Triumph of the Will (Special Edition)
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Movie Reviews of Triumph of the Will (Special Edition)
Movie Review: A Nazi Propaganda Film From the 1930s.
Summary: 5 Stars
_Triumph of the Will_ (in the original German: _Triumph des Willens_) is the most infamous propaganda film featuring the Nazis at the Third Reich's 1934 Nuremberg Party Rally by the notorious German film maker Leni Riefenstahl. The movie obviously centers around the Nazi fascination with the all-powerful "Will to power" and attempts to show what can be accomplished by application of such Will to the political. The film features such Nazis as Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, and Hermann Goering but most of its focus is directed at Adolf Hitler ("Der Fuerher"). The basic point of the film seems to have been to propagandize for the National Socialists showing Germany as a great power and the strength of the German military and people. The film also features appearances by the S.A., the S.S., and the "Hitler Youth", all praised by Hitler himself. Most of the film consists of marches by the German stormtroopers, accompanied by music from Richard Wagner (beloved of Hitler) and the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" or party rallies with speeches by Hitler himself or other notorious Nazis. The movie also shows much of the accompanying scenario of Germany at the time as well as featuring a scene in which farmers dressed in traditional garb present the fruits of their labors to Hitler. Such appeals to tradition were common among the Nazis. Throughout the film, the German male soldier/worker is presented as youthful, exuberant, strong, fertile, and powerful. (Some of the scenes involving young German men frolicking, shaving, and even bathing while bare-chested could probably frankly be described as homoerotic.) Hitler's speeches themselves (as well as the speeches of the other Nazis presented in this film) are powerful and disturbing. Hitler explains his position and attempts to demonstrate the power of his party and nation. At one particularly revealing point, Hitler states "the state does not order us, we order the state!". At other times, various Nazi officials express the fact that "Hitler is Germany". This sums up the cult of personality surrounding Der Fuerher. (Hitler's uncanny ability to mesmerize the people during his speeches has been commented upon frequently. Some have maintained that Hitler himself has an almost occult influence at such times. Various theories have been suggested to explain how he came about such powers.) Ironically, at no point in the film is a single anti-semitic phrase uttered. This may have been intentional. What can be seen from this film though is the power of the Nazi state and military. Further, the esoteric elements of the Nazi party are present, including such features as the swastika and the bizarre cult surrounding the "blood banner" (the flag carried by the Nazis during the Beer Hall Putsch and revered by Nazis since that time). Many have noted that the Nazi party itself may constitute a form of ersatz religion. For example, the conservative theorist Eric Voegelin (who himself escaped from Germany at the time) has maintained that Nazism constitutes a "political religion". Such quasi-religious aspects are certainly present in this film. Ultimately though, to me at least, the film pointed out the lurking danger that may be found in all crowds and group-think. Such a "herd instinct" overtakes many of those present in the crowd as their very selves merge with the rest of the crowd, the party, the nation, and the German people in pseudo-mystical union. Thus, may be understood the mystical aspect of the National Socialist movement, and herein, partly lay its appeal.
The woman who made this film, Leni Riefenstahl (1902 - 2003), was an interesting enough person herself. To begin with, one must note that for the time, this film represented an advance in film technique. Indeed, the entire film is very well put together and effectively accomplishes its purpose in propagandizing for the Nazis. Riefenstahl herself was a German film-maker who became fascinated by the Nazis for a time. Later, she was to maintain that she was politically naïve and largely ignorant of the sorts of crimes they were committing (whether or not she was being disingenuous on this point is obviously debatable). After World War II, Riefenstahl was kept in a French detention camp for some time. She was investigated for a period but never convicted during the de-nazification process. Later, she would continue to produce other works of art, but ultimately she remains most (in)famous for this piece.
The movie itself is a disturbing one, ultimately, in light of the crimes of war. It speaks to the danger of fanaticism. Ultimately, despite the propaganda presented in this film, Hitler did not serve the German people well, and was to betray them at the very end (when many innocent Germans were butchered by Soviet soldiers). This is to say nothing of course of Hitler's other, more notorious, crimes.
Movie Review: Triumph of the Kitsch
Summary: 5 Stars
Having seen "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl" I thought I had seen "Triumph of the Will." Right at the beginning of Ray Müller's documentary (1993) a shot of marching Nazis from "Triumph" is juxtaposed with a large school of little pink fish from the footage for Riefenstahl's recent "Underwater Impressions" and the effect is rather funny. The marching monsters still look scary enough but the school of fish immediately puts this impression into a comical perspective.
