AN HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE CAREER OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL FROM 1923 TO 1933.

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Content INFORMATION TO USERS This material w as produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of tiie original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The si^ or "target" for p ag es apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the m issing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent p ag es. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent p ag es to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. 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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75-28,658 MALLACE, Peggy Ann, 1943- AN HISTORICAL SmCY OF THE CAREER OF LEM RIEFENSEAHL FRCM 1923 TO 1933. IMversity of Southern California, Ph.D., 1975 Cinema ' I I XSrO X UniV6rSity Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Michigan 48106 Copyright by PEGGY ANN WALLACE 1975 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. AN HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE CAREER OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL FROM 1923 TO 1933 by Peggy Ann Wallace A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communication) June 1975 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CAUFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL. UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, •written by Peggy Ann W a lla c e under the direction of h.^X... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y Dean Daie...^^eàx^...(t^.J.f..7Â DISSgflTATION C O M M IT rn Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my mother and father who have believea in me from the very beginning ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No research work is ever accomplished entirely by the author alone, but a work of this nature, relying heavily on first-hand accounts of the past, is even more dependent on the generosity of the people who freely give of their time in interviews to recall periods of their life during the course of which some painful incidents, both personal and political, sometimes unexpectedly emerge. For their trust and kindness and for the insight they have brought to this period of film history, I am grateful to these people: Richard Angst James Card Stephan Chodorov Dr. Arnold Fanck Luggi Foeger Walter Frentz Robert Gardner Tay Garnett Peter Herald David Stewart Hull Dr. Fritz Hippier Henry v. Jaworsky Herbert Luft Frederick A. Mainz Andrew Marten Arthur Mayer Dr. Muller-Goerne Harald Reinl George Rony Isabel Schlichting 111 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Harry Sokal Walter Traut Albert Speer Hans Weidemann Most especially I am grateful to Leni Riefenstahl | I ; herself. Ms. Riefenstahl went out of her way to screen ; tfilms for me, make contacts with individuals I might other- j I • iwise have been unable to interview, and herself provided I : Igenerous blocks of time over a two-week period when we were j ■able to explore in depth the development of her professional! career. I am equally appreciative of the close contact iMs. Riefenstahl has kept with me, since our first corre- ! I spondence five years ago, keeping me up-to-date on her current activities. I also want to thank Horst Kettner, Ms. Riefenstahl's assistant, and Inge Brandler, her secre- : I tary. David Johnson and George Pratt deserve my special gratitude for their continuous encouragement throughout the I i I lengthy saga that completion of this dissertation has entailed; Kevin Brownlow, for his initial enthusiasm about this project, for his introductory letter to Leni Riefen- j I I I Stahl which helped smooth the way for my first correspond- | I I |ence with her, for his help at the British Film Institute, | I I land for his generosity in providing me with much valuable i i I information from his own file on Leni Riefenstahl; my ! I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. brother. Bob, for his assistance during the initial research period when he hunted down sources of information for me in New York City and for his diligence in carrying a suitcase which grew obstinately heavier as time went on and material accumulated in Germany; Teresita Venegas, for her insight into folklore which gave me the clue to look into the legend background of The Blue Light; Helen Elwell and Marion Taylor, for providing me with an underground "garret" which enhanced my "starving writer" fantasies and helped me get over yet another dry period; Russell McGregor, for the use one summer of his air-conditioned living room to write, at a time when all discipline had been reduced to figuring out ways of cooling off; Kathleen Lucitt, for the many dreary hours she must have spent putting my bibliography in Turabian-style order, for suffering through and easing the same tedium on the footnotes with me, and for creating the two beautiful maps in this study; and Catherine Mich, for her support and interest in the completion of this project at a time when even another mention of the name, Leni Riefenstahl, would have made anyone else wish they were hard of hearing. For helping me translate what seemed like volumes of German material, I want particularly to acknowledge Joseph Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Gerace, Julian Bender, Anne Miller, Teresa Gilles, Gordon Martindale, Clara and Franz Rohwer, and especially Leopold Zahn who not only generously translated many articles and portions of books, served as liaison in Freiburg with Dr. Arnold Fanck after I had returned to California, ferreted out in Germany the novel, Bergkristall, on my suspicion that this book might exist, but also has remained my con stant friend, eager to see completed this work which I had just started four years ago when we first me in Los Angeles I am also indebted to my guidance committee : Dr. Casebier for accepting a position on the committee at the last moment under extenuating circumstances; Dr. von Hanwehi for his carefully detailed analysis of the completed work, and Mr. Arthur Knight who has supported my sometimes- floundering efforts all along, has continued to believe in the project, and never seems to give up hope for publica tion. Lastly, I want to thank God that the end is finally here. vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T A B LE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LIST OF MAPS LIST OF TABLES Page iii IX ix Chapter I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The Problem Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Books Periodicals Availability of Riefenstahl Films in the United States III. DESIGN OF THE STUDY IV. LENI RIEFENSTAHL— THE AWAKENING ARTIST, THE STUDENT, THE DANCER.......... ............ V. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN VI. THE BIG JUMP VII. THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU VIII. STORMS OVER MONT BLANC IX. THE WHITE FRENZY 42 55 95 141 156 213 242 VI1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Page Chapter 283 THE BLUE LIGHT 413 S.O.S. ICEBERG XI 465 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS XII Summary and Conclusions Implications 485 APPENDIXES 508 BIBLIOGRAPHY viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. L I S T OF MAPS jMap t j I 1. Greenland ......................... I 2. Shooting Location of S.O.S. Iceberg Page 1 448! 450! LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Dance Program of Leni Riefenstahl Given During 1924-1925 Season at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin ...................................... Page 78 IX Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Since the end of World War II, generally speaking, most film critics have reviewed and treated the political documentaries of Leni Riefenstahl as if they were isolated creations in her career. Many of these writers ideologi cally relate the Party Rally films of 1933, 1934, 1935, and the Olympic Games films of 1936 to the Nazi regime but few, if any, relate these same films to the early career of Leni Riefenstahl. This controversial director and friend of Adolf Hitler did have a very active career before 1933. Sh^ studied painting, was a dancer, an actress in seven motion pictures, and both acted in and directed a dramatic feature film— all between 1923 and 1933 before she was commissioned by Adolf Hitler to make her most famous propaganda film, Triumph of the Will. Considering the dearth of information on this phase of Leni Riefenstahl's development as an artist, it was hoped that a study of this period in her life might shed some light on the approach she took to her Nazi opuses. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The Problem Statement of the Problem The problem of this study was, first, to examine the early influences on Leni Riefenstahl which contributed to the development of her aesthetic preferences and which, in turn, might have led to the particular choice of style she employed by the time she took command of her own films during the Nazi regime. In order to accomplish this task, it was necessary to explore the early interests of Leni Riefenstahl from her first attempts at painting through her dance career to her work in motion pictures. Second, a thorough analysis of the mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck which formed the fundamental filmic training ground for Leni Riefenstahl seemed essential to an understanding of this part of her career. Also included in this period from 1923 to 1933 is the first motion picture that Leni Riefenstahl directed on her own; The Blue Light. It appeared that this film made in 1932 might exhibit Riefenstahl's stylistic tendencies up to that time as well as clarify some of the reasons this film influenced Hitler int o believing that Leni Riefenstahl was the person to direct his important Nazi documentaries. As a result of this exploration, it should become clear how Leni Riefen- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Stahl's ideas on filmmaking, her choice of subject matter, and her technical approach to the medium developed. Third, inherent in this exploration is the question of personality, an essential ingredient in the success of any motion picture director. Therefore, relevant personal ity traits are analyzed as they chronologically reveal them-j- serves in order to indicate their influence on Leni Riefen stahl 's later effectiveness as a director. Significance of the Problem The problem of this study was thought to be signif icant for several reasons. Any director's work can be validly interpreted only when the whole of that filmmaker's opus is examined and understood. It seems obvious that Leni Riefenstahl would have been influenced by her experiences prior to the undertaking of the Nazi Party Rally films, but most historians are ignorant of these early influences because nothing much has been written about this period of Leni Riefenstahl's career and most of the films in which she acted are generally unavailable for viewing. It is conceivable that many techniques that are considered new to Leni Riefenstahl's documentaries might already have been employed in the mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck in which Leni Riefenstahl participated as an actress. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. On the other hand, if a detailed analysis of the films of Dr. Arnold Fanck were available for study, the true innovations of Leni Riefenstahl in her documentaries could be evaluated clearly for their uniqueness and the real sources of her influence traced to their beginnings. It appeared, then, that a study of this nature would be of interest not only to students of motion pictures, but also to film scholars, historians, and critics. Limitations of the Study In doing research for this dissertation, the writer extensively collected and analyzed sources of information on Leni Riefenstahl written in the English language. An attempt was made also to collect and study as much inforraa- tion as possible written in the German language. To this end the major archives, libraries, newspaper depositories and document centers in Germany were visited and any infor mation pertaining to the subject was photocopied and brought back to Los Angeles for translation. This was necessary because the writer does not speak or read the German lan guage. Therefore the writer has had to depend on transla tions of the original material collected, without the criti cal ability to check their authenticity. Besides this, the writer found that many of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. primary sources of information covering the period examined in this dissertation had been burned as a result of the heavy bombings of cities during the Second World War. During the course of research, some articles were discovered in other languages, mainly French, a language of which the writer has fluent command, and Italian. How ever, no extensive effort was made to gather material out side of English and German. The inability of the writer to speak fluent German proved less of a limitation than was originally expected in the area of personal interviews. Fortunately, Germany is one of the countries of Europe in which most of the people speak English as a second language. However, when a prob lem did arise with an interviewee who did not understand or speak English adequately well, an interpreter was engaged for the interview. This occurred in only two instances: with Dr. Arnold Fanck (now deceased) on July 23, 1971, in Freiburg im Breisgau, and with Hans Weidemann on July 16, 1971, in Hamburg. Leni Riefenstahl herself speaks English quite well, as a result of her frequent dealings with the British and with her numerous British friends. One problem that occurred as a result of recording interviews in a language which is not the mother tongue of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the interviewees was that of clear verbal structure and proper grammatical construction. Add to tl).at the difference in the verbal and written expression of ideas and one can readily see that transcriptions of these interviews were sometimes unreadable and/or unintelligible when compared to the tape recordings themselves. Therefore, in an attempt to compensate for any discrepancies and in the interest of the clarity of the original ideas, the writer has smoothed out the English in the transcriptions whenever it seemed necessary to do so. The transcriptions which required the most painstaking accuracy of detail were the ones of the interviews with Leni Riefenstahl herself; therefore, the writer corrected the English in these transcriptions and they were sent to Leni Riefenstahl in Munich for her approv al and verification before incorporation into this disser tation . Organization of the Remainder of the Dissertation In this first chapter, the problem has been stated and the significance and limitations of the study have been discussed. The remainder of the dissertation is organized in the following manner. In Chapter II, literature related to the problem is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reviewed under these headings: (1) books dealing both with general historical background on Germany and film publica tions pertinent to the period covering Leni Riefenstahl's career, (2) magazine articles covering the period under study, and (3) availability of the films of Leni Riefenstahl in the United States. In Chapter III, the methods and procedures used in the research are presented. Chapter IV covers Leni Riefenstahl's artistic back ground and tentative attempt at a dancing career. Chapters V through IX and Chapter XI deal directly with the mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck in which Leni Riefenstahl participated as an actress. In Chapter X, The Blue Light, the first film which Leni Riefenstahl directed entirely on her own, is examined both in light of its relationship to the era in which it was made and also from the procedural and technical methods employed. Finally, in Chapter XII the preceding material is summarized and conclusions are drawn. The chapter ends with implications for further study. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE One discovery in the course of research that proved to be quite interesting is the fact that there is really very little material written on Leni Riefenstahl in Eng lish— at least, there is very little material to be found in America. And what material there is is intriguingly contradictory or repetitious. For one so well known, the dearth of the written information and the nature of the material on Leni Riefenstahl proved to be even more of a fascination. Since this dissertation is written in English, and since it is also assumed that most of those who read it will have little if any fluency in German, the books and articles reviewed in this chapter are in English and are, for the most part, easily accessible in America. The material mentioned here should afford the reader adequate background concerning the period leading up to and including the Third Reich, the state of the film industry during this time, enough information to understand the 8 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. development of Leni Riefenstahl as a filmmaker, and the availability of the films in which she participated. What is continually astonishing is the notoriety of this film maker who has directed so very few films. This observation leads one to reflect on the possibility that Reifenstahl's reputation stems largely from her affiliation with the Third Reich. It was, after all, during this era that she completed her two most famous films. Triumph of the Will and Olympia. It also reveals something about the influential nature cf these films— her masterpieces. But Leni Riefenstahl did not spring into the posi tion of Hitler's most favored film director out of nowhere. Her experiences on the mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck and her own first dramatic feature. The Blue Light, set the stage for her technical understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the film medium while, at the same time, her own sensibilities and a distinctive style were coal escing within her, preparing her for the monumental tasks she was to undertake during the Third Reich. Books General Historical Publications There are several books which are excellent sources Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 of background information on the period just prior to, and including, the Nazi take-over of Germany. Hitler; A Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock,^ is essentially a biography of Hitler, but Bullock also incor porates his keen insight into the era leading up to Hitler's dictatorship. What is fascinating about this portrait in relation to Leni Riefenstahl are the many parallel person ality traits that one discovers between the dictator and the filmmaker which might well explain the closeness of their eventual friendship— a friendship out of which emerged Leni Riefenstahl's most famous documentary films. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William p Shirer, was considered for a number of years to be the definitive book on Nazi Germany written in English. Shirer was a journalist who had reported on the developments in Germany since 1925. He spent some five years researching this monumental work, which covers almost every aspect lead ing up to and during Hitler's years of power. Although there is no specific mention of Leni Riefenstahl or her films, there is substantial information on Hitler, Goebbels, and the Propaganda Ministry— the two men and the institution outside of Riefenstahl herself who were most closely asso ciated with her political documentaries, as well as with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TT Olympia. Such a broad range of information is covered in this book that, upon completion, one feels one not only has been immersed in facts but also that he has gained some insight into the atmosphere of the times— invaluable back ground for a more complete understanding of the behavior and accomplishments of Leni Riefenstahl during this period of history. Inside the Third Reich, by Albert Speer,^ comple ments, rather than duplicates, Shirer's book. Speer, who was Hitler's personal architect and later on his Minister of Armaments and War Production, gives a portrait of Hitler and Nazi Germany from the point of view of one of the inti mates of the inner circle. Speer said at the Nuremberg Trial that he supposed that if Adolf Hitler had ever had a friend, he would probably have been considered that friend. It is from this standpoint that Speer recounts the years during the Third Reich. Speer was also, and remains today, a friend of Leni Riefenstahl. They both worked closely together on the plans for the Party Rally at Nuremberg in 1934— the year Riefen stahl photographed Triumph of the Will. Although there is only one section of Speer's book in which Riefenstahl is specifically mentioned— and she claims that Speer's facts Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T2 on pages 61 and 62 concerning the 1935 Party Rally in Nuremberg are inaccurate— his portrait of the Reich, the internal power struggles and the vicious backbiting of per sonalities who otherwise seemed beyond such pettiness, give verifiable credence to many of Riefenstahl's claims along these lines. All three of these books fill in the gaps of infor mation which relate to, but go beyond, the scope of this study. Otto Friedrich in Before the Deluge; A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920’s ' ^ deals with Berlin in the decade before Hitler's take over. Political and economic conditions occupy roughly one-half of the book and, although it is rather arbitrarily researched, the last half of the book, which loosely treats the cultural atmosphere of Berlin in the twenties, is worth perusing if one can ignore some of the-author's unconvincing conclusions. During the 1920's, Berlin was the third largest city in the world and a restless home for fleeing Russians, for Americans and British attracted by its international vitality, and for all of the most ta." anted Germans. It was not a city which developed unilaterally in merely one of the arts, but its atmosphere encouraged artists in every Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ' -----------— --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 3 field, somewhat like Paris did at the turn of the century. L For instance, consider some of the innovators creating at that time. In music there were Alban Berg, Wilhelm Furt- wangler, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Vladimir Horowitz, Kurt Weill, and Lotte Lenya; in architecture, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius; in the theater, Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator, and Max Reinhardt; and in motion pictures, Fritz Lang, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Walter Ruttmann, and Erich Pommer. These were the people who were changing and expand ing the concepts of art. It was an extraordinary decade and well worth looking into, if only cursorily, since it rfas in the twenties that Leni Riefenstahl was tentatively beginning her dance career and it was also during this time that she became involved as an actress in her first mountain films. There is one other general text which is of some /alue: The Nazi Olympics, by Richard Mandell.^ As the title ^uggests, the book covers the Olympic Games of 1936 held kn Garmisch-Partenkirchen and in Berlin. The usefulness of bhis book lies chiefly in the overall background information given and in the descriptions of some of the athletes and competitions, rather than in the chapter devoted to Leni Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 Riefenstahl and her film, Olympia.^ Unfortunately this chapter is significantly marred with inaccuracies. Film Publications Books written by Leni Riefenstahl.— Leni Riefen stahl has published several books relating to her film career. Unfortunately none of these has been translated into English. One, however, Schonheit im Olympischen j Kampf ‘ (Beauty in the Olympic Competition) is well worth Isome attention. The book consists mainly of still photo- I jgraphs from her Olympic films; therefore, particularly as a {reference and for those who have not had an opportunity to I |see the motion pictures, this work is an invaluable visual guidebook. Though the foreword is not translated, each picture has captions in four languages including English. But by far the most important section is the last one, which is devoted to production stills from the prepa ration for the film as well as the actual shooting of the Games. It is here that one gains some insight into the complexity of the task undertaken by Leni Riefenstahl. One can also readily detect a visual similarity between this film and the photographic style prevalent in the mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 Theory.— An interesting book. Theory of the Film, written by B^la Balazs^ in 1945, is intriguing not so much for specific references to the filmmaking of Leni Riefen stahl as it is simply because Balazs collaborated on The Blue Light with her and because many of his ideas about filmmaking seem to coincide with Riefenstahl's intuitive filmic style. What is particularly outstanding in this respect are Balazs' theories concerning camera movement, rhythm in montage, and the use of sound. Documentary.