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"Triumph of the Will"
Leni Riefenstahl’s highly controversial documentary of the Nazi’s pre-war show of power and pomp is a rare beast indeed.
It is a film that is at once lauded by the great and the mighty in the film world, has been of untold influence in the way later movies (be they documentary of fiction) have been filmed and regularly rates up there as a triumph of it’s own.
And yet at the same time it is often vilified, loathed, seen as a threat (it is still banned in Germany itself outside of scholarly study), seen as a glorification of evil and even dismissed as not even being a documentary at all.
Leni Riefenstahl was asked by Hitler to record his 1934, four day conference/rally in Nuremberg and she was offered assistance and help above and beyond anything seen in a documentary before or since. Even the Luftwaffe had to lose a few searchlights to illuminate Hitler’s ranks.
Whatever your view the technical and artistic mastery seen (often for the first time) in “Triumph of the Will” is something to be admired.
The use of stage managed multiple takes, multiple cameras, shooting from trenches to make the below eye-level close-ups of Hitler look more heroic, exact framing, employment of a telephoto lens, arial tracking shots and clever editing in of specific close-ups to enhance and personalise the grand spectacle are all techniques new to most movies of that time let alone documentaries.
And when put together these techniques help make “Triumph” a far more potent experience, despite its subject matter having a certain powerful fascination and grandeur in itself.
As it is Richard Wagner provides much of the soundtrack.
“Triumph” opens with Hitler arriving by plane.
And even this early on we see the influence the film would have decades later as we are reminded of a similar sweeping through the clouds reveal that Ridley Scott used to introduce the splendour of Rome in “Gladiator”, a full 65 years later.
This opening is blatant in it’s sensory and even spiritual manipulation as Riefenstahl offers up a sort of reversed trip to Heaven.
Instead of going up through the clouds to paradise, we go down through the clouds to paradise; The paradise of a new Nazi Germany.
Here the clouds part to reveal not the kingdom of a celestial God, but the kingdom of a far more Earthly God, eve if it is in the shape of an Austrian megalomaniac.
Adoring crowds cheer as Hitler alights from his plane. And as his staff car rides the meticulously planned route Riefenstahl shoots from the car to capture the adoring hordes that line the road (all re-staged carefully later). Women bring flowers to Hitler and even their cherubic Daughters are carried forward to meet their Fuhrer, to touch his hand and drink-in his power and strength.
Much of course cynically stage managed.
We then see hundreds upon hundreds of strapping, lean, German men and boys sharing a communal wash, larking about with water hoses, holding playful wrestling matches and games of stamina and one-upmanship.
The message is a clear one; A strong, healthy, loyal, band of comrades that will not only be the bedrock of the new Germany but its way of ensuring that this new Germany will not be humiliated by anyone ever again.
From the lauding of the massed German youth, her pretty girls, her playful young boys on her green fields and her pseudo-army of workers we are given a brief glimpse of the actual army itself (a rare glimpse much to the annoyance of the Generals at the time, as cunningly Hitler knows how to keep the spotlight on himself, his cause and to keep the threats veiled) on their well groomed steeds of flesh and blood and their newly minted steeds of iron.
A potent mixture of past glory and modern power.
During the night-time rally, as the dying fire in the sky is bolstered by the flickering of Nazi torches and spotlights, the camera takes in the mass upon mass of gleaming standards and swastika flags as it winds its way around the multitude of uniformed ranks as they “Sieg Heil” their leader, who himself stands proudly upon a glowing, tiered edifice with it’s gigantic Nazi eagle in the background, spreading its wings around this seeming saviour of the German people.
As the morning dawns we can see the true scale of the massed ranks.
Thousands upon thousands of regimented troops, and party members standing in strictly defined squares, each holding a swastika flag.
Away from the actual rally the next biggest sequence is the marching of the soldiers through the town as block upon block of armed troops, black clad SS brigades, military bands and standard bearers parade along streets thronged with saluting, waving, cheering crowds and where every house has people hanging out of its windows.
A perfect visual mixture of the ordinary citizen, the soldier and the political elite coming together in a unified shout of pride and togetherness as Germans.
The film ends with the famous end of rally conference where Hitler is surrounded by his entire group of infamy, including the newly empowered Himmler who would see his beloved SS dominate not only the horrific tales of the battlefield but also, along with the Gestapo, the everyday lives of German themselves as well as the lives (or lack thereof) of those in the soon to be conquered lands.
Around 150,000 SS and SA members fill this massive building, itself a sort of cathedral to National Socialism, to listen to Hitler’s speech about German power, Nazi solidarity and strength and the iron will of the German people.
It’s certainly sobering to know that this self-confidence, exaltation, arrogance and unbridled hope and joy would, in less than 10 years, be on the brink of ruin and desolation.
As the film ends, with the faithful singing out that damn catchy standard of Nazi power "Horst-Wessel-Lied" (“Raise High the Flag”, itself to become a fixture in many movies featuring the Nazis in power) we can openly think of what was to come.
Even more so that what has just passed before us.
Much like we can only imagine what it must have been like coming to Hitchcock’s “Psycho” knowing absolutely nothing about what will happen, we can only imagine what it must have been like for people, before any war had happened, watching “Triumph of the Will”.
As such we can’t truly judge the film in that way, with it’s original place in history untainted by its future to be. A future that will become one of the darkest parts of our history.
Riefenstahl claimed that she was naïve about the Nazis, Hitler and what National Socialism really meant for Germany when she made “Triumph” and swore she had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal policies.
Whatever the truth, her film will forever be seen as the biggest, proudest, grandest and most skilful glorification of one of mankind’s greatest evils.
And moreover, perhaps the best damn Nazisploitation film ever made come to that.