Little did I know! The 1993 documentary contains many sections from "Triumph" but the effect of watching "Triumph of the Will" ("Triumph des Willens," 1935) in its entirety is very different indeed. Forget about comical perspectives. With the exception of a cat catching a glimpse at the Führer, Riefenstahl's film of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, financed by the Nazi Government and commissioned by Hitler himself, is serious. Monumentally serious. Perspectives projected by the film, which "doesn't contain a single reconstructed scene" (Riefenstahl), are accumulated in the style and service of the militaristic ceremonies they document and surely with the intend to inspire awe. Quite organically in fact does Riefenstahl's mis-en-scene grow out of the Nazi rhetoric itself, the goose-stepping shadows of marching SA men reinforcing her imagology in the same way as the flashy gestures of the orators reinforce the aggressive delivery of their screamed slogans. "Sieg - Heil; Sieg - Heil; Sieg - Heil!!!" "Argumentum ad nauseam" is indeed a technique of propaganda generation and if a self-proclaimed "artistic documentary" starts to mimic the cultivated stupidity of the documented it should not only be accused of collaboration with organized idiocy; it should be accused of the ultimate achievement: of having crystallized the images of banal militaristic rhetoric into something glorious and sumptuous, a colossal apotheosis of power and kitsch. Hitler Kitsch. It is the "divine" presence of the Führer which is towering above the elevated center of this carefully constructed montage. "The party is Hitler!" screams Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. "But Hitler is Germany, as Germany is Hitler!" Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer -- und ein Film.
Ironically though "Triumph of the Will" is a very interesting film if seen by a moderately educated viewer today. Our knowledge of WWII, the images of Nazi atrocities, holocaust, concentration camps, etc., which have become part of the collective memory, and last not least our over-saturation with modern propaganda and advertisement function quite effectively as the "de-kitsching" distance which the film itself fails to provide. While our senses will still be numbed our minds can no longer be seduced. Riefenstahl claims that she was not really interested in the political content of the speeches and presented the chosen sections entirely for the dramatic impact which she observed from the gestures as well as from the degree of audience enthusiasm. We can thus witness an impressive collection of rhetorical climaxes in very quick succession and this allows us to understand the essential Nazi gesture. "A people that does not protect its racial purity will perish!" screams Gauleiter Julius Streicher his massive bald head filling the entire screen. His hand stretches out imploringly on "people," clenches into a fist on "purity" and, in a powerful cadence, crushes down on us with "perish." He must have rehearsed this "pure" martial gesture a thousand times in front of a mirror. The Nazi rhetoric is basically a rhythmic tour de force. While completely ignoring strength of argument or logic, it concentrates entirely on accumulation of powerful slogans, sound bites, cadences and the complete elimination of "weak" gestures. It is a highly ritualized rhetoric of archaic, of brutal, of bombastic mantras--a militaristic rhetoric which is used as a weapon against the chaos of "decadent" democracy.
Kitsch, in the totalitarian realm of Nazi aesthetics, is the absolute denial of weakness. Interestingly an earlier Riefenstahl "propaganda documentary" of the 1933 Nazi Party Congress ("The Victory of Faith," "Der Sieg des Glaubens") shows many technical problems and frequently exposes Hitler in awkward moments. Interviewed by Guy Müller Riefenstahl appeared to be genuinely furious about this (60 years later!) and refused to even call it a film.
This special edition also features Riefenstahl's short "Day of Freedom" ("Tag der Freiheit," 1935) about the Wehrmacht, very similar stylistically to "Triumph," as well as historian Dr. Anthony R. Santoro's excellent commentary.
Movie Review: An ocean of adrenalin
Summary: 5 Stars
The aim of the rallies and parades described here was to create dramatic impressions that overcame rationality and reached the emotions of participants. The adrenlin that must have been generated among the thousands at these rallies and other Nazi events, probably could have filled an ocean. Wilhelm Reich's _Mass Pyschology of Fascism__ gives a very good analysis of this aspect of the Nazi party and its regime.