— Since the films for which Leni Riefenstahl is so famous are documentaries, a glance at the following two books would seem to be beneficial. Grierson on Documentary^^ does not deal at all with the Riefenstahl films, but it does offer several good sec tions on the development of the documentary^^ in Hollywood, in Russia CGoetbels often liked to refer to Potemkin as the prime example of filmic perfection), and in the world in 12 general during the 1930's; on documentary principles; and there is an interesting, if somewhat limited, section on the nature of propaganda. Lewis Jacobs, in The Documentary Tradition, h a s compiled a comprehensive selection of articles on specific documentary films. The book is organized by decades. 13 14 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ta beginning with the twenties and concluding with the six ties. Besides tlie two short articles devoted to Riefen stahl's Triumph of the Will^^ and Olympia,Jacobs' essays at the beginning of each decade section succinctly allow the perceptive reader to acquire some background not only on the development of the documentary but also on Riefen stahl 's position within that development. German cinema.— Six books were found which deal specifically with the German cinema. Film in the Third Reich^^ is the only one of these six books which limits itself exclusively to filmmaking activities during the Nazi years. In this book, David Hull examines the German film industry frcm the time of its pre- Hitler autonomy through its manipulative absorption into government control under the jurisdiction of the Propaganda Ministry. Many specific films and filmmakers are touched upon and several substantial portions of the book are allotted to Leni Riefenstahl and her films. Probably the standard text on the German film until recently has been Siegfried Kracauer's From Caliqari to Hitler. 18 Kracauer in the preface to the books concisely states his position: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — - ï7 It is m y contention that through an analysis of the German films deep psychological dispositions predominant in Germany from 1918 to 1933 can be exposed— dispositions which influenced the course of events during that time and which will have to be reckoned with in the post-Hitler era.^^ Although most of the films with which Riefenstahl was associated are mentioned (some portions of her films are discussed in detail and contain undeniably valuable information), and although Kracauer’s point of view is provocatively intriguing, this writer cannot help but reject much of the author’s conclusions as untenable primarily because Kracauer often seems to lose his objectivity in trying to force psychological explanations on many films in order for them to conform to the above-cited premise of his book. An example of Kracauer’s line of thinking is very well described by Hans Sahl in his review of the book upon jits publication: I Kracauer assumes that the German film between the two World Wars was nothing but the expression of a I secret psychopathic "disposition," of a sick "collec- I tive mentality" of the German middle classes. It I began with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in which he already sees a manifestation of the destructive con- } flict between tyranny and chaos, authoritarian ten dencies, which, by many roads and detours, finally j led to Hitler— tyranny being represented by Caligari, j chaos by the fair. (To back his thesis, Kracauer quotes a pampnlet of the seventeenth century which compares the fair to Babylon. Apparently the German Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I Yg soul even then must have had a morbid attraction for ferris wheel, merry-go-rounds, and hot dogs.)20 A much more significant work, but one with a sub stantially different emphasis, can be found in Lotte 21 Eisner's The Haunted Screen, which was first published in Prance in 1952. Though Eisner's major stress is on the German films of the twenties, works which were heavily influenced by Expressionism and the well-known German the ater innovator. Max Reinhardt, one section^^ devoted to Riefenstahl's documentaries is worth investigation— as is the entire book— if only for a better understanding of the cinematic tradition from which Riefenstahl emerged. The German Cinema, by Roger Manvell and Heinrich Praenkel,23 covers briefly some of the material contained in the Eisner book, with the bulk of the work given over to the use of film by the Nazis and specifically Joseph Goebbels, the decline in creativity within the German film industry, the post-war era, and a survey of young filmmakers today in Germany. Again, several sizable and useful sec tions of the book are devoted to discussions of Riefenstahl and her films. The intent and basis for the book. Politics and Film by Leif Furhammar and Folke Isaksson,^^ is best sum marized by this paragraph from the book's cover jacket: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19i Taking as their subject, films designed to reach and influence a large audience, Leif Furhammer and Folke Isaksson examine the troubled relationship between movies and politics . . . PoliLies and Film deals not only with overtly propagandist cinema but also with the political content of entertainment films and the political pressures exerted on them. The book is divided into three parts. In the first, 25 • 26 the section concerning the history of politics and film in Germany is the most pertinent as well as the most instructive. The second part deals with specific films, among which is a somewhat detailed and informative analysis of Triumph of the Will.^^ The final section is more theo retical and philosophical in tone. It studies such topics as . . . the aesthetics of propaganda, the depiction of political figures, the presentation of the home front and of the enemy, the use of indignation to justify aggression and the parallels between the mythology of the political cinema and European folk legends.28 This entire final section is inestimably worth the time and effort spent in its study. The final book suitable for mention in this chapter is 29 entitled simply Germany, by Felix Bucher. Its usefulness lies chiefly as a reference work to actors, directors, cameramen, and writers in the German cinema. The book also includes a cross-index to several thousand films. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Periodicals As is obvious from the above list, there is no one book exclusively devoted to Leni Riefenstahl, but there has been one issue of two different magazines dedicated almost en tirely to the woman and her films. The Winter, 1965, issue of Film Comment^^ includes six articles on Leni Riefenstahl. The most interesting of these includes a sound and picture outline of Triumph of the Will;^^ an anti-Riefenstahl article^^ written by Ulrich Gregor, a young German critic from the Deutsche Kinemathek; and finally, according to this writer, the most objective and accurate account found on the personality and working style of Leni Riefenstahl written by Robert Gardner, who is a filmmaker himself, director of the Film Study Center at Harvard University and a friend of Riefenstahl's for the past dozen or so years. As for the rest of the issue, there are several other articles including a rather superficial interview with Gordon Hitchens,about whose intentions Riefenstahl was somewhat suspicious at that time, and a fairly accurate, if incomplete, biographical sketch.The one article to be entirely disregarded is entitled "A Review of a Lesser Riefenstahl Work^^^ for Riefenstahl never made a film Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21] called Berchtesgaden Uber Salzburg, which is analyzed as hers in this article. In the spring of 1973, Film Culture^^ devoted over half of its issue to what was titled "A Tribute to Leni Riefenstahl." The tribute consisted of several interviews and discussions: one with Riefenstahl herself; one with Henry Jaworsky, a former cameraman of hers; and a discus sion about Olympia by Andrew Sarris and Dick Schaap. Also included are four letters to Riefenstahl from Jean Cocteau written before a hoped-for collaboration between the two which unfortunately never came about because of the death of Cocteau. There is an interesting essay on Triumph of the Will written by Ken Kelman, along with production credits for this motion picture as well as some excerpts from the Nazi magazine Film-Kurier praising Riefenstahl's accomplishment in capturing the spirit of the rally so faithfully on film. Another section is given over to Olympia. Included are comments by Riefenstahl refuting what she teirms "incor rect statements" about the film and its production, produc tion credits, and another specimen of Nazi praise for this film written by Erwin Goelz in Per Deutsche Film. The concluding section incorporates a reprint of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------- .— _ _ Z3 notes that Riefenstahl took for Penthesilea, a film project which she never had the opportunity to complete; a letter from Riefenstahl to Gordon Hitchens, the guest editor of Film Culture; and a not-entirely-accurate filmography of Leni Riefenstahl. The next most significant essays are by David Gun- 30 ston in Film Quarterly and Michel Delahaye in the English edition of Cahiers du C i n e m a . Gunston wrote a fairly extensive piece on the career of Leni Riefenstahl which bears reading though it is no longer current as the article was published in 1960. One of the most useful features of the article is the bibliography at the end. Delahaye's interview with Leni Riefenstahl is fascinating and unusually informative because he probes beneath superficialities asking specific, pointed questions not only about the political films but also about the early mountain films in which Riefenstahl acted and through which she learned about the technicalities of filmmaking. Par ticularly absorbing are Riefenstahl's answers to Delahaye's questions about her intentions for making certain films and about her feelings concerning the effectiveness of her style. What is intriguing, and an observation entirely extrinsic to the article itself, involves Riefenstahl’s Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — — ' 23 claim to this writer that the published interview contains inaccuracies. In fact, this is entirely possible since the article has been translated from German into French and then finally into English. Having checked the English transla tion with the French text, this writer is aware of some ambiguities in the English version which are clearer in the French, and which will be rectified in this study whenever it appears necessary to do so. However, there are other inconsistencies which occur that cannot be so easily dis cerned. By way of example, when asked by Delahaye whether or not she had been approached to work in Russia, Riefen stahl declared: Yes, that is true. I was asked to go and work in the USSR. Over there, they liked what I did very much. Only, I did not feel really capable of ex pressing myself except in my own country. I didn't imagine working anywhere else. I had to live in my country. That's a l l . 40 However when this writer, prompted by the Delahaye interview, asked Riefenstahl for more details on the same question, she denied receiving any such offers: "No. Never. I have never been in touch with the Russians. They never asked me."4^ She went on to explain that a short time before the War Ribbentrop met Stalin and showed him Olympia. After seeing it Stalin was so impressed that he sent her a congratulatory telegram through the Russian Embassy. This, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ^ she claimed, was the only contact she had had with the Rus sians. In a letter to Kevin Brownlow^^ in which Riefenstahl attempts to correct the Delahaye errors, she clarifies her position by saying that she understood where Delahaye might have gotten the idea that she had received offers from Russia because she too had read a notice in a newspaper stating; Leni Riefenstahl, the Reichsparteitag film maker, was in Kenya making a culture film called "Modern Slave Trade" ("Moderne Sklaverei") which was bought by the Soviet company Mosfilm.43 Riefenstahl immediately called the editor in Hamburg "to inform him that this notice is one hundred per cent wrong. So far as Riefenstahl went, her explanations are correct, but what about the offers she received in the early 1930's from Bela Balazs to leave Germany and work with him? Balazs had just been offered by the Soviet authorities an important position in the Russian film industry and he wanted Leni to go with him. She refused.And it is also highly possible that she received offers from the Russians immediately fol lowing the end of World War II as did many of her friends and former cinema colleagues. Admittedly this is a minor incident in her life, but it is partly because of these inconsistencies and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------- 25 omissions that journalists tend to distrust everything that Riefenstahl says. She was particularly guilty of this behavior right after the War when it was extremely difficult to sift the truth from her confusing, if understandable, attempts at dissimulation. Today what is sometimes even more impossible is attempting to distinguish the truth from Riefenstahl's own unconscious efforts to satisfy her pre viously unrealized dreams and presently unfulfilled hopes. One of Riefenstahl's outright admirers is the young British author and filmmaker, Kevin Brownlow. In the Win ter, 1966, issue of Film,Brownlow wrote an article based on a then-recent meeting that he had had with Leni Riefen stahl in London. The bulk of the article covers Riefen stahl 's answers to questions about the role Walter Ruttmann played in the making of Triumph of the Will and to a dis cussion of Riefenstahl's aborted effort on a film called Black Cargo, a "documentary-drama" which was to have been made in Africa. This is the film just mentioned, under the title Modern Slave Trade, in connection with offers from the Soviet company Mosfilm. 48 In the following issue of Film, there appeared a reply to the Brownlow article displaying the kind of intense anti-Nazi hatred directed at Leni Riefenstahl that one Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — .— ----- zg understandably expects to have found raging during World War II. In fact, the sentiment expressed may be entirely legitimate, but when one realizes that it is the venerable historian, Paul Rotha, who wrote the reply, one is disap pointed at his unscholarly, irrational, and unsubstantiated accusations. Published with the Rotha letter is a reply from Brownlow along with Leni Riefenstahl's reaction to both. These two issues of Film are well worth reading, not so much for the specific information revealed, but in order to experience, in microcosm, the kind of battle Riefenstahl has been forced to wage since the end of the War. However, it is well to keep in mind that it is only recently that Riefenstahl has had the support of vocal individuals like Brownlow who are removed enough from the War by age to be able to champion her cause in the constant struggle she wages to regain enough respect to continue her film career. The usual reactions to her in the past, and even quite frequently today, come from individuals like Paul Rotha who are still very emotionally tied to devastating experiences they had during the War. As mentioned above, these reac tions are entirely legitimate, but when a general resentment is superimposed on an individual, it is only right and just Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------- — ----- 271 to attempt to determine the relative guilt or innocence of that individual. That is the least one can do. No indi vidual should be made responsible for a collective guilt. 49 Richard Corliss recently published a bibliography on Leni Riefenstahl in Film Heritage. Interesting though the bibliography is, it consists almost entirely of material in the clipping files and the library of the Museum of Modern Art.* However, the article accompanying the bibliog raphy deserves a look primarily for Corliss’s rare insight into the material with which he was working. His comments concerning the condemnation of Riefenstahl by omission are particularly enlightening. Having read Corliss's article, an interesting comparison can then be made with Richard Mandell who was using essentially the same information. "The Truth About Leni,"^^ by Arnold Berson is another good survey article on the career of Leni Riefen stahl placing emphasis on the early years, the political films, and Olympia, but only mentioning her African projects and her present-day situation in Germany. ♦Incidentally, this material from the Museum of Modern Art seems to be the only information used by Richard Mandell for his chapter on Leni Riefenstahl in The Nazi Olympics, a limitation which accounts for many of his inac curacies. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Another substantial article about Riefenstahl*s career appeared in the November-December, 1973, issue of Film Comment. 51 In this piece, Richard Barsam surveys Riefenstahl's background in motion pictures and then concen trates on her documentary films, analyzing in some detail the thematic and structural elements of both Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Barsam concludes his article with a brief mention of Riefenstahl's current interest in a film on the African Nuba tribe, a project which she had hoped to finish by the end of 1973. 52 Finally, in February, 1974, Modern Photography published a lengthy article by L. Andrew Mannheim. This writer devotes a considerable amount of space to a discus sion of Riefenstahl's post-War fascination with Africa and the photographic study she is doing of the Nuba. There are abundant photographs from every period of her career and a thorough discussion of the technical difficulties Riefen stahl encountered on the films she directed from The Blue Light through Olympia. The impetus for the publication of this article came from Riefenstahl's participation as a photo journalist for the London Sunday Times at the 1972 Olympic Games; therefore, some of the article is given over to the technical problems she surmounted during her Munich Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 2^ assignment. In all, this is one of the best essays on the technical aspects of the Riefenstahl opus. The eleven sources just cited consist of over half of the substantial essays written about Leni Riefenstahl in English. A closer look will reveal that they all appear in film journals. The following four articles from general publications complete that list of important and informative journalism on the filmmaker. Shortly after the surrender of Germany, Budd Schul- berg, the American novelist, spent the remaining few days of his active service ostensibly in search of "photographic evidence for the Nuremberg trial.Upon reading his article, "Nazi Pin-Up Girl,"^^ it appears more likely that j Schulberg, a former Communist and a Jew, was attempting to complete the work he had begun six years earlier when "I had done my bit to help launch a boycott against Miss Reifen- 55 Stahl upon her visit to Hollywood." Schulberg finally located Riefenstahl, who had recently returned to her Kitzbuhel home after having been released from an Innsbruck hospital following a nervous breakdown which had occurred in the wake of extensive military interrogation. The interview conducted by Schulberg is useful only in so much as it gives an idea as to the physical circumstances in which Riefen- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Stahl and her husband. Major Peter Jacob, were living at that time; but the tone and style of the article is so sen sational in the manner of a scandal sheet that it is hard to believe that it was written by the author of the powerful film. On the Waterfront. The article seems to have been aimed at that block of readership once referred to as "the women's audience." By way of example, here is a typical iparagraph : . . . Miss Riefenstahl made her entrance. She was dressed informally in yellow corduroy slacks with a golden-brown leather jacket that blended pret tily with her tanned complexion. She held out her hand to me, prima-donna fashion, and smiled grandly. She reminded me of I don't know how many actresses of her age I had met before, fading beauties who try to compensate in grooming, make-up and animation for what they begin to lack in physical appeal. "I've come all the way from Berlin to find you," I said. Nervous lines appeared in Miss Riefenstahl's panchromatic make-up, around the eyes and mouth and drawn fine through her cheeks. . 56 Again, the anti-Nazi sentiment aimed at one so visibly associated with recently powerful Nazi leaders and the article following so closely after the end of the War, coupled with Schulberg's own political convictions and racial background, make his attack understandable in the light of the situation, but the main objection remains; Schulberg's petty writing style, completely unworthy of an author of his caliber. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31J As far as Riefenstahl's responses during the inter view, they are a mixture of het naïvete, her sincerity, and some of her more obvious attempts at deception. ' . . i fact, even today Riefenstahl is still partly a combination of these elements; however, they appear in rather different proportions today and the deception is more difficult to detect since it frequently seems that Riefenstahl's décision about which subjects are necessary of deception changes from time to time and are determined by whimsical inspira tion rather than precalculation. However, for all her faults and the major errors in judgment which Riefenstahl has made about her personal life, the one disarmingly heartening quality in Riefenstahl's personality is her com plete ingenuousness on many subjects which others in her position would totally avoid mentioning. This ingenuousness may be misconstrued by some as naïveté, but those intermit tent periods of faith in the honesty and sincerity of others can only be seen for what they are. And after all of the years filled with superficially sincere interviewers who have betrayed her confidences, it is a wonder that those periods of inherent trust come as frequently as they do. That quality of faith in others is as evident in Riefen stahl 's answers to the calculating Schulberg as it was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 distinctly perceptible in the interviews held with her by this writer. In May, 1973, Oui^^ published an irresponsible, thoroughly sensational story about Riefenstahl which empha sized almost completely her personal relationships with her male co-workers. Much of the information is unsubstantiated rumor reported as fact. The most valuable section of this article is the photographic portion, which includes a numbei of pictures not found in most other readily available pub lications. Arnold Berson and Joseph Keller wrote an article entitled "Shame and Glory in the Movies,which appeared in the National Review at the beginning of 1954. The premise of the article is stated in the subtitle; "You are a director of talent. You work for Hitler? You are a Nazi. You work for Stalin? You are a genius. The article is basically a comparison of the German Leni Riefenstahl and the Russian Sergei Eisenstein— their general acceptance and the relative evaluation of each one's films. Outside of the thought-provoking case the authors present, what is equally fascinating is that such essays begin to appear more frequently as the years separating us from the War compound. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 Finally, Saturday Review recently devoted a major section^® of its issue on "The Arts" to the 1972 summer Olympic Games— the first time the Games were held in Germany since 1936. In this issue appears an informed article by the film critic, Hollis Alpert, entitled "The Lively Ghost of Leni."^^ Quite naturally the emphasis of the piece is on the Olympic films of Riefenstahl with a comparison made to Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad, the film made on the Olympic Games held in Japan in 1964. Passing mention is made of Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will which Alpert declares "still remains the darkest stain on her reputa tion."^^ He goes on to say: ". . .as research and informa tion have accumulated about Leni's filming of the games, informed opinion has veered in her favor.Alpert's own article amply bears this out. This, then, is the sum of the major sources of writ ten material on Leni Riefenstahl published in English. However, since the subject of this dissertation is a motion picture actress and director, a review of the literature would not be complete without reference to ter films and their general availability. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3^ Availability of Riefenstahl Films in the United States Of the six completed films which Leni Riefenstahl has directed, there are three available for rental and/or purchase. These include: Triumph of the Will (1934)— a film of the Sixth Nazi Party Congress held at Nuremberg in Septem ber of 1934 after Hitler's accession of power. Day of Freedom (1935)— a film on the Wehrmacht made by Leni Riefenstahl at the request of Hitler because very little footage of the army had appeared in Triumph of the Will. Olympia (1936)— a film in two parts, of the summer Olympic games held in Berlin, 1936. Part I: Festival of the People. Part II: Festival of Beauty. One other film. The Blue Light (1932), based on a legend set in the Dolomites and directed by Leni Riefenstahl is available for limited viewing at several museums includ ing the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Unfortunately, Victory of Faith (1933), a short film on the Fifth Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, is nowhere to be found in the United States, or elsewhere for that matter. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Even Leni Riefenstahl is at a loss to explain the where abouts of this film, although she suspects that it is either in Russia or in the East Berlin Film Archive. As for Tiefland (1954), the dramatic adaptation of Eugen d'Albert's opera of the same name, this film is unavailable for viewing in this country in any comprehensive form. F a te i s n o t n e a r ly so k in d to th o s e h e re in A m erica 1 jin t e r e s t e d i n s e e in g th e seven m o u n ta in f ilm s c f Dx. A rn o ld Fanck i n w h ic h L e n i R ie fe n s ta h l p a r t ic ip a t e d as an a c tr e s s . T h e re a r e a c t u a lly o n ly two o f th e s e f ilm s a v a ila b le f o r r e n t a l : The White Hell of Pits Palu (1930)— a film involving the destinies of two men and a woman trapped by a blizzard in a freezing mountain crevasse. S.O.S. Iceberg (1933)— a film of a scientific expe dition to Greenland in which several members become marooned on an iceberg and are spectacu larly saved by Ernst Udet, the World War I flying ace. Summary In this chapter, an attempt has been made to review Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission. — ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- J5î published material which is not only accessible, but repre sentative of the information available on Leni Riefenstahl in the English language. The review of literature is organ ized in the following manner; the first section covers books and is arranged according to general historical publications on Germany and related film publications. The second sec tion is divided into books written by Leni Riefenstahl, books on theory, on documentary film, and on the German cinema. The next section covers pertinent magazine articles from film journals as well as general-interest periodicals. The final section, though only genetically related to the written word, can nonetheless be considered "literature" in the field of motion pictures. This section is devoted to the availability of Leni Riefenstahl's films in the United States. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES Alan Bullock, Hitler; A Study in Tyranny (New York Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1964). ^William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett {Publications, Inc., 1960). j 3Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (New {York: The Macmillan Company, 1970). j ^Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge: A Portrait of ( Berlin in the 1920's (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). I ^Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971). Gibid., pp. 250-74. ^Leni Riefenstahl, SchSnheit im Olympischen Kampf (Berlin: Im Deutschen Verlag, 1937). 8 Ibid., pp. 251-81. ^Bela Balazs, Theory of the Film (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970). ^^John Grierson, Grierson on Documentary, ed. Forsyth Hardy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966). 11 12 Ibid., pp. 41-132. Ibid., pp. 145-63. ^^Ibid., pp. 238-47. ^^Lewis Jacobs, ed.. The Documentary Tradition; From Nanook to Woodstock (New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1971). 37 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 1 5 William K. Everson, "The Triumph of the Will," in The Documentary Tradition; From Nanook to Woodstock, ed. Lewis Jacobs (New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1971), pp. 138-40. ^^Parker Tyler, "Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia," in The Documentary Tradition, pp. 136-37. ^^David Stewart Hull, Film in the Third Reich (Berke- jley: University of California Press, 1969). 1 O Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 1947) . 19 20 Ibid., p . V . Hans Sahl, "From Caligari to Hitler?" Modern Review jl (August 1947) : 476. i 21 Lotte H. Eisner, The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). Z^ibid., pp. 335-37. ? 1 Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, The German Cinema (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971). ^^Leif Furhammar and Folke Isaksson, Politics and Film (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971). 25 26 27 28 I Ibid., pp. 30-38. Ibid., pp. 39-46. Ibid., pp. 104-11. Ibid., dust cover of book. ^^Felix Bucher, Germany (New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1970). ^^Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 4-31. I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------------------------------------------------------------jg ^^"The Future Is Entirely Ours," Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 16-21. ^^Ulrich Gregor, "A Comeback for Leni Riefenstahl?" Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 24-27. i ^^Robert Gardner, "Can the Will Triumph?" Film Com ment 3 (Winter 1965): 28-31. ^^Gordon Hitchens, "Interview with a Legend," Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 4-10. ^^Gordon Hitchens, "Biographical Sketch of Leni Riefenstahl," Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 12-15. ^^James Manilla, "A Review of a Lesser Work," Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 23. ^^"A Tribute to Leni Riefenstahl," Film Culture I 56-57 (Spring 1973): 90-226 ^^David Gunston, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film Quarterly 14 (Fall 1960): 4-19 ^^Michel Delahaye, "Leni and the Wolf," Cahiers du Cinema in English 5 (1966): 48-55. 4°lbid., p. 52. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 11 August 1971. 1967. ^^Leni Riefenstahl to Kevin Brownlow, 19 January ^^Der Spiegel, 30 March 1960. [ ^'Leni Riefenstahl to Kevin Brownlow, 19 January 1967. 45john Beevers, "The Girl Hitler Likes," Sunday Referee (London), 4 December 1938. ^^Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 0 ^^Kevin Brownlow, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film; A Maga- zine of the Federation of Film Societies 47 (Winter 1966- 1967); 14-19. ^®Paul Rotha, "Leni Riefenstahl— I Deplore," Film: A Magazine of the Federation of Film Societies 48 (Spring 1967) ; 12-15. ^^Richard Corliss, "Leni Riefenstahl: A Bibliog raphy," Film Heritage (c. November 1970). I j ^^Arnold Berson, "The Truth about Leni; Nazi Collab orator— or Independent Artist?" Films and Filming, April |l965, pp. 15-19. ! ! ^ ^ R ic h a rd M eran Barsam , " L e n i R ie f e n s t a h l; A r t i f i c e land T r u th i n a W orld A p a r t ," F ilm Comment, Novem ber-Decem - IdllU !ber. 1973, pp. 32-37. j ^^L. Andrew Mannheim, "Leni; Maligned Genius of the Nazis?" Modern Photography, February 1974, pp. 88-95, 112- |19. ^ ^^Budd Schulberg, "Nazi Pin-up Girl,” The Saturday Evening Post, 30 March 1946, p. 11. S^lbid., pp. 9-11, 36-41. 55lbid., p. 11. SGlbid., pp. 36, 39. ^^"Tha Rise and Fall of Leni Riefenstahl," Oui, May 1973, pp. 72-76, 106. ^^Arnold Berson and Joseph Keller, "Shame and Glory in the Movies," National Review, 14 January 1964, pp. 17-21. SSlbid., p. 17. ^^"The Summer Olympics; Munich and the German World," Saturday Review, 25 March 1972, pp. 40-82. G^Hollis Alpert, "The Lively Ghost of Leni," Satur day Review, 25 March 1972, pp. 65-67. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4U p. 67 G^Ibid., p. 66. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C H APTER I I I DESIGN OF THE STUDY The idea for this study came rather unexpectedly, as ideas of this nature sometimes do. This writer had been interested in Leni Riefenstahl for some five or six years— the result of having seen her film, Olympia, and having heard about the impressiveness of Triumph of the Will. A few years later, the opportunity to see the latter film I {presented itself, and the writer, along with the rest of Ithe audience, came away from the screening unduly affected by the dynamic visual impact that the film imparted to the Nuremberg Party Rally. Several more years passed and then the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in one of its film programs, included an evening of two rarely-seen Riefenstahl films— The Blue Light and Day of Freedom.^ Both films had been generally I unavailable up to this time. In fact. Day of Freedom was considered for many years to have been lost— a fate still relegated to Victory of Faith, Riefenstahl's first Party Day 42 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. _____---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 ] film. What had occurred with Day of Freedom was that it was unexpectedly discovered in the Library of Congress amidst a search for some other film in the Japanese collection. Todayf this film is readily accessible and in general dis- Itribution. What impressed this writer most about the evening of Riefenstahl films at the Museum was the striking visual beauty and the penetrating, almost tangible, mystical {atmosphere created in The Blue Light. This is a remarkable I (technical achievement for a first film. But even more con vincing was the editorial skill with which Day of Freedom jwas assembled. The tension and release created in ever- increasing increments culminating in a fury of movement {which leads into the final shot of the air force flying overhead in swastika formation leaves one breathless and in awe of Riefenstahl's command of technique and her almost infallible filmic intuition. Yet despite the emotional im pact of Day of Freedom, Riefenstahl claims that this newly- discovered copy is incomplete. Several lengthy speeches of Hitler have been removed— speeches which, Riefenstahl claims are the motivation for the maneuvers of the Wehrmacht in the film. Upon leaving the screening, the writer was prompted Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ to find out more about this extraordinary filmmaker, who is considered to be one of the finest women film directors in motion picture history. Even the film historian, Paul Rotha, who was motivated to write the antagonistic reply to 9 Kevin Brownlow in Film magazine, and who would not ordinar ily be inclined to praise Leni Riefenstahl, was moved to proclaim her "a talent which we must, however reluctantly, recognize as one of the most brilliant ever to be concerned with films . . After several months of fruitless research, which revealed that there is not only very little material writ ten on Leni Riefenstahl in English, but also that the avail able material is either highly repetitious or contradictory in nature, or both, the writer became even more assured of the necessity for an objective study in English on this historically remarkable, unique, and controversial film per sonality. Most of the preliminary research was completed in Los Angeles, where the writer thoroughly explored the fol lowing institutions to practically no avail so far as a project of this scope is concerned: The Farmington Collection of the University of Southern California Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45i The Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Los Angeles County Museum of Art The American Film Institute at Greystone The Los Angeles Public Library The Library of the University of California at Los Angeles The Archive of the Los Angeles Times During this time, it became obvious that many of the important Riefenstahl films were not available for study in Los Angeles; therefore, written inquiries were made as to the availability of specific motion pictures at the film archives of : The Library of Congress The American Film Institute in Washington, D. C. The Museum of Modern Art in New York The George Eastman House in Rochester Having determined that some of the Riefenstahl films, in cluding the then only complete version of Olympia, were preserved at the George Eastman House, and realizing that the Museum of Modern Art has an extensive clipping file as well as an incomplete work print of another generally un available Riefenstahl film, a trip to New York was arranged. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ^ At the George Eastman House, not only were all of the Riefenstahl holdings screened for the writer, but so [were many other German films, including the Nazi documentary Victory in the West (Sieg im Westen), made in 1941 from newsreel footage, and several dramatic films which were deemed valuable for purposes of comparison. While in New York City, a search was made for writ ten material, not only at the Museum of Modern Art, but also jat the New York Public Library and the Lincoln Center Library of Performing Arts. During this visit, it became iclear that the available written information would not be j jadequate for the research and, while on the East Coast, jseveral people were contacted who had known or worked with Leni Riefenstahl. I Back in Los Angeles, the search was continued for I jpeople living in this country who had had first-hand deal- jings with Riefenstahl— or who for any other reason might be jknowledgeable about her. A surprising number of people were 'discovered living in this country, most of whom were more than willing to grant interviews. Encouraged by the discussions with these people and particularly by Kevin Brownlow, who the writer had just met in Los Angeles and who also happens to be a good friend of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 Leni Riefenstahl, the writer sent a letter to the filmmaker herself to find out if a meeting could be arranged with her in Germany. In the meantime, as many people as could be found who knew Riefenstahl and who were thought to be still living in Europe were contacted by mail for possible inter views should the proposed trip to Germany materialize. Leni Riefenstahl's reply was very encouraging, as ! jwere most of the other replies received. Riefenstahl I offered as much help as she could give and promised to screen all of the films she had made or participated in which she still has in her own archive. Considering the ^unavailability of most of these films in the United States, [this offer, along with the opportunity to speak with the filmmaker herself, would have made the trip worthwhile. In fact, besides Riefenstahl, some two dozen informed individ uals were interviewed in Europe— some knew only about her, but most knew her personally or had worked with her in the capacities of cameramen, technical advisers, producers, assistant directors, or heads of studios; some even had worked against her as officials in the Nazi Propaganda Min istry. In all, four institutions in New York State with holdings related to Leni Riefenstahl and her work were also Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --- — --------------------------------------------------- sg searched for written information, as well as sixteen insti tutions in Europe. The following is a list of those organ izations : New York State The Museum of Modern Art, New York City Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts, New York City New York Public Library, Forty-second Street Branch, New York City George Eastman House Museum of Photography, Roches ter England Library of the British Film Institute, London East Germany Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR, East Berlin West Germany Landesbildstelle— Zentrum fur audio-visuelle Medien, Berlin Bundesarchiv, Koblenz Axel Springer Verlag— Ullstein Archiv, Berlin Axel Springer Verlag, Hamburg Deutsche Kinemathek— Film und Ferusehakademie, Berlin Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------g g Berlin Document Center— United States Mission, Ber lin Institut fur Zeitgeschichte— Bibliothek, Munich Institut fur den Wissenschaftlichen Film, Gottingen F. W. Murnau Stiftung, Wiesbaden Deutsches Institut fur Filmkunde, Wiesbaden Suddeutsche Zeitung Archiv, Munich Olympia Film, Munich Stern Magasin— Pressehaus, Hamburg Transit Film— Gesellschaft, Munich When interpreters could not be found to sift through the material written in German, all documents or articles relating to Leni Riefenstahl or her films were either micro filmed or photocopied and brought back to Los Angeles where they were translated. The following is a list of the seven institutions which were contacted by mail for various kinds of informa tion pertaining to this study: United States The German Information Center, New York City National Archives and Records Service, National Records Center, Washington, D. C. Modern Military Archive, National Records Center, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "sïï Washington, D. C. The Library of Congress, Reference Department, Washington, D. C. West Germany Inter Nationes, Bonn Astro-Gesellschaft Bielicke 6 Co., Berlin France Cinematheque Française, Paris In a dissertation o T i n ' f s kind, that is, one per- jtaining to a filmmaker, it is absolutely essential for the {researcher to see at first hand as many of the works of i [that filmmaker as can be found. All too often research in ! Ithis field is done second-hand by merely discussing films from reviews read. It is precisely in this way that so much misinformation is perpetuated. In the course of the research both in America and in Europe, all but four of the films with which Leni Riefen stahl was associated were screened. Only one of these was a film that she directed. The following is a list of the Riefenstahl films which were unavailable for study by this writer; The Holy Mountain (1926)— This is the first Fanck "mountain" film in which Leni Riefenstahl acted. Dr. Arnold Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TU |Fanck had informed this writer that the film had either {decomposed beyond retrieval or had been lost as a result of i 'the turmoil after the War. However, recently this writer discovered in an interview with Leni Riefenstahl that she had a copy of this film^ in her possession. Why she did not volunteer this information or show the film to this writer is a mystery. I The Fate of the Kapsburgs (1928)— This is the only jfilm in which Riefenstahl acted that was not directed {either by Fanck or herself. It, too, appears to be lost. I Storm over Montblanc (1930)— This is another "moun tain" film directed by Dr. Fanck and the fourth in which Leni Riefenstahl appeared. Apparently there are a few isolated copies of this film in individual collections, but this writer was unable to arrange a screening while in Germany; however, there exists a book,^ with the same title ias the film, written by Dr. Fanck, Included in this book ! jare reproductions of hundreds of stills taken from the film I y, ^ jitself. Also included is a foreword by Bela Balazs and a complete scene-by-scene description of the film with numerous sections of dialogue quoted verbatim. In fact, the written portion of the book is more or less an embel lished script. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. _ — _ — ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------^ victory of Faith (1933)— This is the film of the First Nuremberg Party Day rally that Riefenstahl was com missioned by Hitler to direct. Unfortunately, this film is nowhere to be found, but, as mentioned earlier, Leni Riefen stahl feels that it is either in an archive in Russia or possibly in East Berlin. The historical method of study was chosen for this dissertation to assure the most comprehensive approach to the material. It is indispensable to study the artistic and personal background, as well as the career development !of Leni Riefenstahl in order to be able to evaluate criti- Jcally the stylistic ingredients of her early motion pictures in relation to her later documentary films. The film historian, Lotte Eisner, indicates that the most thorough and revealing approach to the study of a film director is to ask the following questions: How did the director work? What is the peculiar style evolved by this director? Most often, rather than being separate elements, each of these questions are mutually interactive. In the case of Leni Riefenstahl, there is absolutely no question that her method of directing influenced the style of her films and, in turn, the filmic style evolved by her eventually modified her working procedures. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------- 531 The influence of Dr. Arnold Fanck is undeniably a major element in the development of Leni Riefenstahl as a film director. Summary The preceding chapter deals with the methods and procedures used in the research for this study. A detailed chronological description of the progression and accumula tion of the research is included. There follows a discus sion of the four films of Leni Riefenstahl, accompanied by individual explanations, which this writer, for one reason or another, was unable to see. Finally, the chapter con cludes with a brief explanation for the writer's choice of using the historical approach to the subject matter. Men tion is also made of the questions found to be pivotal to the research, fundamental to the problem of the study, and which consequently are dealt with in detail in succeeding chapters. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ■'i'ïo:fr;ivii Notes for The Blue Light and Day of Free dom, educational programs, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 11 September 1970. 2 Paul Rotha, "Leni Riefenstahl— I Deplore," Film; A Magazine of the Federation of Film Societies 48 (Spring 1967): 12-15. 3 I Paul Rotha and Richard Griffith, The Film Till Now; A Survey of World Cinema (London: Spring Books, 1967), p. 591. 4 Gordon Hitchens, "Leni Riefenstahl Interviewed by Gordon Hitchens, October 11th, 1971, Munich," Film Culture |56-57 (Spring 1973) : 115. Arnold Fanck, Sturme liber dem Montblanc: Bin Film- bildbuch (Basel: Concordia Verlag, 1931). 54 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C H APTE R I V LENI RIEFENSTAHL— THE AWAKENING ARTIST, THE STUDENT, THE DANCER Once having discovered the extent and intensity of the artistic background, particularly that of dance, in the early life of Leni Riefenstahl, the unique and innovative style of her later filmic works as a director reveal them selves to be intimately bound and creatively inspired by I this early enthusiasm for the aesthetics of composition in movement. Riefenstahl's interest can by no means be con sidered abstract or intellectual, but rather her concern for beauty was nurtured by her practical, first-hand partic ipation in the growth of a new spirit, embodied in the modern dance movement, at a time— the 1920's in Germany— when modern dance was in its formative stages. This attitude is consistent with the character and personality of Leni Riefenstahl and soon carried over into her interest in film. Her working relationship with film is totally devoid of intellectual or abstract considerations 55 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — -------------------------------------------- 59 It is a much more direct and intuitive association, as was her earlier relationship to dance. However, Leni Riefenstahl's first encounter with dance came somewhat late in her life, so far as a dancing career might be concerned. She was around fifteen years of ( t jage when, by chance, she found herself in a dancing school. i IAt this time, she was infatuated with the possibility of becoming an actress, much to the dismay of her parents. In her own words, this is how Leni Riefenstahl describes that fortuitous event: My parents absolutely did not approve of my desire to become an actress. However, by accident, I got an opportunity to go into acting. I read in a newspaper that twenty girls were needed for a film. Of course, I applied for the job. We were to pre sent ourselves for the audition at a dance school. Out of several hundred girls, two were chosen. I was one of them. While we were waiting there, I watched the dancing lessons that were being given in the next room. I was so spellbound by this that I decided to take dance lessons myself— for two months, secretly.^ But let us go back a little before discussing Leni [Riefenstahl's fascination with a dancing career— an interest which almost deprived film history of one of its more tal ented exponents. Leni Riefenstahl, christened Bertha Helene Amalie, was born in Berlin on August 22, 1902, into a somewhat latently artistic, but very ordinary, middle-class family. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 Unfortunately the artistic talents remained dormant in Leni Riefenstahl's parents, a fact which may account for the reluctance of her father, Alfred, to allow her to study dancing. Actually, Riefenstahl herself feels that early in her father's life, Alfred Riefenstahl was more positively f ithan negatively inclined toward art. In his early twenties, jhe even participated in amateur theatrical productions as jan actor. Riefenstahl recalled that her father was a "very (active" man— a characteristic inherited by Riefenstahl and manifested in her own indefatigable energy— and "he loved 2 life," but as he became more settled and secure in his business, Alfred Riefenstahl was determined to provide his children with "reasonable” and solidly secure occupations for the future. Toward this end, he encouraged Leni to become a secretary and for a short time she took care of the books for his firm. He wanted his son to become an engineer so that he could help him in his business. Leni, who was very close to her younger brother, Heinz, feels that he was very talented and that he could have become a gifted architect except perhaps for the fact that his outspoken personality made it very difficult for him to work for any one else. This character trait ultimately caused his death by grenade in World War II on the Russian front when he was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ assigned to the Straff (punishment) company for his out spoken views against the Nazi regime. Since self-employment was not feasible at that time for Heinz, he became an engineer and ultimately a partner in his father's business.