Leni Riefenstahl’s highly controversial documentary of the Nazi’s pre-war show of power and pomp is a rare beast indeed.
It is a film that is at once lauded by the great and the mighty in the film world, has been of untold influence in the way later movies (be they documentary of fiction) have been filmed and regularly rates up there as a triumph of it’s own.
And yet at the same time it is often vilified, loathed, seen as a threat (it is still banned in Germany itself outside of scholarly study), seen as a glorification of evil and even dismissed as not even being a documentary at all.
Leni Riefenstahl was asked by Hitler to record his 1934, four day conference/rally in Nuremberg and she was offered assistance and help above and beyond anything seen in a documentary before or since. Even the Luftwaffe had to lose a few searchlights to illuminate Hitler’s ranks.
Whatever your view the technical and artistic mastery seen (often for the first time) in “Triumph of the Will” is something to be admired.
The use of stage managed multiple takes, multiple cameras, shooting from trenches to make the below eye-level close-ups of Hitler look more heroic, exact framing, employment of a telephoto lens, arial tracking shots and clever editing in of specific close-ups to enhance and personalise the grand spectacle are all techniques new to most movies of that time let alone documentaries.
And when put together these techniques help make “Triumph” a far more potent experience, despite its subject matter having a certain powerful fascination and grandeur in itself.
As it is Richard Wagner provides much of the soundtrack.
“Triumph” opens with Hitler arriving by plane.
And even this early on we see the influence the film would have decades later as we are reminded of a similar sweeping through the clouds reveal that Ridley Scott used to introduce the splendour of Rome in “Gladiator”, a full 65 years later.
This opening is blatant in it’s sensory and even spiritual manipulation as Riefenstahl offers up a sort of reversed trip to Heaven.
Instead of going up through the clouds to paradise, we go down through the clouds to paradise; The paradise of a new Nazi Germany.
Here the clouds part to reveal not the kingdom of a celestial God, but the kingdom of a far more Earthly God, eve if it is in the shape of an Austrian megalomaniac.
Adoring crowds cheer as Hitler alights from his plane. And as his staff car rides the meticulously planned route Riefenstahl shoots from the car to capture the adoring hordes that line the road (all re-staged carefully later). Women bring flowers to Hitler and even their cherubic Daughters are carried forward to meet their Fuhrer, to touch his hand and drink-in his power and strength.
Much of course cynically stage managed.
We then see hundreds upon hundreds of strapping, lean, German men and boys sharing a communal wash, larking about with water hoses, holding playful wrestling matches and games of stamina and one-upmanship.
The message is a clear one; A strong, healthy, loyal, band of comrades that will not only be the bedrock of the new Germany but its way of ensuring that this new Germany will not be humiliated by anyone ever again.
From the lauding of the massed German youth, her pretty girls, her playful young boys on her green fields and her pseudo-army of workers we are given a brief glimpse of the actual army itself (a rare glimpse much to the annoyance of the Generals at the time, as cunningly Hitler knows how to keep the spotlight on himself, his cause and to keep the threats veiled) on their well groomed steeds of flesh and blood and their newly minted steeds of iron.
A potent mixture of past glory and modern power.
During the night-time rally, as the dying fire in the sky is bolstered by the flickering of Nazi torches and spotlights, the camera takes in the mass upon mass of gleaming standards and swastika flags as it winds its way around the multitude of uniformed ranks as they “Sieg Heil” their leader, who himself stands proudly upon a glowing, tiered edifice with it’s gigantic Nazi eagle in the background, spreading its wings around this seeming saviour of the German people.
As the morning dawns we can see the true scale of the massed ranks.
Thousands upon thousands of regimented troops, and party members standing in strictly defined squares, each holding a swastika flag.
Away from the actual rally the next biggest sequence is the marching of the soldiers through the town as block upon block of armed troops, black clad SS brigades, military bands and standard bearers parade along streets thronged with saluting, waving, cheering crowds and where every house has people hanging out of its windows.
A perfect visual mixture of the ordinary citizen, the soldier and the political elite coming together in a unified shout of pride and togetherness as Germans.
The film ends with the famous end of rally conference where Hitler is surrounded by his entire group of infamy, including the newly empowered Himmler who would see his beloved SS dominate not only the horrific tales of the battlefield but also, along with the Gestapo, the everyday lives of German themselves as well as the lives (or lack thereof) of those in the soon to be conquered lands.
Around 150,000 SS and SA members fill this massive building, itself a sort of cathedral to National Socialism, to listen to Hitler’s speech about German power, Nazi solidarity and strength and the iron will of the German people.
It’s certainly sobering to know that this self-confidence, exaltation, arrogance and unbridled hope and joy would, in less than 10 years, be on the brink of ruin and desolation.
As the film ends, with the faithful singing out that damn catchy standard of Nazi power "Horst-Wessel-Lied" (“Raise High the Flag”, itself to become a fixture in many movies featuring the Nazis in power) we can openly think of what was to come.
Even more so that what has just passed before us.
Much like we can only imagine what it must have been like coming to Hitchcock’s “Psycho” knowing absolutely nothing about what will happen, we can only imagine what it must have been like for people, before any war had happened, watching “Triumph of the Will”.
As such we can’t truly judge the film in that way, with it’s original place in history untainted by its future to be. A future that will become one of the darkest parts of our history.
Riefenstahl claimed that she was naïve about the Nazis, Hitler and what National Socialism really meant for Germany when she made “Triumph” and swore she had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal policies.
Whatever the truth, her film will forever be seen as the biggest, proudest, grandest and most skilful glorification of one of mankind’s greatest evils.
And moreover, perhaps the best damn Nazisploitation film ever made come to that.