The film captures the Sixth Congress of the Nazi party in 1934, the first after Hitler had come to office. What also see is how the Nazis studied what the theater, the cinema, the church, and the pyschologists had learned about the use of pagentry, of light and darkness, of symbol and ceremony to craft their spectacles.
I remember the first time I saw it, I watched it in solemn, silent awe, as impressed by its images as I was disgusted and terrified by what it documented.
Leni Riefenstahl was a genius. The film techniques used, the editing, the absence of any narration, and the way you are struck by the film despite the utterly disgusting spectacle that this film was, are great example of the what both creativity and technical achievement can produce.
It is a massive example of the central concept of dramatic art: SHOW DON'T TELL.
The film was used not only as a propoganda piece around the world where it won many prizes, but as indoctrination in Germany itself. Every school child in Germany was forced to see this film with its marching storm troopers, its shreaking speaches by Hitler, Goebels, and other Nazi leaders, and its display of pagentry.
All of this was not by accident. The congress came after a major crisis in the Nazi movement. The Nazis had always had a radical rhetoric, claiming to defend working people (The party's actual name was the German National Socialist Workers party) against the huge landowners, the bankers, the corporate plutocrats who had in fact bankrolled and managed Hitler's rise to power. A radical wing of the party was concentrated in the SA, the storm troopers--the Nazi's gangs of organized thugs and street brawlers--, their leader, Ernst Roehm. After Hitler came to power in 1933 Roehm demanded a "second revolution" by the Nazis against the plutocrats. Roehm demand a merger of the Army which was the lynch pin of the old Prussian Aristoracy and Germany's new capitalist magnates-- and the storm troopers be combined under the Roehm's leadership. Germany's ruling class threatened to replace Hitler, or, at least not allow him to succeed the ailing President Von Hindenberg, if Roehm and the other adherents of the "second revolution" were not crushed.
In June 1934 Hitler had hundreds of Storm Troopers including Roehm murdered. Roehm was replaced by Viktor Lutze, an insignificant police official and the SA was allowed to whither away. Meanwhile. the SS, Protective Squadron, which had hitherto been Hitler's personal body guard was extended to become a large organization, fielding its own military divisions in the the Second World War.
The Sixth Nazi Congress shown in the _Triumph of the Will_ took place in September 1934, only a few months after the SA purge. Throughout the film you are continually seeing Viktor Lutze, you are continually seeing affirmations of loyalty by the Storm Troops, including a huge cermony in which tens of thousands of Storm Troppers swear allegiance to Hitler (Previously, these thugs swore to obey their unit commanders only). In the speech that concludes the Congress and the film, Hitler 's final point is that the two institutions that are the foundation of the new order in Germany are the Army and its aristocartic leadership and the Nazi party.
The rally ratified loyalty to Hitler, loyalty to the course of serve the capitalists, the landowners, and the army after the Roehm purge.
The splender of the triumph of the will, the marching thousands, the banners, the spotlights, the festivities of women, children, townspeople, and the brown shirted hordes, all was staging to ratify that the same old plutocrats and big landowners that Hitler had claimed to fight for the interest of Germany's people were still in the saddle.
Movie Review: Problematic Genius
Summary: 5 Stars
To begin with, merely discussing this film in open society, or among those conversant with film history and theory, often serves as the beginning of arguments rivalled only by mentioning Birth of a Nation. Attempting to review the film can only compound the problem. So, one must look at Riefenstahl's film in light of what it intends to accomplish, and how effective it is in doing so. To answer the first question, any film that attempts to rationalize National Socialism is morally questionable, to say the least. However, did Riefenstahl know this at the time this film was made? The evidence would argue that she didn't. While she couldn't have been unaware of the anti-Jewish rhetoric of the Nazi party, she may very well have been unaware of the extremity of that political party's ethnic hatred. Riefenstahl was commissioned to produce a celluloid document that would contribute to the cultural standing of the Nazis, and she did exactly that in her depiction not only of Hitler as a "god" descending from the heavens to rescue Germany, but also through the sheer power of the sequences in which masses of soldiers move in exact synchronization. Through images pastoral and industrial in origin, Riefenstahl weaves a tapestry that, for the moment of viewing, comes within a hair's breadth of achieving what the Nazis desperately wanted: acceptance by the world outside Germany.