^ Later, after Leni had been initiated into the film world through Dr. Arnold Fanck, her brother often showed up in the architecture office of Fanck's nephew, Ernst Petersen, who at one time had also starred as a skier in Fanck's mountain films. Petersen's architectural firm had many big construc tion projects going and he almost always gave the plumbing I jcontracts to Alfred R. Riefenstahl's firm, thus affording [Leni's brother the opportunity to visit frequently Peter- jsen's office and at least to satisfy his curiosity vicari- jously and his desire to be an architect himself.^ I I Leni's mother, Berta Scherlach Riefenstahl, a Rus- I jsian Jewess, born in W&ocZawek, Poland, was throughout her I jlife a constant support and encouragement to her daughter. ! After Leni's divorce in 1947, her mother came to live with her in her Munich apartment and remained there until her death in the mid 1960's. Even today, Riefenstahl considers her mother to have been "the best friend I have ever had."^ When asked about the artistic background of her family. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 Riefenstahl immediately brought up her mother, explaining that she was not "directly" artistic, but that she had a feeling for art. By way of explanation, Riefenstahl re called the fact that her maternal grandfather was an archi tect and the father of twenty-one children (her mother was I the eighteenth), unconsciously making some mental connection between her grandfather's professional career, his prolific family, and her mother's inherited artistic sensitivity. When the young Leni wanted to study dancing, it was her mother who encouraged her and helped to keep her early training a secret from her father. About her parents and her childhood, Leni Riefenstahl had this to say: My father started very simply. He married my mother when they were both very young. My mother was twenty- one years old; my father, twenty-three. My father was a plumbing contractor. When a house was built, he installed all the heating and plumbing systems. He was very good and he became very big, very early. By the time I went to school, my father was rich. He had a car and a chauffer, a big house and a gar den outside. He was not a millionaire, but very rich. So I was fortunate. . . .^ Though she seems grateful for the opportunities that her father's business afforded her, when she was young she nevertheless "admitted to a youthful prejudice against the prosaic and inartistic W. C.'s."^ But this "prosaic" business of her father's allowed her to be educated first at the Gymnasium where, she admits, she did not do very Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — -----------------------------------------------------------m well, especially in Greek, and then, after Alfred Riefen stahl changed her schools, at the Lyceum where the subjects were more to her liking. She claims to have had a great deal of interest in acting during her school years. But acting was only part of the story: I always produced and directed plays for the school. If there was anything to be done in this area, they would say, "Leni will do it." I liked this very much and I felt honored by their asking me. 8 It makes good sense, then, that Leni showed up for the film audition she had read about in the newspaper— and although she lost her desire to be an actress during the time that she devoted herself to dancing, it was only natural for that desire to be rekindled when her dancing ^career looked as if it were at an end. So Riefenstahl's jtransition into a motion picture acting career with Dr. Arnold Fanck is not as abrupt as it might appear at first sight— and her interest in acting continued to manifest itself in the fact that she always cast herself in the lead ing roles of her dramatic films, from The Blue Light through Tiefland to her unfinished African film. Black Cargo. Riefenstahl very sincerely claims today that the reason she cast herself in these parts was either that she could not afford financially to hire anyone else or that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------- 6 Ï those who would have agreed to play the parts were not ideally suited to the individual roles. To make her point more emphatically, Riefenstahl is quick to affirm the diffi culty she had in playing the leading roles in these films and, at the same time, directing them as well. Though one might be persuaded to believe this sincere justification, it seems far more likely that subconsciously Leni Riefen stahl was searching for reasons to play these parts in order to fulfill the elusive image and expectations she held for herself. This is particularly obvious in Black Cargo, in which she again cast herself in the leading role of a young woman. By the time this project got underway in 1956, Riefenstahl was in her mid-fifties. She was still quite beautiful, but she was not right for the part. Isabel Schlichting, Riefenstahl*s set designer on Tiefland, and a close friend of Kurt Heuser who wrote the script for Black Cargo, says that Heuser felt that part of the reason the project failed was not only the miscasting of Riefenstahl in the lead, but the fact that she wanted both to act and to direct the film^— a combination she handled somewhat more easily, though not entirely successfully, when she was younger and when the projects were less complex legistically. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. All of this should indicate at least that Leni Riefenstahl never really lost her desire to act, even though her Thespian ability is totally eclipsed, and often marred, 'by her remarkable talents as a director. I In school, Leni Riefenstahl also seems to have had a continuing enthusiasm for poetry, an interest which later surfaced in her desire to film the Heinrich von Kleist play, Penthesilea. In this film, Riefenstahl intended to amal gamate her ideas about poetry with essentially non-verbal cinematic imagery. Riefenstahl also claims to have started sketching people during her early years, "even before I was able to writ e."10 Whether this talent was more pronounced than that of any other child is difficult to verify, but for two years in the early 1920's, she did attend the State Academy of Arts and Crafts (Staatlichen Kunstgewerbeschule für Zeichnen und Malen) in Berlin, where she studied drawing and paint ing. Even today, Riefenstahl still very strongly believes that her background in painting p.nd dance has influenced her later cinematic style. I must tell you that before entering films, I began my career as a dancer. . . . At the same time, I received a certain amount of training at the Berlin Academy of Art where I devoted myself to painting. If I mention these things, it is because these two elements, dance and painting, have played a part in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 forming what was to become my personal style con cerning the composition and montage of visual images.^ It is hard to determine the extent to which Leni i iRiefenstahl had any influence over the composition of shots Ion her documentary films, but upon viewing her two dramatic I Iworks, The Blue Light and Tiefland, and the slides taken by }her of the African Nuba tribe, her impeccable sense of what constitutes dynamic visual imagery is quite obviously present. In fact, one can be absolutely sure that the com positions in The Blue Light and Tiefland are hers because she framed every shot for every scene, always looking through the lens herself and adjusting the elements in the scene, no matter how long it took, until every detail was aesthetically pleasing to her. As for her style of montage, Riefenstahl quite readily agrees that the style of her editing is strongly inspired by her background in dance. We will study and {discover later on the importance of an internal kinesthetic reality in Riefenstahl's life which tends to determine her I intuitive sense of what is aesthetically correct where move ment is concerned. This sense of affinity for physical movement was developed in her early dance career and is sustained and exercised to some degree today by Riefenstahl Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ^ who is still an accomplished skier. Her athletic ability and interest in sports also manifested itself early, even though certain sports, when indulged too regularly, tend to develop muscles which can hinder a dancer in performing particular movements. For instance, bicycle riding can cause a tightening of the calf muscles restricting the height of a dancer's jumps. There are certain sports which can be pursued by a dancer with no detrimental effects, however, and gymnastics and swimming are two of these "harmless" sports in which Leni Riefenstahl enjoyed partaking. Thus, she was always interested in art I land, as she modestly puts it, ". . . and maybe a little bit in sports.In fact, she was more than a "little bit" interested in sports, as she herself admitted later on in our conversation: I like almost every sport very much. Very much. I started to play tennis when I was in school. Very shortly after I started, I was playing in tourna ments. But I had to stop because it was dangerous for my dancing. . . . I also liked swimming very much. . 13 Actually, Leni Riefenstahl was studying gymnastics at the I time she showed up for the film audition in that dancing school. Not only did her interest in sports help her to begin a dance career at the relatively late age of nineteen, but later on, in the mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck, her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. athletic ability would stand her in good stead when the roles she had to play required that the city girl learn to jski and climb mountains, for Dr. Fanck never liked to ’ ’se i {doubles or stuntmen! I I Even more importantly, Riefenstahl's own athletic i lability and her knowledge about sports would, in the not jtoo distant future, immensely influence her vision at the IOlympic Games competition and ultimately that knowledge I jwould help her to determine the methods which she eventually Î jused to capture that event so magnificently on film. Inci- i jdently, before she decided to make the film on the Berlin jOlympic Games, Riefenstahl herself was training that year Ito enter the Olympic skiing competitions.^^ j Now let us return to her brief, but professionally jsignificant, dance career. As mentioned previously, Leni, {with the help of her mother, secretly began to study danc- jing against the will of her father. She entered the State School of Dance and made rapid progress. Soon thereafter, the school rented the Bluthner Saal in Berlin to give its be-t students an opportunity to perform in recital. The theater was small and the audience consisted mostly of the family and relatives of the performers. Anita Berber, already working in films for the director, Richard Oswald, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and the best dancer in the school, had gotten sick and Leni had to substitute for her that evening. Leni was not par ticularly nervous at this, the first public performance in her incipient dance career, but she was a little impatient to do it and get it over with. She performed well and the audience applauded, but she did not experience the raves to which she would soon become accustomed.The only member of her family present jin the audience was her brother. Berta Riefenstahl had I I stayed behind so as not to arouse the suspicion of her hus- Iband. But to no avail. He found out and was furious with Leni and with his wife for secretly conspiring behind his back. He was even ready to throw Leni out of the house. Finally he gave in and allowed her to spend two or three days a week dancing after she had agreed to learn secretar ial work. Leni's first important instruction came from the well-known teacher, Eugenie Eduardova, who came from the Petersburg Ballet (now the Leningrad Kirov Ballet). Once she felt that she had a solid foundation in the classical technique of the Russian ballet, Leni began to study modern dance. She started first with Jutta Klamt, but then even tually went to study with the famous modern dance pioneer. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - TO Mary Wigman, at her school in Dresden. There is a claim that before her father agreed to support her training, Leni painted picture postcards and sold them in order to earn enough money to pay for her dancing shoes and the lessons she was taking.Ever though it is likely that this story is apocryphal, what i:. implies about Riefenstahl's character is accurate. When Leni made up her mind to do something, there v;as nothing that she let stand in her way. This trait can be seen clearly in the enormous obstacles she overcame to complete her dramatic films, but it is even more apparent in the difficulties she surmounted while working on the documentaries. Even the later animosity of Dr. Goebbels and the whole machinery of the Propaganda Ministry could not deter her from her objec tives, Although today she has lost some of that determina tion and energy through the accumulated effect of the post war difficulties she has had to weather, she is still today a more vital woman than many who are half her age— and cer- jtainly she is more energetic today than she herself is I [willing to admit verbally. ! I ! Now, I am only ten per cent of the old Leni. Be- ! cause of what I have been through, my energy is j kaput. But before . . . for me, the phrase "It is impossible" did not exist. When I decided to do something, I did it even if there seemed to be no way.20 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------ — — -------------------------------------------G9 That determination is very evident today in her ambition to complete her ill-fated Nuba film and it extends even to her undashed hope of being able eventually to direct a colossal ski film. The Red Devils, which, like so many of her other projects, has been obstructed and postponed innumerable times. Alfred Riefenstahl never really approved of Leni's dancing, but she was his daughter and was so enthusiastic jabout her new life that later on, when she was twenty-one, i Itwo years after she had devoted herself full-time to danc- I jing, he even agreed to finance her first two solo dance i jevenings. She accepted her father's offer, although it was |no longer necessary to rely on him for financial assistance because, by that time, Leni had several young, wealthy admirers who were equally willing to help promote her jcareer. Among these admirers was a young man by the name I jof Harry Sokal, who was soon to play an important role in her film career both as a producer for some of the Fanck imountain films in which Riefenstahl acted and as the finan cial backer for Riefenstahl's own initial directorial ven ture on her first feature. The Blue Light. At the time that Sokal met Riefenstahl, he was twenty-four years of age and then the youngest bank executive Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ^ in Austria. Both his and Riefenstahl's beginnings in the film industry are interrelated and are partly the result of Leni's compelling charm, dynamic personality, and her Garbo- like beauty— attributes about which Leni was not at all unaware and which she used to her advantage throughout her career whenever it seemed necessary. The fortuitous meeting between Sokal and Riefenstahl took place in the resort town of Travemunde near Lubeck on Ithe Baltic Sea. When Sokal arrived, he saw a young woman playing tennis: "She had so much charm in her movements, I jso much grace and humor, and was so very beautiful, that I ■wanted to meet her,"^^ he remembered. And meet her he did, I at the beach, on the following day. Leni informed him that she had to leave Travemunde for Berlin in a few days to go back to work. When Sokal discovered that Leni's work was the study of dancing, he was . . . very much intrigued. I didn't know much about dancing, but I knew about Mary Wigman, Jutta Klamt, Niddy Impekoven. . . . Leni was in school at that time with Mary Wigman and was about to make her first appearance the following year.22 Sokal, who lived in Innsbruck, was anxious to see Leni again. Realizing that frequent visits to Berlin would be very difficult, Sokal suggested that she make her first solo appearance in the impressive Stadttheater in Innsbruck. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — . - 70 Leni laughed at the suggestion, reminding him that he had never even seen her dance and was certainly not aware of Whether or not she even had any talent. What Leni did not I jyet realize was that Sokal was very much a gambler who j irelied on his instincts— a trait which would soon character jize many of his decisions about the financing of motion pic I itures. However, Sokal felt that Leni's skepticism went a I little deeper. After all, I I was a very young man and she didn't believe that ; I could get the theater for an evening for her to ' make her dancing début. But I was already important enough in Innsbruck to be able to do this. Besides, ! I was convinced, even though I had never seen her, that she was a talented dancer, just from seeing her playing tennis and from seeing her moving around at i the beach.^ 3 I Before Leni left Travemunde, Sokal had arranged to I meet her again in Berlin on his way back to Austria. A few j days later, back in Innsbruck, he booked the Stadttheater for one evening during the following winter. In fact, Leni ended up giving three successful solo performances in Inns bruck that November. In the meantime, with her father's financial assistance, Leni had arranged to make her own jdebut in October of 1923 at the Munich Tonhalle, a perform ance which was to be followed four days later by another in i ithe Bluthner Saal in Berlin. And so it was several months Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 after her début that Leni came to perform in Innsbruck. But as Sokal recalled, these two performances in Munich and Berlin were "the only things she did in her career without my help up to a certain time."24 Actually, Leni was cautioned by her teachers not to make her début so prematurely.25 Although she had made excellent progress, she had been concentratedly studying dance only for some two years— hardly a period of time that jcould normally be considered adequate training for a dancer !who was preparing to give evening-long solo performances. I iBut Leni was impatient. She wanted to know how she was progressing. She wanted some response from the public— and ifrom the critics. j Her début performance in Munich was considered a jminor success. However, the hall was filled only to one- I ! third capacity for the free concert. Leni Riefenstahl was I Ian unknown, but she danced well and was received in kind. I I She repeated the same program in Berlin, but this I time the Bluthner Saal was filled almost to capacity. Her I performance was a resounding success (see Appendix A for i reviews). As a result, Leni Riefenstahl gave more than seventy such solo performances in and around Germany that season, eight of them in Berlin alone2® and six of those Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IZ on eight performances were given in the Kammerspiele— the theater of Max Reinhardt. "I was the first and only one who was engaged to dance six consecutive evenings alone in I O R (this theater. It was a sensation!" I It is no exaggeration when Riefenstahl proclaims ! jher dance performances "a sensation," for the newspaper (reviews of the time, as well as the present-day avowals of {Dr. Fanck and Harry Sokal, amply testify to the exactness (of Riefenstahl's own evaluation. Harry Sokal, even to this (day, remembers a line that one well-known critic wrote: 1 ! "This dancer possesses a beauty that will appear I only once in a thousand ye ars."29 And she was j that beautiful, or at least the impression that she gave was of a stunning and exceptional beauty.20 I Leni Riefenstahl felt it necessary to explain recently that the dance critics were of all political lean- I jings and that, even so, all the reviews were uniformly I i - 5 1 (enthusiastic about her. Unfortunately, there are some (individuals today who are attempting to cast doubt on even this phase of Riefenstahl's burgeoning career. However, in the excf rpts from some of the rapturous reviews of Riefen stahl s dance performances, it will clearly be seen that the critics were overwhelmingly excited about the nascent talent of this young dancer. After only a few performances, she was already being compared to Valeska Gert, Niddy Impekoven, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------------------------- — 7^ and her own teacher, Mary Wigman. But Leni, though flat tered by the comparisons, was perceptively not yet con vinced that she was deserving of them. What Leni probably was as aware of as Sokal, and where she had a decided advan tage, was that she was far more beautiful physically than jany of her rivals. And this quality was by no means over- I looked by the critics. It made her dancing all the more jmoving and penetrating. i Very soon, the critics ranked Leni Riefenstahl among the best dancers of her time. And she was popular with not only the critics but the audiences, who were equally enthu siastic about her dancing. Offers came in from all over Germany and Europe. She was booked for the 1923-1924 season into many of the leading theaters, among them the Berlin Nollendorf Theater and Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater; the Stadttheater in Innsbruck, Austria; the Deutsches Theater in Prague, Czechoslovakia; the Schauspielhaus in Zurich, Switzerland; and various other theaters in Breslau and Stettin, Poland, and in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, Munich, Braunschweig, Cologne, Halle, and Dresden, Germany; She was able to command an average salary of between six and 33 seven hundred marks per performance, but because of her popularity, she often received one thousand marks,a sum 32 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 which was considered to be a small fortune at that time. Not only did she receive offers from theaters wish ing to engage Leni Riefenstahl, the dancer, but she also received offers from the film industry, including several from Erich Pommer at Ufa.^S However, Leni was no longer interested in an acting career,even though Sokal who knew she was photogenic and who assumed that she would be able to act,37 had encouraged her to accept the offers. Leni had totally immersed herself in the task at hand. This single- } minded devotion to an objective is a characteristic which ! I she would continue to display over and over again on spe cific films throughout the rest of her career. Once Leni jpiefenstahl had made a decision, nothing short of physical disability or political boycott could distract her from the accomplishment of her goals. In the case of these early film offers, it is no wonder that Leni turned them down in favor of her blossoming dance career. What young woman would abandon a career which held so much promise, especially when she had just begun to jsavor such enthusiastic acceptance? While leafing through some of her old, now-yellowed dance programs, Riefenstahl recently was reminded by one of them of the kind of recep tion she had received at the Deutsches Theater in Prague: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — — ------------------------------------------ 73 There were three thousand people in the theater in Prague. Only Pavlova had danced to this large an audience before— and she with a big ballet company. But I danced solo to three thousand. It was fan tastic! I couldn't even begin this dance, here, the "Orientalische Merken" ("Oriental Fairytales") because the audience was applauding so hard— even before I danced. jshe stopped to reflect, then added wistfully: "As a dancer, jl had much more success than I ever had in films. j Leni Riefenstahl was more interested in modern dance I Ithan she was in classical ballet. This concern may have been the result of the times, for there was much interest throughout the 1920's in this new movement which was a radi cal departure from what one had come to recognize as tradi tional dance. Besides, ballet had never had as strong a holding in Germany as it had in other European countries. Or Leni may have realized very quickly that, having started to dance only at such a late age, she would never have been able to become a great ballerina. For the tech nique in ballet is just far enough removed from natural movement that it is necessary to begin training at an early age in order for the body to develop in such a way as to allow the dancer to perform, with ease, the unnatural move ments required in the traditional classic ballet. On the other hand, modern dance may have appealed to the young Leni because it encouraged creativity on the part Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------- of the dancers— a quality sadly lacking in ballet which at that time primarily relied on traditional choreography, whereas the modern dancer has always been encouraged to improvise and create his own compositions. Even though the modern dance, too, has evolved a technique and formalized exercises which are designed to jprepare the body for specific kinds of movements, modern jdancers are generally agreed upon the absolute necessity of jnot allowing forms and technique to become an end in them- i {selves. Merely adding up pre-established forms to create a dance, the common practice in ballet during Leni Riefen stahl 's time, was anathema to the modern dancer who rather uses technique primarily as a means for freeing the body so that the creative impulses of the dancer can be expressed more easily. "The individual is trained to 'listen to the impulses' of motion in his body, which means knowing and controlling his center of strong accents. But in any event, for whatever reasons, Leni Riefen stahl was drawn to modern dance and, as one might suspect, the kind of dancing created by her was very much a reflec tion of her own personality. In fact, her dances so accu rately expressed an essential part of her being that many of their themes can be found again and again in her dramatic ..40 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. r ? films and in the ideas for some of her later unfinished projects. Equally revealing are the comments of the crit ics who found qualities in her dancing that are also echoed in her later motion picture work. It is with this in mind that the following comments, which bring this chapter to an end, are made on Leni Riefenstahl's dance career. A dance program for one evening consisted of some Itwelve solo dances, approximately seven before intermission i jwith the remaining five performed afterwards (see Table 1). jThe entire performance lasted about one and a half hours, lit is obvious from the reviews that Leni Riefenstahl had jmastered the modern dance technique, for her slender and I jbeautifully-formed body was apparently able to perform {anything she called upon it to do. The impression she gave in her dancing was of a free, almost ethereal spirit, a spirit which had a kind of liberating effect^l on the audi ence as well. Referring to the appeal of Leni Riefenstahl, one critic wrote; What was particularly engaging in Leni Riefenstahl was her humanity. What we are otherwise accustomed to seeing are empty gestures which are rhythmically strung together. Here, however, the whole human being is involved. . . . 