Transforming Propaganda Into Art

Film Review
Title: Triumph of the Will (1935)
Director: Leni Riefenstahl

“My Führer, you are Germany. When you act, the nation acts. When you judge, the people judge!” So says Rudolf Hess, Nazi Germany’s Deputy Führer, in his opening speech during the Reich Party Congress of 1934. His was also the first speech one will hear in Helene Bertha Amalie (a.k.a. Leni) Riefenstahl’s groundbreaking yet controversial documentary film Triumph of the Will. The film has been criticized as a use of spectacular filmmaking to promote a system that is widely seen as both evil and profoundly reprehensible. In her defense, Riefenstahl claimed that she was naïve about the Nazis when she made it and had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal policies. She also pointed out that her film contains "not one single anti-semitic word," although it does contain a veiled comment by Julius Streicher that "A people that does not protect its racial purity will perish." The ideas behind the film may indeed seem despicable specially in today's context and yet no one can ever deny Riefenstahl’s brilliance in transforming a piece of propaganda into a staggering work of art.

Riefenstahl began her career as an actress before Adolf Hitler specifically chose her to be the Nazi Party’s official filmmaker. Such was Hitler’s faith in the young artist that he gave her total artistic control over the project. Triumph of the Will was even produced under her own company, Leni Riefenstahl Film Studio, and not the German Ministry of Propaganda. What Hitler envisioned was a film that would show to the German people, and the rest of Europe, the power and might of the Nazi Party and their politics of National Socialism.

To fully recognize the value of Triumph of the Will, we must again go back to John Grierson’s definition of the documentary as the “creative treatment of actuality." This can be seen in the way Riefenstahl placed the cameras especially when it comes to filming the Führer. By separating Hitler from his thousands of supporters, Riefenstahl was able to depict him as a forlorn and transcendent leader who hovers above the crowd in a plane or waives in an open-top car. This kind of composition effectively shows Hitler as a god-like leader, a mystical figure who is above everyone else and is worthy of the people’s near-religious adulation. Another example is when she places the camera below the stage, tilting up to show Hitler in one of his classic rhetoric, with the huge Nazi flag (the swastika) towering behind him. This symbolizes what Rudolf Hess said in his opening speech – that Hitler is Germany.

Riefenstahl’s use of close-ups is another effective propaganda device. By using a telephoto lens, she was able to capture emotional reactions of fanaticism from among the members of the crowd. This presents the idea that the German people look up to Hitler as the savior of Germany who will lead them into what he calls “The Thousand Year Reich." In this case, Riefenstahl used the close-ups more in an artistic style rather than for the sake of capturing the event.

Another display of Riefenstahl’s creativity is in the way she filmed the march of Hitler’s army. By using what seemed like a dozen or more cameras simultaneously, she was able to present the march using different angles. One very distinct image that stayed in my mind was the shot of the flags while the soldiers carry them as they march along, also known as the “forest of flags” scene. One cannot help but be transfixed with the sight of thousands of swastikas dominating the screen. In filming the march, Riefenstahl also used a crane to give the audience a sweeping panoramic view of the entire event.

These hundreds of shots were tied up by Riefenstahl exceptionally during editing. By masterfully combining together all the shots from different angles, she gives the soldiers’ march a very majestic look. By carefully choosing short but important parts of the speech by several Nazi officers including Hitler, she gives the film a cohesive flow. By cutting every now and then to the reactions of the people during the speeches, she avoids presenting a mere series of talking heads. In addition, her use of Wagner’s music – Hitler’s favorite as it turns out – together with the live ambient sound of the crowd, gives the film a more naturalistic feel.

Triumph of the Will is not the director's vision of the national socialist movement. It is the national socialist movement's vision of itself, as created, through the surrendered instrumentality of the film's creators. They are in essence mere technicians. Thus co-opted, the film's technicians, enthusiastically employ their talents on what National Socialism wants to program into the mind of the German film viewer. "Anyone who defends Riefenstahl's films as documentary", Susan Sontag once wrote, "if documentary is to be distinguished from propaganda, is being ingenuous. In Triumph of Will, the document (the image) is no longer simply the record of reality; 'reality' has been constructed to serve the image" That is the true propaganda nature of this film. And is at the heart of its power.