The cinematic accomplishment of Triumph of the Will can be noted by one barometer: The film was considered to be so effective in its method and argument that it was banned from exhibition in the U.S.A. during the Second World War. Now, Riefenstahl's film was not alone in receiving this distinction; many lesser, more heavy-handed (and offensive) films were also banned during wartime. However, one only has to look at two of the most popular films of all time to determine just how influential Triumph of the Will really is. In George Lucas' Star Wars (Episode IV, for the newbies), the entire sequence in which the heroes are awarded their medals is "appropriated" from Triumph of the Will, even down to the replication of Albert Speer's "Cathedral of Light" which was created around the stadium at Nuremburg using huge flood lights. Following that, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy used Triumph of the Will as an obvious reference in the depiction of the mustering and marching of the Orc troops against the heroic defenders of Middle Earth.
So where does this leave us? Is this film the virtual capture of evil on film? Yes...and no. It is a fact beyond dispute that the Third Reich epitomized evil during the mid-20th century, and any form of media which attempts to argue on its behalf is tainted by such an association. However, it is unfair to penalize Leni Riefenstahl for doing exactly what she was directed to do. What many people seem to be unable to accept is that she was willing to bring all of her cinematic acumen to bear upon such a project. It is difficult to reconcile the director of Olympia with that of Triumph of the Will. However, one must constantly remind oneself of Riefenstahl's commitment, as a documentarist, to capture the moment which is occurring before her cameras. As such, she cannot be held accountable for the ultimate effect of Triumph of the Will; this is simply an example of a director doing a job a bit too well. Still, no-one should simply sit back and view this film without the guidance of history. To do so, to accept the arguments of the film's "stars" without question, would be to declare defeat in the face of an evil which should have been wiped from the face of the Earth decades ago.
In short, this film is an invaluable resource of technique. Morally, it is beyond redemption. This moral failing is not the fault of the director.
Movie Review: document for the student of totalitariansim
Summary: 5 Stars
It is far from easy to review such material! I only wish the star grading were optional. Several people here have already noted the talent of the film-maker and how she conceptualized on film, and revolutionized, what has come to pass as propaganda.
I was interested more in the documentary side of this film--I wanted to have a glimpse at the Sixth Congress of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which took place in Nuremberg between September 4 and 10, 1934. For the astute scholar of the totalitarian regimes, this is an interesting and revelatory work. Here are some quickly drawn observations:
Hitler does not quite have all the power in the state, he speaks as if he has 90% of it and ALL his acolytes speak of him as if he is God-sent;
Hitler speech sounds cryptic/messianic and even banal at times (not only in comparison to the highly rhetorical Gobbles);
Hitler starts with good voice but soon turns to screeches;
Hitler's language about the mission of the German people is still about peace, not belligerent, yet mobilizing;
Hitler seems to want to make, and achieve, a deeper contact with the individual when he greets the troops;
Hitler has extremely well studied gestures;
The SA vs. SS power struggle is still going on with Hitler lying about how much he owes and likes the former;
The SA folks (and leader) look noticeably less than the SS;
There are visible security forces planted between the enthusiastic attendees and Hitler;
The classless society is exulted;
Relentless indoctrination of the populace starting with the thousands of German youth in attendance;
Future troops march uniformed, holding just shovels--according to the Versailles Treaty, Germany is allowed little re-militarization;
Very few shows of the mechanization in the German armed-forces--history tells us that it was taking place at full capacity;
The enthusiasm of the thousands of people involved seems genuine, it is quite difficult to detect the rigidity present in similar gatherings in former communist countries or in China. The bystanders do not seem equally enthusiastic, but show genuine interest (and probably hope?);
Great sense for how to dominate the populace through symbols, mystic, and ritual;
Hard to come up with any indication about how educated/intelligent Hitler is--there are some book reviewers here claiming just this. It is more obvious he is surrounded by some very smart people;
The members of the German government come all to praise Hitler. With few exceptions, they give up all dignity in the process, yet Hitler manages to keep his composure;
The heads of the German justice praise Hitler's total power over the (justice) system--scary moment indeed.
So, for the student of totalitarian systems, this is a good document that shows some of the elements present in early totalitarian systems. Deceit to the largest extent, populace falling for pomp and lies, elites bending to extremes for power (to please and get a piece of it), most checks and balances (internal and external) either play along or are crushed, and a certain type of individual at a certain time and in a certain place. The rest is history, which if not learned from will repeat itself...