42 Another critic in discussing the Dances of Eros found that: . . the Greek god Eros lives and forms himself from within her, who simply does not know the black Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 T A B L E 1 DANCE PROGRAM OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL GIVEN DURING 1924-1925 SEASON AT THE DEUTSCHES THEATER, BERLIN Translation Aus der Kaukasischen Suite Marsch Mazurka Aus den Tanzen des Eros Hingebung Loslosung {Allegretto gracioso j jValse Caprice From the Caucasian Suite March Mazurka From the Dances of Eros Devotion Separation Allegretto gracioso Valse Caprice PAUSE INTERMISSION Studie nach einer Gavotte Study after a Gavotte Aus der unvollendeten H-moll From the B-minor Unfinished Sinfonie Symphony Lyrische Tanze Orientalische Marchen Traumblute Sommer Lyrical Dances Oriental Fairytales Dream Flower Summer Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. dash between the life of the soul and the life of the body.43 And still another commented: I no longer saw costumes or physical forms, but I experienced a pure rhythm of animated lines and forms of color. Everything earthbound.- objective, pantomimic disappeared. . . .44 Leni Riefenstahl was obviously able to melt together all of the complex elements of dance— line, shape, movement, rhythm, and sound— into a form in which individual elements {disappeared and all that remained was the expression of the I ! impulse in her that inspired the dance and which was capable {of touching an audience and taking it beyond the realm of {routine existence. I I It was Nietzsche who wrote: "Art is with us in order that we should not perish through truth." This writer would presume to alter Nietzsche's quotation to read: "Art is with us in order that we should not perish through the burden of our daily existence," thereby personalizing Nietzsche's idea and coming a little closer to the writer's own feeling about the function and necessity of art. Following this line of reasoning, although not by this alone, many of Leni Riefenstahl's dance and film cre ations can be considered works of art. In some cases, as with the political films, they may be considered "diabolical' Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 works of art, but the qualification can be dropped in the cases of Olympia and these early dance creations. Leni's dancing gave the impression of a deceptive simplicity, as does her later motion picture work. Sim plicity was a quality, along with her own intuitive notion of beauty, that guided her in all her creations. However, Iit was not only in the quality of the work itself that she jsought simplicity, but it was also in the people with whom i I jshe worked. Perhaps because of ner intuitive gifts, Leni iRiefenstahl feels most comfortable working with simple I jpeople, like the peasant villagers who play an important part in both The Blue Light and Tiefland, and like the primitive African tribesmen who are the subject of her un finished Nuba documentary. This intuitive quality of hers was not lost on the critic who noted that her dancing was not abstract, studied, or intellectual, but rather more instinctual.^^ Dr. Arnold IFanck was also moved to describe her dancing as having had |a childlike naivete,which caused more than one critic to compare her to Niddy Impekoven. Riefenstahl's dancing probably fell somewhere be tween the styles of Impekoven and Wigman, which is no doubt why so many critics felt impelled to compare her to them. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 And it was probably her exceptional beauty and exquisite body which moved several of them to place her nascent talent beyond theirs. Impekoven's dancing led Ernst Blass to describe her stage presence as "simple and direct. . . . She impresses you with the seriousness of purpose as a child, who is con centrated on a game, absorbed in only that one activity."^7 Beyond that childlike quality, Niddy Impekoven had a style of movement which was also characteristic of Leni Riefen stahl 's dancing. Both women were able to achieve lyrical plasticity in their dancing by their exceptional technical and expressive abilities literally to flow imperceptibly 'from one movement into the next 48 Riefenstahl was able to extend this plasticity of movement to include not only the central body, but also facial expressions and even through and into her "wonder fully expressive hands.It was this total immersion of the entire body in smoothly flowing movement that inspired the critics to describe her dancing as "spiritual," "grace ful," "poetic," and "lyrical." And it was her sense of oneness with the music that caused more than one critic to remark on her exceptional musicality, and moved one in par ticular to see her dancing "unfolding in the music .,50 In Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------g g this connection it might be noted that the pianist who accompanied her performances on this tour was a man by the name of Herbert Klamt, undoubtedly a relative of Riefen stahl 's former teacher, Jutta Klamt. But Riefenstahl was not all lyricism and flowing musicality. She had absorbed well the teachings of Mary Wigman. She knew the importance of the quality of contrast. She was able to vary her program from the quiet, almost iimperceptible, movements in the "Arabeske" of Brahms, to the powerful movements and almost barbarically-wild. Wigman like jumps of the "Marsch" to the humorous interpretation of the "Mazurka.In the selection of dances for her program, Riefenstahl displayed a keen awareness of the need for the dramatic, as well as the simple; and within the dances themselves, she contrasted strong, angular movements with soft and expressive ones, sometimes abruptly stopping, using nonmovement for punctuation.^^ She was equally capable of expressing quiet pensiveness, "passionate crea tive power,"53 dramatic strength, or humorous exaggeration. None of this necessarily demonstrates a particularly acute perception on the part of Leni Riefenstahl, the dancer. Most dancers are aware of these aesthetic princi ples. But what does seem worth noting here is that Leni Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. _ — _ ------------ 53 Riefenstahl, the dancer, would later apply these principles of dance movement as filmmaker to the visual movement she would create for the screen. This is especially true of the rhythm created through editing. Leni Riefenstahl recently observed that: . . . the feeling for dance is very similar to the feeling for cutting, especially in a documentary. For me, the documentary is like a dance. They are both rhythm. I Rhythm, as espoused by Wigman and incorporated in jher technique, is important in all the arts. So it was natural for Riefenstahl to call upon her background as a dancer when she embarked upon her own career as a filmmak er. Mary Wigman based her technique on "the principle of tension and relaxation and the degrees of energy that lie between the two extremes.But the German word Spannung, one of the most frequently used words in German dance liter ature, is not adequately translated by the English word "tension." For us, tension has a negative connotation giv ing the feeling of nervous stress and strain. But to the German dancer Spannung denotes an atti tude of mind as well as muscular control, an expec tation, and, finally, an elusive quality in space. Most of the time, then, Spannung indicates a poten tial relation that must be built up between two points in space, or between different parts of a composition; a latent gravitation that must hold opposites and farther outlying points together. . . . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 One moment gravitates toward the next, lines of development are linked by laws of polarity, oppo sites that attract and complement each other. . . . It may be mutual attraction of emotional states, or the (unseen) tension developed between theme amd counter-theme, between a dancer and his partner, between two groups, or it may be the equally invis ible connecting link in space that bridges the gap between two points or two masses on the stage; or I again it may be simply the inexpressible emotional j fluidum arising from all of these facts together.^6 l i t i s t h is " m y s te rio u s , y e a rn in g " a t t r a c t i o n t h a t em bodies I jthe underlying feeling of the word Spannung. And unless one I I {U nderstands th e im p o rta n c e o f t h is q u a li t y to th e German (d a n c e r, one c a n n o t h e lp b u t f a i l to u n d e rs ta n d th e g u id in g I 5 7 (spirit and dynamism of the German dance itself. But for Spannung to be effective, it must operate i" relation and in contrast to relaxation, or Abspannung. I (There must be a letting go as well as a "holding in." I Mary Wigman, along with many other German modern I dancers including Leni Riefenstahl, was often inspired by jthe rhythms in nature. For Wigman, it was the earth rhythms j that most attracted her. And it was no doubt in nature that Imany Germans discovered the dramatic effects of Spannung and Abspannung. For the worship of nature is a characteristic that is "deeply ingrained in the Teutonic soul." It is the "romantic religion" of most Germanic people,^8 and Leni Riefenstahl is by no means an exception to the rule. Even Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . today, she still feels a few days spent in her beloved mountains to be the panacea for all of her ills, no matter whether those ills be of an emotional or physical character. So here again, in nature as in the dance, we con front the element of contrast, as is apparent later on in Leni Riefenstahl's films. Briefly, one can say that she was not only aware of the dramatic need for contrast in visual images, but Riefen stahl also made use of contrast between image and sound, ! where dialogue as well as music was concerned. Riefenstahl jmight have gotten her notions about the effective use of Imusic from Mary Wigman, who took an innovative step when I "she separated dance from pre-composed music, causing new music to be written for each dance, relying only occasion ally on a folk air . . . or dispensing with music alto gether."^9 Riefenstahl followed this new approach of her teacher and embellished on it again and again. Her use of dialogue and music as complementary elements to visual imagery is especially notable in Triumph of the Will and Olympia— and it would definitely have played a major role in Penthesilea had Riefenstahl been able to finish this film. Another contribution of Mary Wigman to the develop ing art of modern dance, which equally influenced Leni Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8$ Riefenstahl, was Wigman's increasing concern for costume. i I This manifested itself in Wigman by her expanding use of ! I interesting materials and textures. In Riefenstahl, there also existed this acute awareness of the importance of cos tume to the expression of a dance idea. Riefenstahl designed her own costumes which were executed by her mother, who travelled with Leni on her dancing tour.^^ Leni was quite partial to diaphanous mater- I jial which would cling to her body and flow with the move ment. The style of her costumes most often resembled the (classic Greek tunic. In this affinity for the Greek, I iRiefenstahl seemed to be harking back to Isadora Duncan who I "based her ideas of a free barefoot dance on a passionate study of Greek art,as a means of rebelling against the traditional hold which ballet technique had exerted on dance for so many years. The standard costume for Isadora Duncan land the pupils under her tutelage, even while only perform- ling their daily exercises, was the classic short Greek ! tunic. Leni Riefenstahl also patterned both her movements and her costumes on this classic Greek tradition. No doubt she was attracted to this style by its simplicity and naturalness, and once again, one sees the echo of Riefen- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I p jstahl's fascination with Greek culture in her idea for the I jfilm, Penthesilea, and in the prologue to Festival of the j people from her Olympia film. One cannot help but see the obvious connection of this prologue to Riefenstahl's dance background in the slow, lingering movements exploring the Greek statuary as one shot dissolves languidly into another. And it is not only in the prologue of Olympia that one is aware of the influence of Greek ideals on the young filmmaker. Just as the Greeks personified their gods as exalted men, Leni Riefenstahl glorified the athletes of her j Olympia by portraying them as mortal gods. The French even titled this film. Les Dieux du Stade, meaning "Gods of the Stadium." For the Greeks, "dance was a direct outgrowth of ja conscious physical culture destined to bring all natural I resources of the body to a most graceful development."^^ For Leni Riefenstahl, dance was a direct outgrowth of her own athletic ability and gymnastic training which, in turn, found its culmination in her ode to physical perfection— Olympia. Olympia, particularly the prologue to Part I, incorporates so much of the spirit of Greek-inspired modern dance that Ken Russell used whole sequences from this film in his own documentary feature titled Isadora Duncan; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 Biggest Dancer in the World. After World War I, . . . the German nature was looking for restoration of the depleted body through gymnastic movement and dance as recreational movement, as an aid to national reconstruction. ! So the German nation was ready for the new modern dance movement as was the youthful Leni Riefenstahl. To dance a whole evening of solo works required a lot of energy and stamina. To build this stamina required Imany hours of practice every day. It also required a total idevotion to dance and an unwavering self-confidence in one's own ability. Leni Riefenstahl was lacking in neither of these qualities, except perhaps on rare occasions in the last. Riefenstahl had a strong sense of discipline, but her own vision of perfection sometimes caused her confidence to wane. It is to this personal vision of perfection, and only this, that Leni Riefenstahl has made herself a slave— and it is precisely because of this perfectionism that she requires so much time to complete a project. However, at these times, her mother or someone else close to her, always seemed to be there to support her and assuage her doubts. But these moments came only sporadical ly to the young dancer who was so busy performing that she had hardly any time to reflect. Until, in June of 1924, a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 physical injury caused her attention to wander briefly away from her promising dance career. Soon curiosity and fascin ation led her to the doorstep of Dr. Arnold Fanck and even tually to a film caree.-. But before ending this chapter of Leni Riefenstahl's [ j life, it might be well to contemplate what her future could have held for her had she not torn one of the ligaments I {behind her knee while executing a particularly difficult bigh jump during one of her last performances. At this time, she was the first German dancer to be booked for engagements in London and Paris. And she had already made other commitments for her second dance tour {during the 1924-1925 season, which had to be cancelled while jshe searched from doctor to doctor trying to find out if ^nything could be done about her painful injury. ; What would a career in dance have been like for Leni I {Riefenstahl? We can only speculate, but the following I excerpts from her reviews give us a glimpse of what might have been: . . . She is not just a dancer; she ia "dance." This dancer is a blessed human being. Those of you who have seen her, take joy into your everyday exist ence . . 65 66 If, despite the blinding public success and a head- turning oress acclaim, her sincere desire for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. artistic achievement can remain alive and effective, then the young Berliner can bring, I am convinced, to fulfillment the hope of the future of modern dance; the new spirit and the great style. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ^Hermann Treuner, ed., Wir iiber Uns Selbst (Berlin: Sibyllen Verlag, 1928). ^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 7 August 1371. ^Ibid. ^Interview with Isabel Schlichting, Alicante, Spain, 3 July 1971. j ^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, |7 August 1971. I ^Ibid. I I 7 i Bela Fromm, Blood and Banquets (New York: Coopera- Ition Publishing Company, 1942), p. 129. ^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. ^Interview with Isabel Schlichting, Munich, Ger many, 20 August 1971 I ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, j6 August 1971. ^^Michel Delahaye, "Leni et le Loup," Cahiers due Cinéma 170 (Septembre 1965): 44. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. l^Ibid. 15, l^Ibid. Hans Machner, "Leni Riefenstahl," Neue Rhein- Zeitung, 14 March 1960. 91 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------- 9% ^^Curt Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal (Hamburg: Verlag der Sternbucher, GmbH, 1856), p. 244. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 4 August 1971. ^®Leni Riefenstahl to Kevin Brownlow, 28 July 1968. ^^E.-F. Riefenstahl, "Goebbels Verbot ihr das jStadion," Ruhr-Nachrichten, 4 July 1964. j ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 17 August 1971. ’ 91 Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. 22ibid. 23jbid. Z^Ibid. ^^Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal, p. 244. ^^Treuner, Wir iiber Uns Selbst. ^^Inge Brandler to author, 6 October 1972. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 7 August 1971. ^^Fred Hildenbrandt, Berliner Tageblatt, 21 December 1923. ^^Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. ^^Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal, p. 245. ^^Machner, "Leni Riefenstahl." Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich Germany, 7 August 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 3 ^^Treuner, Wir uber Uns Selbst. 37 Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 ‘ August 1971. I 38 I Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 1 7 August 1971. ! ^ ^ I b i d . 40 Elisabeth Selden, The Dancer's Quest (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1935), p. 29. 41 I Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 22 November 1923. i 42 Klassenkampf (Halle), 12 March 1924. ^^Karla Koenig, Generalanzeiger fur Stettin und Pommern, 7 February 1924. 44 John Schikowski, Vorwarts (Berlin), 16 November 1923. 45 Prager Presse, 30 November 1923. 46 Arnold Fanck to author, 27 April 1971. 47 Ernst Blass, Das Wesen der neuen Tanzkunst j(Weimar: Erich Lichtenstein Verlag, 1922), pp. 45-46. 48 Franz Servaes, Der Tag (Berlin), 29 October 1923. 49 Bohemia (Prague), 29 November 1923. ^^Tagesanzeiger (Zurich), 22 February 1924. ^^Strassner, Kolnische Zeitung, 18 March 1924. 52 Servaes, Der Tag. 53„ Tagesanzeiger. 54 Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “ 5^ ^^Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th éd., s.v. "Dance Teaching," by Walter Terry. ^^Selden, The Dancer's Quest, 160-61. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., p. 74. 59, Margaret Lloyd, The Borzoi Book of Dance (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), p. 16. 60 Ibid. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 7 August 1971. 62 63 64 Selden, The Dancer's Quest, p. 20. Ibid., p. 16. Lloyd, The Borzoi Book, p. 18. I '’^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Geirmany, 17 August 1971. 66 67 Strassner, Kolnische Zeitung. Schikowski, Vorwarts. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V THE HOLY MOUNTAIN After a physically exhausting dance season and with her nerves on edge from fatigue, Leni Riefenstahl was faced with the additional psychological dilemma of not knowing iwhether she would ever dance again. Of course, she was I |hoping desperately that her injury would heal. And all the I {reports from the specialists in Munich, Berlin, and Holland I jconfirmed those hopes. She was told that it was only a very jminor ligament injury and that keeping off her knee as much as possible would cure the problem. She had most of the summer to rest and recuperate before the strenuous fall season. By that time, she would be well enough to dance again. Shortly thereafter Leni found herself in the Nollendorf Platz— which Christopher Isherwood had made the center of his Berlin Stories and which was also the site of Erwin Piscator's famous experimental theater— subway station idly waiting for the next train. With her thoughts on 95 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9^ other things, she absent-mindedly focused her attention on an impressive poster advertising the film. Peak of Fate (Der Berg des Schicksals), by Dr. Arnold Fanck. Suddenly she realized that her train had already come and was just then disappearing into the Kleiststrasse tunnel. Rather I I than wait for the next one, she impulsively changed her jplans and went across bhe street into the Nollendorf Theater ! p I to see the film. I What I felt while watching this film, I can never explain. I was just fascinated. I could not be lieve that mountains of such beauty existed. And that there were people who were so beautiful and so healthy and who moved around with such freedom among these mountains to which they seemed to belong! They were strong and wild like the mountains them selves . ^ Her enchantment with this film and her curiosity about whether or not such people and places existed in the reality beyond that of the motion picture screen, coupled with the doctors' admonitions for her to rest, were enough [reasons to convince Leni that she should visit the location I iwhere this Peak of Fate had been photographed. When she I [confided to her brother her secret infatuation with this {film, which she had been seeing every day for the past week, he agreed that her idea to take a rest trip for a few weeks in the Italian Dolomites, instead of Ostende where they had planned to go,* was a good one. So Leni and her brother. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I 9 7 {accompanied by Harry Sokal, travelled to Bolzano in northern jltaly.^ There she had naively hoped to be able to meet some I iof the people who had worked on that film— even though in her excitement she had neither requested the names of the actors nor the director.^ And besides, who was to say that they would still be in the Dolomites months after the com pletion of the film? | j Leni and her companions stayed in the "Karersee," ia very fashionable resort hotel. One evening not long after their arrival in Bolzano, a film was shown in the hotel for the benefit of some distinguished guests from Rome and iMailand. The purpose of the screening was to try to find people who would be interested in financing more films of its kind.7 The title of the film? Peak of Destiny. 1 Everyone was impressed, but not half so much as Leni, who having seen the snow-covered Guglia (Guglia di iBrenta— the "peak of destiny" in the film) with her own eyes jwas more than ever convinced that this was the kind of pic- i jture she would like to make. Her earlier inquires in Bolzano as to the whereabouts of the people who worked on i jthis film revealed, not surprisingly, that they had all long jsince dispersed. And the director. Dr. Fanck, was in Berlin ifrom whence Leni had just come. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - — -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------m Immediately after the screening, which was the first time that Sokal had seen the film that up until then had occupied so much of Leni's conversation, Leni excitedly began to extol the virtues of the main actor, Luis Trenker. Harry Sokal remembered that: She was very much impressed with Trenker— with his face, the character (that he played in the film). And while she was talking about him, we turned around and standing there with the projector not far from us, was Luis Trenker himself. By accident, it hap pened that ^ was in charge of the showing of the picture that night.