one of my heros david bowie gave a heil hitler sign to a crowd and flirted with nazi'isums , then later he went all Kabbalah on us so he goes with the flow i guess , whats hip he is down with
I thought you hated being "trendy" and doin whatever is "hip"?
Quote from: Pedro the WombatQuote from: AlguienEstolamiPantalones
even one of my heros david bowie gave a heil hitler sign to a crowd and flirted with nazi'isums , then later he went all Kabbalah on us so he goes with the flow i guess , whats hip he is down with
I thought you hated being "trendy" and doin whatever is "hip"?
bowie is the exception to the rule because he has shown himself to have real talant
I'm curious. Can we compare modern day commercial directors to Leni Riefenstahl? Essentially, they're propagandists like her. Should say...David Fincher be held accountable for doing Nike commercials -- meanwhile their entire company is based around slave labor?...
Quote from: mutinycoI'm curious. Can we compare modern day commercial directors to Leni Riefenstahl? Essentially, they're propagandists like her. Should say...David Fincher be held accountable for doing Nike commercials -- meanwhile their entire company is based around slave labor?...
um no.
Aside from the scale of atrocity, it's essentially the same thing.
Mutinyco, that argument is insane. Yea, Nike does hold factories in asian countries that bring about modern slave labor, but Fincher directing their commercials is an indirect endorsement to the problems in the company. Riefenstahl directed films directly for the inhumane ideas supported by an institution. Fincher's commercials aren't spouting hate at all. Hers were. And if you wanna continue the argument and start comparing how one evil is worst than the other, than that is another insane argument.
Actually, I just wanted to post Stanley Kauffmann's (film critic) very negative remembrance of her:
Taking Sides, reviewed here two weeks ago, dealt with the post-World War II inquiry into the alleged Nazi activities of the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, with the possibility of separating art and politics. After considerable trouble he won his argument that, for him, the two were separable. On September 8, Leni Riefenstahl died at the age of 101--an artist under Hitler who had very little trouble with the American authorities in freeing her art of political guilt. Yet this was a film-maker whose two major works were celebrations of Hitlerism: the documentaries Triumph of the Will and Olympia. The former, a film that is still frightening nearly sixty years after Hitler's death, glorified a gigantic Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1934. Olympia celebrated the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and again was a swelling hymn to Nazi principles. Despite these films, despite the innumerable photographs and accounts of Riefenstahl's association with Hitler and her praise of him, she was very quickly de-Nazified by the American occupation command.
She certainly must have had charm: in her autobiography she recounts how, during the days of Army inquiry, she was invited to tea by top officers. She certainly had unique talent: her worst despisers (I am one) cannot deny it. Before the war she had starred in Alpine films in which her physical feats were astounding. After some twenty years of postwar inactivity, she became a photographer, most notably of the Nuba in Africa, and at the age of seventy-one she learned to scuba dive and did underwater photography.
Her later life, because it was so extraordinary, seemed an attempt to counterbalance her past with apolitical dazzle. When questioned about her work for the Nazis, she always responded that she had never actually joined the Nazi Party and that she had changed her views in 1944 (as did other Nazi supporters when they saw that Hitler was going to lose). She made her own subsequent attempts to separate art from politics. She would often say, "I didn't do any harm to anyone. What have I ever done? What am I guilty of?" I haven't yet read the response that could have been made: "Your work--in fact, your best work--helped inspire millions to do enormous harm."
Riefenstahl's plea of political innocence can be settled with one question. If Hitler had won, wouldn't he have made her the queen of Third Reich filmmaking? He happened to lose, so she became non-Nazi. It was possibly ignoble of me, but the news of her death gave me a surge of schadenfreude.
~rougerum
My argument is very simple. It has nothing to do with Fincher or whoever else. It's about a culture and its ability to emphatically choose a glorifying aesthetic over the very real evils that support it. People are extremely passive. How many people in Europe, Jews included, didn't believe until the very moment it happened that it was going to happen? It's called denial. 9/11 is a perfect example of our denial. For years anybody watching international news knew that a terrorist attack on NYC was inevitable. Just a question of when and to what extent. Then it happened and what was everybody's reaction? Oh, my God! It was so unexpected! I didn't know there were people in the world who hated us!
We've gone from a great manufacturing nation to a managing nation. Everybody else makes everything for us. What happens when they start to revolt? Oh, I didn't know they hated being slaves while we lived like kings! And what then, robots? And what happens when they revolt?
Man, I love getting paranoid! I'm right though.
Anyhow, I'm just asking questions. I elaborated on my idea a bit in my last editorial.