Leni Riefenstahl - Views of Critics

Views of Critics

In his book The Story of Film, film scholar Mark Cousins claims, "Next to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, Leni Riefenstahl was the most technically talented Western film maker of her era".

Reviewer Gary Morris called Riefenstahl "an artist of unparalleled gifts, a woman in an industry dominated by men, one of the great formalists of the cinema on a par with Eisenstein or Welles". Pauline Kael called Triumph and Olympia "the two greatest films ever directed by a woman".

New York Times film critic Hal Erickson states that while the Triumph of the Will’s “Jewish Question” is mainly unmentioned, “filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl prefers to concentrate on cheering crowds, precision marching, military bands, and Hitler’s climactic speech, all orchestrated, choreographed and illuminated on a scale that makes Griffith and DeMille look like poverty-row directors." The recurring topic of a female director with such prowess and force executing such a work was apparently resented by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels “but finally had to admit that her images, achieved through the use of 30 cameras and 120 assistants, were worth a thousand speeches.” While it may be “possibly the most powerful propaganda film ever made, Triumph of the Will is also, in retrospect, one of the most horrifying.”

New York Times film critic Hal Erickson says of Riefenstahl, “Having proven her mettle with her still-astonishing propaganda epic Triumph of the Will, German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl furthered her reputation with the two-part Olympia.” While the first half of the film is unique in its portrayal of “non-true Aryan” athletes, especially the emerging star of Jesse Owens, “The second half of the film is the more impressive technically, with Riefenstahl utilizing an astonishing variety of camera speeds and angles to record the diving competition.” Showing Riefenstahl’s work ethic and perseverance, her crew began “Working 16 hours a day, seven days a week.” Though, “Riefenstahl and her staff were often denied desirable camera angles,” they were forced “to improvise with telephoto lenses.” The results of this ingenuity are “far more dramatically impressive than the up-close-and-personal approach taken by contemporary TV cameramen.”

Critic Judith Thurman says in her piece in the The New Yorker that “Riefenstahl’s “genius” has rarely been questioned, even by critics who despise the service to which she lent it.” Riefenstahl was a “consummate stylist obsessed with bodies in motion, particularly those of dancers and athletes.” Her two most famous films, Olympia and Triumph of the Will are critiqued by Thurman, who says, “In both, Riefenstahl relies heavily for her transitions on portentous cutaways to clouds, mist, statuary, foliage, and rooftops. Her reaction shots have a tedious sameness: shining, ecstatic faces—nearly all young and Aryan, except for Hitler’s.” Thurman claims that very few people actually see Riefenstahl’s full work, saying “many people, even film buffs, seem never to have seen—or are unaware of never having seen—Riefenstahl’s documentaries in their entirety,” which leads people to believe that “If, by definition, the trailer for a so-called masterpiece can never be greater than the film itself, then Riefenstahl’s legacy fails the test.”

Writer Richard Corliss wrote in Time magazine that he was "impressed by Riefenstahl’s standing as a total auteur: producer, writer, director, editor and, in the fiction films, actress." On the subject of her films being classic works, and not simply propaganda, Corliss argues that "The issues her films and her career raise are as complex and they are important, and her vilifiers tend to reduce the argument to one of a director's complicity in atrocity or her criminal ignorance." The reason, Corliss states, that people discredit her work, and continue to do so, is the fact that she is a woman, saying, "Riefenstahl’s sin, I suspect, was being a woman — a woman who, uniquely, dared to play the man's game of filmmaking. Play and win, for, by any disinterested standard, Triumph of the Will and Olympia are towering artistic achievements." Even though "she shot her last feature film, Tiefland, in the early 40s, and released it in 1954, Riefenstahl is still the world's most controversial director; her name summons the conflicts of defiant artistry and compromised morality." But regardless of political opinion "Riefenstahl’s visual style — heroic, sensuous, attuned to the mists and myths of nature" will always be celebrated, though at the time it was not in "critical fashion." "Finally, Riefenstahl was a woman, a beautiful woman. When she was seen with Hitler, their photos made the world's front pages. And the image stuck."