® Leni wanted very much to meet Trenker. She encour aged Sokal to make the actor's acquaintance in order for him to be able to introduce her. In thinking back on this incident, Sokal recalled a very important character trait in Riefenstahl which is vital to an understanding of her per- I jsonality and the success she had in her pre-War undertak- i lings : ; I am reminded of one phrase which I heard over and over again throughout the many years that I knew her: "I must meet that man." Whenever there was an interesting person on the horizon, whether it was an artist or a great sportsman, a great tennis player or a great skier, an actor or a great statesman like Hitler— any personality, I heard that phrase, "I must I meet that man.” And she always did.® ! Thenker described his own meeting with Leni Riefen- I jstahl immediately following the screening of Peak of Destiny jin this way: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 A man, in formal dress came up to me and introduced himself as Harry Sokal. He asked if I would mind being introduced to a lady who wanted to meet me. I had nothing against it, so Mr. Sokal came back with a strikingly beautiful young woman. She intro duced herself as Leni Riefenstahl, a name which didn't mean anything to me. Miss Riefenstahl was enthusiastic about our film. She commented particularly on the exceptional pho tography and the credible performances of the actors. The big climbing scene had impressed her the most. 10 Trenker had found Leni a bit overly enthusiastic. iNot taking her seriously, he failed to keep the appointment jthey had made to meet the following morning. Leni, who had never climbed a mountain before, was all prepared to attack a difficult tower in the Dolomites with the expert mountain- jeer, Luis Trenker, as her guide. Instead Trenker returned to his job as head of an architectural office in Bolzano. |Not yet realizing the genuineness of Riefenstahl's enthu siasm and the single-minded determination by which she is motivated, he was somewhat surprised when she showed up in his office three days later. I told him that I had to meet the director of this film and that I wanted to work in their mountain world— even if I were given only the smallest part. He smiled while he listened to me and I could read I in his eyes that he thought I was an excitable, I romantic young girl.H I j She was "excitable" and "romantic"— she still is. ‘ But what tempers these characteristics and makes them I almost charming in retrospect is her unwavering determination Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- . ïôô and remarkable talent. Robert Gardner, who befriended Leni Riefenstahl during the sixties, comes the closest of anyone in his writing to understanding the woman today. In his recent description of her, he also sheds some light on the young woman who was so resolutely about to embark on a film career. Like so many artists, Leni Riefenstahl might not be unfairly described as a somewhat lopsided personal- I ity. It is as if the abundance of her creative I gift simply obstructed growth in certain other re spects. She is immensely charming, but it is more j the charm of an eager child than of a woman in her i sixties. Of course, it is this very naivete that is j not only remarkable but is the secret to much of her success. She is persuasive because she is intense and also because she's unencumbered by doubt. Every- j thing she tried brought success and often fame. . . . ! She had immense energy, boundless confidence and a I striking talent. I This determined young woman obtained the address of jor. Fanck from Luis Trenker. Fanck, though he made his home I in Freiburg, was supposedly in Berlin at this time negotiat ing a contract with Ufa for his next film. In fact. Dr. Fanck had been hard pressed by Ufa to come up with a story jfor his next project. During this time, he had made several abortive beginnings on a script, but for the most part, he was marking time nervously awaiting some elusive "inspira tion . " Immediately upon her arrival in Berlin, Leni tele- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TÜT phoned Dr. Fanck and arranged to meet with him on the fol lowing day. This significant encounter took place in the unpretentious Konditorei Rumpelmayer on the Kurfursten- ' 13 idamm. Dr. Fanck did not know who this Leni Riefenstahl I Was for he had no particular interest in modern dance and I ithus had never been to any of her performances. "She came I ito me like any other young girl who was fascinated by film iand wanted to be a movie star. „14 The meeting did not last long. They talked for some time about Peak of Destiny. During the course of the conversation, Leni confessed that she did not know how to jski or climb mountains, and that she did not really have any professional acting experience to her credit. But she instinctively felt that she could do all of these things if she were given the chance. I only told him; "When you make your next film, I I want to be with you as an actress." But I did not I have the idea of permanently becoming a motion pic- j ture performer. I only wanted to try it this one i time. . . . Afterwards, I simply left. He had prom- i ised me nothing.^5 I However, just before she departed, Fanck had some what routinely asked her to send him some photographs of ! herself, along with some of the reviews of her dance con certs.^® Two days later, Leni gave her last dance perform ance of the season in Berlin. Dr. Fanck was in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TÜ2 1 7 audience On the day after the concert, Leni realized that something was radically wrong with her knee. Not only was it excruciatingly painful, but her leg had become abnormally stiff. I knew I had to try to find a doctor who would ven ture an operation. At that time, this operation was such a big risk that it had not been undertaken before. My parents wouldn't even give their per mission for it. And the more conservative, serious doctors wouldn't even attempt it. . . . So I went to a doctor I knew who was only an assistant at this time, but who later on became quite famous [his name was Pribram^®]. I told him that he abso lutely had to perform the operation. The next morning, at eight o'clock, without anyone knowing it, he operated on my knee and pulled out a thick, fibrous knot [of tissue] 19 ! Leni was given a fifty-fifty chance that her knee jwould not remain stiff for the rest of her life. But she {would not know the outcome definitely for ten weeks, the i Iamount of time her leg was to be left in a cast. I Leni stayed in the hospital for only a few days i lafter the operation. During this time she had written to Dr. Fanck sending him the photographs and reviews he had Irequested and telling him of her whereabouts. ( In the few days since I had seen him, he had written I the script for The Holy Mountain [Der Heilige Berg, I which at that time had the working title of Diotima— I The Dancer]. That was very funny, because several I times before, when I was a dancer, Ufa wanted me Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 3 for films. . . . But this was the first time that I wanted to be in a film because I was so fascinated by the mountains and because Fanck seemed to me to be an artist in this area [of filmmaking]. . . I The meeting between Leni Riefenstahl and Dr. Arnold j jpanck was truly salutary and heartening for both of them. I For him, Leni Riefenstahl was the inspiration he needed. Within a week, he had written the script for The Holy Moun tain. Basing it on their only conversation, Fanck had incorporated Riefenstahl's background as a dancer into this I bcript, weaving her longing for the mountains into a highly {romantic story involving a love triangle. For Leni, this was the opportunity she had hoped for. Not only would she act in a mountain film, but she would be the star. She immediately contacted Harry Sokal, I : ho had returned to his bank in Innsbruck after their stay jin Bolzano. Approximately one week after his return, Sokal Lad received a telegram from Leni matter-of-factly telling I jhim of the rather extraordinary chain of events that had I itaken place in his absence: she had met Dr. Fanck and was I jgoing to star in his next film which would be based on a script that Dr. Fanck had written especially for her. In recalling this incident, Sokal laughed amusedly: The picture was going to be made and she wanted to know if I would collaborate with them. At that time I was already bored with the banking business, so I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------------------- - log terminated my contract with the bank and I went to Berlin. I met Fanck and made a contract to co produce that picture, Heilige Berg, with Ufa.22 For three months, Leni was confined to bed to recu perate from her operation. But no time was lost. "Dr. Fanck went over the script with me scene by scene as though 23 there was no doubt that the operation would be a success." Many other preliminary arrangements were also made during this rime. The leading actors were cast, one of whom was {Ernst Petersen— the nephew of Dr. Fanck mentioned earlier, who later owned the architectural office which gave most of its plumbing and heating contracts to Alfred R. Riefen stahl 's firm— and the other, a very surprised Luis Trenker. The crew was hired and locations were sought which would answer the specific and unusual requirements of this film. As it turned out, most of the exterior shooting was done in the Swiss Alps.^^ Dr. Arnold Fanck, who died only recently in 1974, was probably best known for his mountain films which incor porated stunning location photography. The fact that the story line of his films required spectacular scenery which was captured so magnificently by his cameramen is one of the reasons that most of his mountain films were so success ful at the time of their releases. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. r — ---------------------------------------------------IÏÏ5I ! ! In Germany, after World War I, there was a tremen- jdous "back to nature" movement that was shared by many young jpeople, particularly university students. It was partly a (reaction to the depressing psychological and economic atmos phere pervasive throughout Germany in these post-War years. jOnce again, one can see the inherent rapport between the I iGerman's concern for physical health and well-being mani- I ifested in this "back to nature" movement, and his affinity j iwith the physical and athletic disciplines of Greek culture jThere is yet another parallel between the German and Greek jcultures in the importance that mythology played in giving j the people an historical and philosophical perspective on Ithemselves. What is important in this context is that the moun tain films of Dr. Fanck satisfied an inner predilection of I Ithe German to be an integral part of nature in its most ! primitive state. This was the reason that Leni Riefenstahl jwas so fascinated with Peak of Destiny and it was why most iof the people who worked on these mountain films, including jOr. Fanck himself, were so dedicated to their craft. In fact, most of the people who worked on these films were already expert skiers and mountain climbers— or would soon become so. For example, many of Fanck's cameramen and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tüïï actors were world record holders in various skiing events; Richard Angst was a ski jump champion; Guzzi Lantschner held the downhill speed record; Sepp Rist was the medalist in the cross-country event; Hans Schneeberger was a three time winner in the slalom races; and there were many others working on the Fanck films who had garnered other skiing I Iawards y making them especially suited for these mountain I 1 films. The most outstanding of these athletes was the "father of modern skiing," Hannes Schneider. Many of the members of Dr. Fanck's crew either made their living from their athletic skills or they had jobs I jwhich allowed them to be near the mountains where they were Iable to spend at least all of their nonworking hours. It t was no wonder, then, that they dropped whatever unrelated jobs they had previously held to work full-time in the mountains with Dr. Fanck. Fanck had acquired his own interest in nature while obtaining his doctorate in geology at the University of Zurich. He seemed somewhat surprised that he was able to pass his doctoral examination in 1915 because, as he put it: "During the four years I was studying [geology] in Zurich, I always went skiing instead of to my classes. «25 He got particular enjoyment out of skiing in the glacier region of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --- the upper Alps at heights of from nine to twelve thousand feet— a dangerous activity which was not at all popular at that time.^G After completing his doctorate, Fanck was drafted las an officer into the Intelligence Service of the Grosse Generalstaf of the German Army and served in counter- I 27 «espionage until the end of World War I, atwhich time he felt that he had so lost touch with the world of geology «that he was obliged to make use of his other talents, I 28 Inamely his ability as a photographer and expert skier. j It was not until 1964 that Fanck, at the encourage- j'ment of his nephew. Dr. Ernst Petersen, published a book on I {precious stones in collaboration with the mineralogist, I {Rudolf Metz, entitled: Precious Stones and Other Crystals.^9 i All of the photography for this book was done by Fanck who, until then, had completed nothing of significance since his ilast film. Bin Robinson, in 1939. I I I When Fanck met Leni Riefenstahl, he was 35 years of i jage and already had four films to his credit. The first of {these. The Wonders of Skiing (Das Wunder des Schneeschuhs), I made in 1919, was an authentic "culture" film in the German tradition. It was purely a visual exploration of movement without any plot, testifying to the "wonders" of the title. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 0 8 This first film of his was not suited for commercial re- jlease, but it became moderately successful in private exhi- ! ibitions at German universities, schools, clubs, and other |such organizations. ! ; It was during the making of this "culture" film that t Dr. Fanck became better acquainted with his star, Hannes Schneider, the man generally considered today to be the {father of modern skiing technique. At this time, Schneider, j {who came from St. Anton in the Arlberg region of Austria, iwas working on a method of parallel skiing using the Stem- ichristiana turn as a faster alternative to the Norwegian i Telemark technique. Through Fanck's "culture" film, Schneider's technique became more widely known and his ski school in Austria more popular. Reciprocally, Fanck, who made use of Schneider's talents in his next three films, began to meet a number of other excellent skiers, some of whom became members of the film company Fanck was about to form; The Freiburger Berg- und Sportfilm- Gesellschaft. Fanck was an idealist and on top of that he was also an outsider to the film industry, which is what made the formation of his own company a necessity if he wanted to continue to make films. Once Foxhunt in the Engadine (Bine Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T 8 9 Fuchsjagd im Engadin) and Peak of Fate had become popular successes, Fanck had less difficulty getting financial back ing from Ufa for additional projects. However, once any cf his films failed to bring in & good return at the box office, Fanck was again burdened with the problem of finding financial support. This, coupled with the pressures of completing his projects on time and finding acceptable story material for the next film, were to be Fanck's major wor- jries for the following five years— the period of time which jleni Riefenstahl was involved in his films before branching lout on her own. j What made Fanck's films so popular at the time was partly a result of the spectacular natural phenomena his cameramen were able to capture on film. There is no doubt that Fanck was a pioneer in the German nature and sport film, a genre which was completely at cross-currents with the rest iof the film industry. One must not forget that this was the iera in Germany when most studio-financed projects "stressed I the importance of scenery, as . . . needing to be designed I jby an artist, [so as] not simply to imitate the banal {appearance of everyday life."^® Every detail of the aforementioned types of film, from make-up to set design, was painstakingly and brilliantly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. n q jcreated within the confines of the studio walls. But for I those not inclined toward the morbidity of the subject mat- j I ter in these films. Dr. Fanck literally provided a breath of fresh, clean air when he took his cameras outside into the open to photograph the spectacular natural scenery of I the mountains which he used as a backdrop for his usually {unrealistic romantic fantasies. Fanck's first three films, including Fight with the Mountain (Kampf mit dem Berg), were shot in a totally "off the cuff" manner using only the sketchiest of plot outlines las a guide. Leni Riefenstahl, who still vividly remembers the above-mentioned film so typical of these early Fanck films, recently described its plot: I still remember the film, Kampf mit dem Berg. It was nothing but the climbing of two people to the top of this mountain. It was without any plot or conflict. They simply climbed up to the top of this mountain and came back down again. But it was a full-fledged film with as much tension and excitement as a regular entertainment film. I was very much impressed with it at than time.31 However, in subsequent films, Fanck, for the most part, began to write more detailed scripts which gradually became increasingly repetitious as time went on. . . . Fanck grew more and more keen on combining precipices and passions, inaccessible steeps and insoluble human conflicts; every year brought a new drama in the mountains.32 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ïîî But there were exceptions to these romantic dramas in the snow and ice. Of the six films that Riefenstahl made with Fanck/ The Big Jump (Der Grosse Sprung) and The White i Frenzy (Der Weisse Rausch) were comedies. However, Fanck's films were largely a combination of documentary-like visual authenticity and an absurdly-unreal drama of passion. So long as Fanck kept his cameras outdoors "at altitudes above 33 12,000 feet" his films remain visually exciting, but as soon as . . . he descended, both literally and figuratively, into the climbers' studio-built cabins to portray the turgid dramas of human passion necessary to sell the pictures at the box office, he lost his grip on the medium.34 This is the price that Fanck had to pay to prove "for the first time that a nature film could be made into a feature- length entertainment film which would be a success on the international market. However, in Fanck's own way, he had convinced him self that naturalness in physical appearance and authentic ity in settings and action were the most important guides in his filmic thinking. When Leni Riefenstahl showed up for the screen test for The Holy Mountain, Dr. Fanck informed her that she was not to wear any make-up. He wanted her to look natural. This is in total contrast to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the practice used in films such as Dr. Caligari, in which the make-up itself became an extension of the expression- istic settings and the style of acting. But even in films less extreme than Dr. Caligari, make-up was regarded as a necessity. Dr. Fanck's criteria for casting these early moun tain films seemed to rely less on acting experience than on the person's ability to perform the physical feats called jfor in the script. His penchant for authenticity extended i jeven to the point of insisting that not only the actors I jthemselves perform all the dangerous stunts required by the iStory, but he also expected the cameramen literally to risk their lives in order to catch these daring feats on film. However, one should not get the impression that Fanck was a tyrant coercing his cast and crew to do things that he himself would not risk, nor that each of the members of the film company were not already willing to volunteer doing. In essence, Fanck's philosophy was shared by each jperson participating in the making of the film. At least, I this was true up until the time that both Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl decided to make a break with Fanck and try directing separately on their own. Trenker left after the completion of The Big Jump; Riefenstahl waited until Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ' ---------------------------------- ïî^ five years later, after The White Frenzy, to try directing her first film. The Blue Light. The cast and crew on both Fanck's and Riefenstahl's films were a close-knit family— each one dedicated to the accomplishment of his job to the extent of his ability for the betterment of the whole— not a typical atmosphere to be found on most film productions. Henry von Jaworsky, a Icameraman who worked on the films of both Fanck and Riefen- I IStahl, corroborated this impression of the working atmos- jphere on these early films in a recent interview: j You see, all these Fanck productions were big family j affairs. Because they took so long, everybody did ! something on them. Nothing was farmed out like I now-a-days. . . . On these Fanck films, everything j from the beginning to the end was done in the fam ily. Everybody participated. . . . 36 However, there were on occasion personal problems which arose among the members of Fanck's crew that some times threatened the productions, but professionally the attitudes of his film "team" were beyond reproach. Perhaps precisely because his actors and technicians were so enthu siastically dedicated to the film they were working on, most of Fanck's productions were plagued by unfortunate accidents which necessitated costly delays in time. The Holy Mountain was one of the first of these films. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------- After a three-month recuperation period before the first shooting took place on The Holy Mountain^ the cast was finally removed from Leni's leg. The operation was a success. She was able once again to move her knee without any pain. As can well be imagined, Leni was not the only I I jone who was overjoyed. I I Shortly after the Christmas of 1924, she went to I Freiburg where Fanck was prepared to do some screen tests on i i'her. Leni was appalled at her appearance in the first of these tests. But gradually as Fanck's studio cameraman, Hans Schneeberger, changed the lighting and tried different filters, her image on the screen grew more and more authen tic. From this very first moment, Riefenstahl was fascin ated with the unlimited possibilities of motion picture photography.37 She was never solely involved with perform ance in front of the camera. Whenever she was off the screen, Leni was at the side of one or another of the cam eramen absorbing what information she could about the technical aspects of filmmaking. I wouldn't say that I was literally a student of Fanck because Dr. Fanck didn't actually teach us. . . . When I work d with Fanck as an actress, I wasn't really thinking about making films myself, otherwise I would have paid more attention to what he was doing. . . .38 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - ÏÏ5I Be that as it may, though Riefenstahl is ambivalent about what she feels she learned from Fanck, as a result of her instinctive curiosity, she still acquired a great deal of technical knowledge while working on these films which served her well when she started directing on her own. On occasion, even on The Holy Mountain, her first film, she was asked to crank the camera so that Schneeberger could participate in the torch scene which required more actors Ithan Fanck could afford to hire at that time. I While Fanck busied himself in Lenzerheide, Switzer- jland, with preparations for the film, Luis Trenker and Hans jschneeberger offered to teach Leni to ski in Cortina |d'Ampezzo near Bolzano. She wanted to impress Fanck who knew she had never skied before, so she accepted their offer. For the first twenty minutes all went well, then Leni accidentally caught her left ski in the snow and twisted her ankle. It was actually broken in two places at 39 the inner and outer joints. That was just the beginning |of a long line of mishaps that were to beset this ill-fated production. Fanck did not find out about the accident until he went to meet them in Lenzerheide. It was then that he saw Leni with her leg again in a cast, being helped off the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------O T train by Trenker and Schneeberger. Of course, the first day's shooting had to be delayed, but plans were quickly changed and for the next month while Leni's leg was mending, they decided to work in Lenzerheide on building the ice "cathedral' which was to be used as the setting for the final dream sequence in the film. It was important to get the construction done as soon as possible before the winter season broke and the warm weather set in. As if to be consistent with the bad luck they had already had, while the crew was in the process of building the $100,000 ice formations for the cathedral, the warm winter wind found primarily in Switzerland and called the I Fohn set in, literally turning all their efforts and money into water.In the meantime, the two leading actors met with accidents; Ernst Petersen broke his foot while skiing and Luis Trenker, who skied over a snow-covered boulder, "was thrown fifteen meters into the air landing with a I 41 Ibroken leg." " Not to be outdone by their companions, iHannes Schneider who had a featured role in the film, broke I his thigh in four places and cameraman Hans Schneeberger, an excellent downhill racer, hurt his spine while competing for the championship in Kitzbuhel. More postponements. But finally for a short time, things turned for the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------- - ïî^ better. The frost set in, so the building of the ice cathedral was begun again. This time the construction con- Itinued day and night. In the meantime, the cast was re- i Imoved from Leni's leg. With so many others incapacitated, I jLeni took it upon herself to help Dr. Fanck, "who almost daily was having a nervous breakdown.In assisting him with some of the directorial problems, Leni started to learn |how to see filmically. She learned the best lighting condi tions for different kinds of effects, and: . . . I learned from him that all subjects, whether animate or inanimate, can be photographed equally well. . . . I looked into the camera, compared shots, studied the angles and perspective and learned about the effects of color. 43 Though Riefenstahl claims that she discovered that animate or inanimate subjects can be photographed equally well from Fanck, it seems likely that it was reinforced in |her through Pabst, with whom she worked for the first time Ion The White Hell of Fitz Palu. Giving cinematic life to I jinanimate objects is one of the many talents that can be {attributed to Pabst. And though she credits Fanck with her i knowledge originally about certain cinematic effects, those she was learning were, of course, for black and white I photography, and already Riefenstahl was forming some notions about the use of color photography. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Despite the fact that the shooting had progressed I jat a somewhat more normal rate, by April they had shot only Iabout one-half of The Holy Mountain. Fanck received a dis couraging letter from Berlin informing him that Ufa had decided not to invest any more money in the film. There- I jfore, Fanck was determined to make a trip to Berlin to see |if he could convince his backers not to abandon the project. Meanwhile, all of the crew dispersed with the exception of Riefenstahl and the cameramen, Schneeberger and Benitz. Spring in the mountains of Switzerland was so beautiful that they decided to remain. After several weeks of inac- I Itivity which also brought no word from Berlin, Leni's I «tenacity and determination to succeed surfaced again. She, along with Schneeberger and Benitz, decided to use the remaining two thousand feet of film on a spectacular scene that they hoped would impress the men at Ufa to continue with the project. They decided to drive to Montreux. There they could photograph a sequence making use of the fields of blooming i narcissus. In the absence of Fanck, Leni took over the directing of this scene. Everything was shot quickly and immediately sent to Berlin. The financial advisers at Ufa were sufficiently impressed with the results to invest some Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 ÎÎ9I more money in the film's completion, even though by now it was too late in the year to continue shooting. This meant that the production would have to be postponed another six months until there was again enough snow in the mountains. The following winter when shooting resumed, two J Imishaps occurred which might easily have meant the end of |Leni Riefenstahl's career and quite possibly her life as jwell. One of the scenes in the script called for Leni to ibe buried by an avalanche while on her way to a ski cabin up I I in the mountains. By the time Fanck got around to this Iscene, it was already the end of March, 1926, and most of 1 {the crew had decided against the shooting of it because the javalanche conditions were just too perfect at that time. Schneeberger and Riefenstahl decided to do the scene them selves. Even Fanck remained behind in the Black Forest. The two slightly insane devotees, carrying all the equipment themselves, headed up the Flexenstrasse, a mountain road near Feldberg which is well-known for its frequent ava lanches. They found a likely spot, set up the camera, and sat down to wait. Several hours later, they heard a faint Inoise at which each one jumped to his position. Leni was barely able to hang onto a rock before everything turned black. She tried working her way out herself while Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------- 12Ô| Schneeberger struggled from above. After some moments of desperate anxiety, Schneeberger finally reached Leni, greeting her nonchalantly with accolades on her performance and typical exclamations on what tremendous footage he had I I 4 5 I gotten. As the cameramen became more experienced in subse quent films which called for such spectacular and dangerous effects, they learned methods of creating and controlling the avalanche by placing dynamite sticks in precisely cal culated locations. The advantages were twofold: (1) a saf er, if not completely controlled snowslide and (2) the assurance that the very beginning of the slide would be jcaught by the cameras.Shooting as Schneeberger did on The Holy Mountain, by waiting for the roaring sound of the natural avalanches necessitated that he miss the start of | I the snowslide. And, of course, the risks taken by Leni and |him on the Flexenstrasse are almost too phenomenal to be- ! jlieve anyone attempting. There is one final noteworthy event already alluded to which took place during the shooting of The Holy Moun tain. It had to do with a torchlit night scene involving Hannes Schneider and a number of other skiers in the snow- covered woods of Sils-Maria in the Black Forest. Initially Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. what made Leni happy about the sequence was the fact that she would be able to do some more directing and for the first time she would be operating the camera for Schnee berger who had to participate in the shots because Dr. Fanck, again back in Berlin, was not financially able to hire enough skiers to make the scene as effective as he would have liked.Still the setting was quite spectacular as the skiers wound their way through the forest, the light from their torches reflecting off the snow-covered pine trees. Suddenly there was a deafening noise. The magnesium torch being held by the ten-year-old boy who was standing next to the camera that Leni was operating, had exploded in his hand. The entire body of the young boy was badly burned as was the left side of Leni's face. She tried to extin guish the flames with her left hand as she continued to crank the Debrix camera with her right until the scene was completed a few moments later. At first she did not feel too much pain, but the ! young boy was in agony, screaming and writhing around in the j snow. According to Riefenstahl, a doctor was called but he apparently could not do much for the boy. Then something peculiar happened. The peasants brought a little old woman into the room. She sat down next to the bed and began blowing on the boy's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ' - 1 2 3 burns. A few minutes later, the boy stopped scream ing and fell quietly to sleep.48 Leni could not believe what she had just witnessed, nor could she believe the sight of her own face when she looked in a mirror. The whole left side was black with burns, her eyelashes and eyebrows were gone and the skin was peeling off. To stop the pain, she did the worst thing possible. She patted snow onto the burns, which only made Ithe pain more intense. Immediately she made a search for the old woman who had by now returned to her home. When Leni found her, she again performed the same mysterious blowing ritual. The pain in Leni's face was gone, but the appearance remained the same. No one, including her doctor in Innsbruck, held much hope that she would ever appear again in front of the camera. But, almost miraculously, her face healed without any scars. Not long ago, Riefenstahl admitted: "I do not know, but I think it must have been the old woman.After the six-month delay which this acci dent had caused, shooting was finally completed by the end of the summer of 1926. Upon reading the script for The Holy Mountain, one is not surprised that Ufa was reluctant to invest money beyond their original agreement. In fact, Harry Sokal, about midway through the production, succeeded in getting Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------- m out of his contract on the picture. He sold his share of the interest to Ufa which then carried the entire financial burden. No doubt, it was this situation which encouraged the reluctance of Ufa to invest additional funds in what ibegan to look more and more like a disastrous venture. I Sokal's reasons for abandoning The Holy Mountain I ! revolved around his personal relationship with Leni Riefen- I jstahl which, according to him, was almost at an end by the I time shooting had begun on the film, although they had been j I engaged to be married before the shooting on The Holy ■ Mountain had started. Sokal and Riefenstahl, however, still ^remained good friends for some time.^® i To understand the situation and the complications that ultimately ensued for Leni Riefenstahl later on in her life, it is imperative to take a look at the circumstances in which she found herself as an actress in the mountain films of Dr. Fanck. As has been mentioned previously, Leni Riefenstahl an extremely beautiful and charming young woman who also happened to be the sole female involved in the shooting of these mountain films. As she puts it; "I was the only woman with many men around me and so the admosphere was not always the best."^^ During the course of The Holy Mountain, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 1 as well as the five mountain films that followed, several men became infatuated with her. One can also say with i I reasonable certainty that Leni Riefenstahl surely encour aged most of this interest. Even today when she thinks back on this time, she recalls with obvious delight that c n there was "always a drama!" On the other hand, Sokal who had a financial as well as a personal commitment in The Holy Mountain, somewhat jmore soberly recalled his reasons for selling out his inter- jest to Ufa: When I saw what was happening during the making of I that picture, I was worried to death. With so much I jealousy, things couldn't go well with the produc- I tion. So I tried to get out of that contract. And I succeeded.53 I From these remarks, one should not get the false I impression that the atmosphere on these productions was (continually adversive and seething with passion and rivalry This was not the case. It does seem quite likely, however, that Dr. Fanck incorporated into the plots of his subsequent jfilms some of these personal dramas, embellishing upon them ioften to the point of fantasy. Leni Riefenstahl's explanation for these incidences of jealousy is too simplistic to be accepted for the whole truth, but it does give some insight into the situation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. _ Ï25 According to her, the problem is directly connected with her professional status on these films. Once she became a I |idirector, a position which then elicited respect - from those with whom she was working, she felt that the situation ameliorated itself. 54 Leni Riefenstahl offered this reason ing with sincerity— and surely she is partly right, but only partly. In addition, Harry Sokal was able to give some fur- i ither insight, not only into the working atmosphere on the I Imountain films, but also in respect to the personality of j Leni Riefenstahl. At the time that he sold out his interest I |in The Holy Mountain, Sokal did not understand the impor tance of a nuance in Leni Riefenstahl's personality which inspired strong loyalty. Throughout her life, even until I ■today, Leni Riefenstahl has continually had at her side a I Idevoted admirer who at any odds was always ready to champion ! jher cause. Not only was she able to inspire this rare kind jof loyalty, but she also had the ability to remain friends ^ith those same individuals once each of them had gone his separate way.^^ There is in Leni Riefenstahl a sincerity and an eager devotion equally manifested toward work, ideals, and individuals which tends to inspire the same qualities in those who work with her. However, there are a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “ I 2 6 l few notable exceptions in her life, including Luis Trenker. But for the most part on these mountain films, the I jgeneral professional attitude of the crew toward her as a i member of the film "team" was, as Jaworsky put it, "... always a mixture of their admiring her and making fun of jher. They kind of made fun of her, but on the other hand, ! ■they also respected her.However, in reviewing some of I'the comments made by members of the Fanck film crew, it I seems that respect for Leni Riefenstahl came in the form of I jadmiration for her physical endurance and athletic abili- i ties, rather than for her artistic or acting talents. And jrightly so, at this stage of Riefenstahl's film career, j For instance, Luggi Foeger, another of Fanck's cam- ieramen, had this to say about her: "Most people wouldn't have put up with the kind of primitive life we had to live. i {And I must say, she was in so many ways a very good isport. . . ."57 The freezing weather conditions certainly did not make working on these films ideal. But besides I putting up with the cold, Leni was ready to try almost any- Ithing, no matter how dangerous, from being buried by ava- I lanches to climbing mountains barefooted. Even Dr. Fanck, <fho is not usually given to praise, expressed admiration for tier: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 2 7 j Who else would have gone up to Montblanc with me I and do the things that she did in that film [Storms I over Montblanc]? That was where she was really tremendous. She had the energy and persistence to do things that other actresses wouldn’t or couldn’t do.58 j ; ! Work on The Holy Mountain proved to be a truly j I I ! transitional period for Leni Riefenstahl. The film gave her] Iample opportunity to display her talents as a dancer, as : i Iwell as to develop some interest in motion pictures. Fanck j ! . j had made the pivotal character in The Holy Mountain a dancer] inamed Diotima. Perhaps the most notable scene in the film lis the opening one in which Leni Riefenstahl does her "Dance Ito the Sea." It was photographed in Helgoland on the rocky coast of the North Sea. The dance was intended to symbolize i iher oneness with the water. The realization of the scene i iwas handled in an entirely stylized manner both in the photography and the editing. Most of the footage was shot using back lighting while Leni, dressed in a diaphanous iwisp of material, her body painted in gold, danced along 59 the beach silhouetted against the shimmering sea. Fanck edited together a montage of Leni’s dance movements with ithe relentless movement of the waves on the beach. ! • Two principles guided Fanck in the cutting of this (sequence: the visual matching of the shape of the dance with the curve of the surf and, more importantly, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 129 kinesthetic pulse of a dance movement with the rhythmic crash or caress of the waves upon the shore.Much of the sequence was photographed in slow motion allowing the strain and completion of one movement to flow into another. The effect must have been quite dramatic considering that slow motion was a far more fascinating effect in 1926 than it is even today. Fanck is still quite proud of the fact that Fritz Lang was "very impressed" by his purely cinematic achievement in this prologue.The following comments indicate where the emphasis in the sequence lies as far as Riefenstahl was concerned: I danced to the music of a Beethoven symphony. . . . The rhythm was the important thing and then because it was a stylization, he [Fanck] used it as a pro logue.^2 Toward the end of the dance, as Diotima sinks into the sand at the water's edge, her dream of the mountains springs forth from the sea, ending the prologue and leading directly into the realistic part of the story. In contrast to Fanck, who still takes The Holy Mountain very seriously, Riefen stahl amusedly explained the "super-romantic" significance of the prologue as it relates to the rest of the film. The dancer was, as her name implies, a goddess of the sea from whence she came. "In her soul, there is growing a wild longing for togetherness. A great life-spanning will for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------- for love. . . which she finds fulfilled in a man from the mountains. The plot of The Holy Mountain is not only overly jromantic, but most of the dramatic situations are strained Leyond belief. The New York Times critic, Mordaunt Hall, astutely commented that from the very beginning it was quite obvious that the plot would be "subordinated to the camera studies— glimpses of clouds, silhouetted figures, vast I ■ 65 jstretches of smooth snows and flashes of the sea." I It seems that most critics immediately recognized I Ithe brilliant photography of The Holy Mountain, whether or I ! inot they outrightly denounced the flimsy, incredible story I |line : j I do not remember ever having seen on the screen ! photography quite so exquisite and so enchanting, j Memories of the film still linger on in my mind— ! vast stretches of wild narcissi gleaming in the I spring sunshine; remote, snow-clad mountain peaks, ! veiled in drifting clouds; dizzy precipices, thun dering avalanches, and the roar of furious bliz zards.^6 The "wild narcissi" was the sequence photographed by Schneeberger and Benitz and directed by Leni Riefenstahl which convinced Ufa to reverse its decree and continue with the financing of The Holy Mountain. It is interesting to note, also, that the photography was so impressive that the critic describes this silent film using adjectives one Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------ I3D might expect to find only in a review of a sound film. Besides the photography, one of the truly outstand ing elements of The Holy Mountain must have been the musical score by Edmund Meisel. Meisel was one of the best-known composers for the silent film. He wrote outstanding scores for two classic silent films: Sergei M. Eisenstein's Bat tleship Potemkin and Walter Ruttmann's Berlin, A City Symphony. If anyone has seen these films accompanied by 'anything other than the Meisel score, he has only partially experienced either film. In fact, the musical score for i I Battleship Potemkin was considered so powerful and rousing that the film was banned from German screens for a number of years. In discussing Meisel's special contribution to the silent film, Friedrich von Zglinicki, in his Per Weg des 67 Films, singled out three of Meisel's works which he con sidered to be outstanding. Along with the two aforemen tioned films, included in this list was the score for The Holy Mountain. Knowing the quality and contribution of Meisel's scores to the other two films only convinces one that his score for The Holy Mountain must have added im measurably to the effectiveness of the photography and the editing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I 135 I But no matter how brilliant the score, Meisel's jmusic probably was incapable of rescuing from absurdity the I jincredible plot of the film. Mordaunt Hall, in his summary, not only succinctly brought out the forced nature of the dramatic events in The Holy Mountain, but in this descrip tion he also unknowingly emphasized relationships that had their less intense, more believable counterparts in the real lives of the performers. The mountains have a fascination for Diotima, a dancer, who enjoys the rarified air more than that of the city. At the same time she rather likes a little flirtation, and in this instance her weakness nearly leads to tragedy. Carl, a valiant ski expert, is madly in love with Diotima and his affection is requited. Subse quently, Vigo, a youth, becomes enamored of the dancer and Carl is wild with jealousy. While on a jaunt in the mountains he decides to end his young rival's life by pushing Vigo over a precipice. He succeeds in enticing Vigo to accompany him and when a lofty point is reached Carl thrusts the youth over the edge, apparently forgetting that he and Vigo are roped together. The older man regrets his action the instant he sees Vigo fall, and there ensues the struggle of Vigo to climb back to the ledge, while Carl tugs on the rope to help him. . . . A storm comes up and Vigo is seen hanging limp while Carl is standing stiff, still unable to save the younger man from falling. . . .68 As Vigo, hanging at the end of the rope, loses con sciousness in the cold, he dreams a delirious, Wagnerian- like incident that is worthy of comparision with some sequences in any of the Fritz Lang mythological films. With Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------— Ï33 this dream sequence and Diotima's dance in the prologue to The Holy Mountain; Fanck probably came the closest he ever would to being influenced by German expressionism. The photographing of the ill-fated "cathedral of ice," which had been built outdoors in Lenzerheide, partially made use of an ingenious technique which is still employed today. It ! jinvolved a matting process using paintings on glass coupled jwith a complex arrangement of mirrors which were used dur ing the photography of the real location scenery.It was in this setting that the Wagnerian dream sequence took place. In it, Diotima and Vigo, hand in hand, wander "in an enormous cavern of gleaming ice, a veritable crypt en closed by tremendous stalactites, as they seek the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, Fanck in his zealousness often over stepped the bounds of even cinematic believability, and in so doing not only destroyed the filmic illusion he had effectively created up to that point, but he also increas ingly destroyed the confidence that Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl had in his ability as a director. A description of the end of The Holy Mountain will serve by way of example. A rescue team finally reaches the cliff on which the two friends are stranded. Vigo, still Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------T33 hanging on the end of the rope, has frozen to death. Carl, in an action symbolizing loyalty to his friend, jumps after him into the crevasse. But in the soul of Diotima . . . there is a new sun rising. Her doubt about loyalty among human beings is gone. Still a thought quietly gnaws away inside her: "Maybe his friend pushed him into j the crevasse?" Those who return from the scene re- I assure her: "No, he was loyal up to the lasti" And I then above the Holy Mountain, there shines a great I word which is a sign to all human beings, the word: j "LOYALTY."71 I ! In 1926, this kind of ultraromantic story was far imore appealing than it is today, but even then there were I jcertain sections of the film, namely the language and senti- ! I jment of the titles, which are the epitome of Kitsch, that {brought some derisive laughter.7% On the whole, however, j Ithe film was well received. Before the premiere of The Holy Mountain, Leni was in a quandry as to what to do with her life. She was no longer sure about the success of the film, and all the post ponements throughout the shooting became an issue not only at Ufa but these postponements seemed to be an even bigger personal problem for Leni, who was having a difficult time keeping up with her dancing. With all the delays on the film, Leni's acting com mitment took precedent and required more time away from her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1341 dancing than she had initially expected. In order to keep I in shape, after her broken ankle had healed, Leni brought I jto the various film locations her pianist with whom she practiced (to the beat of a drum when a piano was not avail able) every day because she really did not want to stop dancing. I started practicing very hard and I again gave some dance performances, but only for about one or two months. I felt that the critics were very sad that I had spent two years making this film because I was still at the same point I was [before she started working on The Holy Mountain] Leni had made very little, if any, progress since ithe formerly enthusiastic critics had last seen her. No Idoubt, they were expecting great things from Leni Riefen stahl after her spectacular first season. But she had spread herself too thin in trying to excel in two careers. Besides, she was at an age when even a few months away from diligent practice can have devastating effects on one's dancing, sometimes requiring double the amount of time to re-attain the former level of competence. Leni Riefenstahl never really intended to make motion pictures her career. At that time, "I wanted to stick to my original profession as a dancer. .74 "I never wanted to stay in film. I was merely impetuous. . . . My passion was not film. My passion was dancing. ..75 She was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135| just interested in trying out acting this one time because "as a Berliner who didn't k.iow mountains, I was fascinated by this world. However, during the two years that it took to com plete The Holy Mountain, Leni had acquired a deep interest in, or as she puts it "a passion" for, film too. That was a schizophrenic time for me. I loved dancing and I loved film. Inside me a hard fight was going on for months. But I decided on film.?^ Following some months of anguish, caused by reading the less spectacular reviews of her recent dance perform ances, experiencing the successful premiere of The Holy Mountain at the esteemed Ufa Palast am Zoo in Berlin, and receiving a new offer from Dr. Fanck who wanted her to appear again as the star of his next film, Leni Riefenstahl made her decision. She would give up dancing and devote herself instead to film. As she has often admitted, the title of the film. Peak of Fate, which first inspired her interest in the mountains, prophetically indicated whac a few years hence would prove to be her own destiny. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ^Curt Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal (Hamburg: Verlag der Sternbiicher, GmbH, 1956), p. 245. 2 Leni Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis (Leipzig: Hesse & Becker Verlag, 1933), p. 10. I ^Riefenstahl, "Wie Ich zum Film Kam . . . ," {Deutsches Institut fur Filmkunde, Wiesbaden, Germany. I A \ "Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal, p. 246. I ^Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 {August 1971. I ^Riefenstahl, "Wie Ich zum Film Kam." ^Luis Trenker, "Leni Riefenstahl? Noch nie gehort . .," Neue Welt (September 1971): 36. g I Interview with Sokal. 9 Ibid. Trenker, Neue Welt. ^^Riefenstahl, "Wie Ich zum Film Kam." Robert Gardner, "Can the Will Triumph?" Film Com ment 3 (Winter 1965) : 28. ^^E.-F. Riefenstahl, "Goebbels Verbot ihr das Sta- dion," Ruhr-Nachrichten, 4 July 1964. ^^Interview with Arnold Fanck, Freiburg, Germany, 23 July 1971. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 7 August 1971. 136 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 12. ^^Riefenstahl, "Wie Ich zum Film Kam." 1 R Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 14. 1 Q Interview with Riefenstahl. ^^Trenker, Neue Welt. p 1 Interview with Riefenstahl. po Interview with Sokal. 23 Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 14. T 3 7 ^Gerhard Lamprecht, Deutsche Stummfilme: 1923-1926 (Berlin: Deutsche Kinemathek, 1967), p. 765. 9 c Interview with Fanck. ^^Hannes Schneider and Arnold Fanck, The Wonders of Ski-ing (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1933). ^^Berlin, Document Center, U. S. Mission, Fragebogen fur Mitglieder, Reichsverband Deutscher Schriftsteller, 31 July 1934. ^^Arnold Fanck,"Lebenslauf,” Arnold Fanck File, Document Center, U. S. Mission, Berlin. Rudolf Metz and Arnold Fanck, Precious Stones and Other Crystals (New York: The Viking Press, 1964). ^^Maurice Bardeche and Robert Brasillach, The His tory of Motion Pictures (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., Inc., 1938), p. 188. ^^Herman Weigel, "Interview with Leni Riefenstahl," Filmkritik (August 1972): 395. ^^Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947), p. 110. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1381 33 Horst G. Kleimann and Stephen S. Taylor, Who's Who in Germany (Montreal: Intercontinental Book and Pub lishing Co., Ltd., 1964), p. 414. 34 David Gunston, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film Quarterly 14 (Fall 1960): 6. 35 Fanck, ’ Lebenslauf." ^^Interview with Henry v. Jaworsky, New York, 10 September 1972. 37 Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 15. Op Weigel, Filmkritik, p. 395. 39 Interview with Riefenstahl. 40 Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal, p. 252. 41 Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 17. 42 Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal, p. 253. 43 Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 15. 44 Ibid., p. 24. ^^E.-F. Riefenstahl, Rûhr-Nachrichten. 46 Interview with Richard Angst, Berlin, Germany, 1971. 47 Interview with Riefenstahl. 48 Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 31. I { 49 I Interview with Leni Riefenstahl by Kevin Brownlow, London, England, 11 October 1970. j ^^Interview with Sokal. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. ^^Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 53 Interview with Sokal. Interview with Riefenstahl, 7 August 1971. ^^Interview with Sokal. Interview with Jaworsky. 57 Interview with Luggi Foeger, Lake Tahoe, Nevada 9 May 1971. ■ " Interview with Fanck. S^lnterview with Andrew Marton^ Los Angeles, Cali fornia, 14 December 1970. GGlnterview with Riefenstahl. G^interview with Fanck. G^Interview with Riefenstahl. G^Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal, p. 251. G^interview with Riefenstahl. ^^Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times, 29 November 1927. ®®Lady Eleanor Smith, "The Wrath of the Gods," jBritish Film Institute, London, England. ^^Friedrich v. Zglinicki, Der Weg des Films (Berlin: Rembrandt-Verlag, 1956), p. 291. 68 Hall, The New York Times. Oskar Kalbus, Vom Werden Stumme Film (Berlin: Cigaretten=Bilderdienst Altona=Bahren- G^Oskar Kalbus, Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst: Der feld, 1935), pp. 106-7. ^^Arnold Berson, "The Truth about Leni: Nazi Collab orator— or Independent Artist?" Films and Filming, April 1965, p. 16. ^^Riess, Das Gab's Nur Einmal, p. 252. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 Ibid., p. 270. 73 Interview with Riefenstahl. 74 Weigel, FilipJcritik, p. 396. 75 Interview with Riefenstahl. 76 Weigel, Filmkritik, p. 396. 77 Interview with Riefenstahl. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V I THE BIG JUMP Successful though The Holy Mountain was, it did not turn a large profit because through all of the delays pro duction costs on the film had been abnormally high.^ At the same time, by the end of the production on The Holy Mountain, several personal associations had been irreparably strained. Leni Riefenstahl had broken her engagement to iLuis Trenker and the hatred which would characterize their i jfuture relationchip was already visible. Trenker had a very jstrong personality. On the negative side, he was egotisti- jcal and unwaveringly revengeful if he felt he had been I junjustly wronged. While working comfortably within the Nazi jfilm industry, Trenker was even audacious enough to ridicule I Initier in The Fire Devil (Der Feuerteufel), a film he made in 1940. It included some scenes which made blatant compar isons between Napoleon and Hitler. For this, Goebbels saw to it that Trenker was placed on the black list, which demoted him to a position of being allowed to act only in 2 other directors' films. Trenker risked the wrath of 141_____________________________ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -- TÎ3 Goebbels, not to mention Hitler, over this film because an earlier film of his had been substantially altered by the censor— a direct result of Hitler's antagonism over a cru- i . jcial scene in this previous film (Condottieri) « ( Trenker could be equally "hard-headed"^ and vindic- jtive in his personal relationships, especially when he was I iconfronting someone like Leni Riefenstahl, who possessed a correspondingly strong, aggressive, and volatile personal- jity. Before the premiere of The Holy Mountain, Trenker said [some things to the press that encouraged at least one critic I ! Ito use his comments in giving the film a bad review. i iTrenker had complained that, since Leni Riefenstahl had I joined their film company, the quality in Fanck's films had {been compromised. Trenker called Leni a "Ziege,"^ and the reviewer, Roland Schacht, facetiously embellished on this German expression, calling her "die olige Ziege."^ Therefore, when Fanck approached Ufa to get a finan cial commitment for his next project, he was rejected partly because of the reputation Fanck had acquired in taking two {years to complete The Holy Mountain and partly because of the animosity between Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl. This new film was to have been called Winter Fairy- tale (Wintermarchen) and Leni was to have had the lead. It Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — - TO was Winter Fairytale that had prompted Leni to abandon danc ing completely and to seek a career in film. Even now, when she thinks back on it, she cannot help but exclaim that "it was a wonderful film . . . with a wonderful role."^ It was for this film, and not the second film that she actually participated in, that Leni had signed a new contract with Fanck. However, when Ufa refused to back this expensive jfilm, Fanck, with Ufa's offer of only a third of his initial jrequest, was forced to write another script within a two- week period. Compensating for his disappointment, Fanck put together a treatment for his first film comedy. The Big Jump (Der Grosse Sprung). As a kind of inside joke on Leni's "Ziege" epithet, he made the leading character Gita, a goat herder whose constant companion is a little goat named Pippa who can ski. Who else but Leni should play the role? To compound the already tense real-life situation, Fanck cast Trenker in the small part of an expert mountain climber Toni, who loses Gita's love to Michael Treuherz, an amusing millionaire from the city who meets, ardently pur sues, and ultimately wins the affection of Gita while on vacation in the mountains. For the part of Treuherz, which called for an expert able to perform acrobatic stunts on skis, Fanck cast a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — ■ 1 4 4 jreluctant Hans Schneeberger, who still continued to do some ! iof the camerawork whenever he was not performing in the film. The Big Jump satirizes the inexperienced, over equipped tourists who try to scale the heights. In his own surrealistic way, Fanck is not only making fun of the situ ation portrayed in the film, but he turns a mischievous Iglance on himself and "burlesques the whole fantasy-world I O jof mountains and mountain films." I Accompanied by his valet, Schneeberger as Treuherz, portraying the epitome of the clumsy tourist totally out of his element, meets Gita at a mountain stream. Before coming I to the mountains, on orders from his doctor, Treuherz is i peen in his office monumentally harassed by telephone calls ! i and other kinds of modern annoyances. This is perhaps the most cinematically noteworthy sequence in the entire film. To portray Treuherz’s persecution at the mercy of modern technology, Fanck created an effective montage, employing isuperimpositions of telephones, city traffic, buildings, et cetera, which dissolve into one another over a shot of ïreuherz at his desk. The sequence is so convincing that one comes away from it confident that ne has not only seen the turmoil, but heard it as well. For his health, Treuherz's doctor has not only Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I — — — 1 4 9 jordered him to take a rest, but he assures him that a com- jplete cure cannot be expected until he meets a woman and igets married. Dutifully, Treuherz falls in love with Gita I jon their first meeting and rushes off to buy her some flow ers. In tuxedo and top hat, he foolishly sets out tc deliver the flowers and ask the goat girl to marry him. Though most of the comedy in this short film hardly jholds up well today, one can imagine that the absurd situa- jtions devilishly conjured up by Fanck for his protagonists i jmight easily have amused audiences at the time of the film's jrelease. This was the first film in which Leni Riefenstahl had to do some mountain climbing and for the occasion Fanck I (provided her with the opportunity of scaling barefoot the jagged rocks of the FensterLe-Towers in the Dolomites. It is at the top of these towers that Treuherz, in pursuit of Gita, delivers his flowers and makes his proposal of mar riage after a farcically hazardous ascent. Of course, Gita cannot consent until he convincingly proves himself worthy jof her. He must not only be able to climb mountains, he {must win the village's ski race. It is in this sequence that Fanck gives free reign to his comic imagination and comes up with several absurdly eimusing situations apt to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------- please most silent film comedy fans. Everyone in the village enters the contest including Gita's little goat, Pippa, who almost wins the race. Toni, jealous of Gita's interest in Michael, accomplishes several unpleasant tasks including tampering with Gita's skis just before she enters the race with Michael so that, at the slightest stress, the skis break in two. One particularly remembers Schneeberger's spectacu lar leap off a slope landing on the back of a cow— the two of them giving a performance worthy of a rodeo show. There follows a surrealistically inspired scene with Paul Graetz, the valet, out on a remote snow-covered hill setting up a fantastic gourmet dinner, including fine china, silverware, wine, and goblets, while waiting for his master to ski along so that he can share the meal with him. All of this is climaxed by a scene superbly described by David Gunston: . . . when Schneeberger, as the huffing-and-puffing tyro skier determined to win the race, has himself inflated by his man-servant until he assumes the grotesque appearance of the tire-man in the Miche lin advertisement but twice as large as life. Defy ing all the laws of gravity, he takes off, still on skis, and soars overhead in a Kafkaesque scene to win the race and carry off the voluptuous goat girl. Voilà, "the big jump!" But Fanck has not yet fin ished. Through a montage using stop-motion photography, the seasons change from winter through summer into winter Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------ — ---------------------------------------------------------1371 again in front of Gita's little hut. After this . . . appropriate interval in the mountain cabin . . . the considerably deflated Schneeberger and the glowing Leni emerge once again into the light of day accompanied by a sparkling brood of miniature Michelin men about 2 feet tall.^^ Fanck says he wanted to make a bizarre (grotesk) little comedy with "every scene in it really impossible and ludicrous.He felt that Riefenstahl would be able to handle comedy much better than drama, which was one reason he decided to make this film. Fanck's reasoning as to why he felt Riefenstahl was a better comedienne sounds convinc ing in the abstract, but it tends to lose credence when one sees Riefenstahl perform. Fanck felt that Riefenstahl handled comedy best because she had a natural tendency to exaggerate which resulted from her training as a dancer. "Dancers tend to exaggerate everything— emotions, ges- itures . ,.12 Riefenstahl was never really much of an actress. jeven though for some time after reluctantly giving up danc- ! jing, she was convinced that "if I did act, I wanted to play I interesting roles as an actress. I never had any intention of doing several films as a sportswoman."^^ Her antagonism to the kind of roles that Fanck created for her ultimately caused her to break with him and try making films on her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14^ own. Part of the problem with her performances may stem from her hostility to Fanck's image of her: He always wanted to see me in his eyes. And what he wanted to see in me wasn't there. . . . He wanted me to be a madonna and a girl— a nice, happy little girl. I didn't want to be this. I wanted to be me. . . Riefenstahl obviously did not like acting in come dies. It irritated her sensibilities. It went against everything that she considered to be artistic. I Riefenstahl's ability as an actress will be exam ined in the discussion of The White Hell of Pitz Palu, a film Iin which she gave her best performance under the direction jof G. W. Pabst. But whether or not Riefenstahl had much jtalent as an actress, one fact is clear: Dr. Arnold Fanck jhad little, if any, ability to extract credible perform- jances from even his best actors. His talents lay in the Isuperb action photography which he so brilliantly edited together. It is obvious that Fanck was not usually able to temper Riefenstahl's performances, even in the comedies. Though Fanck monolithically feels that the essence of all comedy is exaggeration, there is one scene in The Big Jump which plays smoothly and builds tension so cleverly that it appears to have been directed by someone other than Fanck (though this is purely conjectural). It is a scene in which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------- x m Leni Riefenstahl, while waiting for the timid Schneeberger to call, is wooed in a last-ditch effort in her cabin by Luis Trenker. What makes the scene work so well is the {attention paid to subtle bits of action while Riefenstahl {attempts to get rid of Trenker before Schneeberger shows up. jintercut with this action inside the cabin is a scene out- I jside of Schneeberger's nervous arrival. During his internal 'fight to overcome his fear of knocking on the door, Schnee berger sheepishly wanders around outside the cabin. The comic pacing and tension of the scene are expertly handled, jby film editor and actors alike, climaxing in Riefenstahl's ridding herself of the persistent Trenker by taking advan- i jtage of the opportunity to boot him out the door, posterior ! jto posterior, forcing Trenker to crash into the trepida- jtious Schneeberger and causing them both to wind up sitting Unceremoniously in the fountain. i However, one should not mistakenly get the impres- i sion that the whole film is handled as well as the few jscenes just described. The bulk of the film is rather pedestrian in its execution and most of the comic situations I iare as obviously contrived as are the dramatic situations in I jpanck's other films. Admittedly, most comedy by its very nature is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — ------------------------------— isq contrived, but in order for it to work successfully, the action must flow naturally within the guidelines of its own fabricated world. No matter how far from reality that world may be, the action must still make sense within its own con text. It is in this area that Fanck's failure is most evident. All but a few of the situations are forced, by anyj standards, and the effort required to bring them off light- heartedly is so visibly apparent that any humor the remain ing situations might inherently have possessed is zealously buried by the exaggerated acting and inadequate direction. But Fanck's problems with the film do not lie solely with the comic situations and the acting. Having been forced by Ufa into a low-budget production, Fanck appears to have reverted to his earlier method of "off the cuff" shoot ing— all of which works adequately well for him in the action scenes. With location photography, even inadequate budgets can be easily disguised, but when the action re quires coming indoors, a film's budget literally becomes [Visible in the set design and construction. Gita's cabin, designed by Erich Czerwonski, was obviously built in a studio and is not at all well inte grated into the rest of the film. The time and considera tion given by Czerwonski to the design of the cabin must Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------ — ---------------------------------------- 153 have been minimal for, against the magnificence of the location photography, the scenes played in the cabin liter ally intrude themselves into the overall production design. However, even this could have been minimized had the light ing within the cabin been conceived in a similarly realis tic style, more in keeping with the natural lighting found in the location footage. But since this was a production which Fanck was forced into at the time, and since the film was not very successful either, dwelling on it in more detail would result in a disproportionate emphasis and information of diminishing value. I What is of interest is the progress and developing I interests of Leni Riefenstahl resulting from her involvement in these films. While Fanck was busy in Berlin editing together the winter scenes, Leni was sent off with Schnee- iberger to learn to climb some of the more difficult peaks in Ithe Dolomites to prepare her for the climbing scene she does barefoot in the film. As usual, in no time at all, Leni had mastered the sport and was climbing with the best of the Alpine mountaineers. But Leni was no longer happy and enthusiastic about her life and career. She still liked being in the moun tains, but the slow, drawn-out process of production on the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. j — — --------------------------------------------------~TS2 I jfilm did not fulfill her as much as her dancing had. "Some- jhow when I was dancing every day, I seemed to have achieved {something artistically."^^ Fanck sensed her conflict and because he was sched- juled to make a film on the 1928 Winter Olympic Games in I i 1st. Moritz, he tried to find more satisfying work for her in| I j ether parts of the film industry. But to no avail. She j jhad already become typecast as a sportswoman— a skier and a j I I mountain climber— and it seemed that no one was willing to { give her a chance in any other type of part. She went to I St. Moritz as a spectator returning to Berlin before the end of the Games, somewhat refreshed in spirit. But what is interesting is that at this point she was in fact offered I _ ja part in a film called The Destiny of the Hapsburgs. |she accepted the offer, but no mention is made of this film jin any writings, neither her own nor anyone else's, until ithe mid-1960's when she seems finally to have decided to feveal her involvement in this production. No one inter viewed during the research on this project had ever heard that Leni Riefenstahl acted in a film directed by anyone Other than Dr. Fanck. Even Harry Sokal, who knows quite a lot about this period of Riefenstahl's life, was incredu lous when told about this incident. Dr. Fanck himself also Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------r a seems to have been kept in the dark about it. Or, if Fanck did know, at a frail eighty-four years of age, he had selectively forgotten that she acted for someone other than himself. As a matter of fact, the film is so obscure and unimportant that it is not even listed in most German film 1 O catalogs. The film was directed by Rolf Raffe, who today works as an industrial filmmaker in Munich. Riefenstahl played the nonstarring role of Mary Vetsera, "mistress of the crown Prince Rudolf of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, who died I I 1 9 jwith him in the Mayerling tragedy of 30 January, 1889." The film was shot in Austria, but was distributed only in Germany. It was not a critical or box-office suc cess which perhaps accounts for its obscurity. As a matter of fact, Leni Riefenstahl is so displeased with the outcome jof the film that she remembers curiously little about it. I jShe even claims not to have seen the finished product. "I iwas not at all interested in seeing the film because I felt that it was not artistic. ,,20 Leni Riefenstahl was still Searching for a role that would give her the same kind of i Satisfaction she remembered as a dancer. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. 2 I David Stewart Hull, Film in the Third Reich I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), pp. 196-97 i I ^Ibid., pp. 113-14. I 4 I Interview with Sokal. i I 5 I Ziege literally means goat, but when used idiomat- jically, it is a derogatory term applied as an insult gener- jally to girls (as opposed to women). To call someone a i Ziege implies that she is "unattractive, a little dumb, and [Uncomfortably annoying in that she sometimes relentlessly [forces herself on another person." See Arnold Fanck, Regie mit Gletschern, Stûrmen und Lawinen (München : Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung GmbH., 1973), p. 167. I 6 j The reviewer compounded Trenker's uncomplimentary remark by referring to Leni Riefenstahl as a "slippery" or {"oily" goat (eine olige Ziege). Leopold Zahn to author, 22 September 1972, Freiburg, Germany. I 7 j Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, \l August 1971. I o David Gunston, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film Quarterly 14 (Fall 1960) : 7. Ibid., p. 8. 10 Ibid. 11, Interview with Arnold Fanck, Freiburg, Germany, 23 July 1971. ^^Ibid. 154 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. %53 13. Herman Weigel, "Interview with Leni Riefenstahl," Filmkritik, August 1972, p. 396. 14 Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. ^^Leni Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Bis (Leip zig: Hesse und Becker, 1933), p. 39. ^^Das Schicksal derer von Habsbura: Die Tracrodie eines Kaiserreiches. There were a number of films made in IGermany on the Mayerling story, one of which was the 1924 Alexander Korda production called Tragedy in the Hapsburg House: The Drama of Mayerling (Die Tragodie im Hause Habsburg: Das urama von Mayerling). It is probably this Korda film which has confused several writers when they include it among the films that Riefenstahl acted in. In fact, she never took part in the Korda production. See Herman Weigel, "Filmografie," Filmkritik, August 1972, p. 435. 17 Ibid. 18 Corroborating an observation made by Herman Weigel in Filmkritik, it was found that the film is not listed even in the definitive film encyclopedia, Deutsche Stumm- filme 1927-1928, by Gerhard Lamprecht. 19 20 Gunston, "Leni Riefenstahl," p. 8. Interview with Riefenstahl, 7 August 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C H APTE R V I I THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU In the intervening time, following the failure of The Big Jump, Dr. Fanck had been having overwhelming diffi culty getting a new production approved for financing by Ufa. One day, about this time, Sokal happened to meet Fanck in a restaurant. He had had nothing to do with Fanck since selling out on The Holy Mountain. In the meantime, Sokal had completely abandoned the banking business and, for a short time after The Holy Mountain, had continued to work as a producer for Eric Pommer. The risk he took was minimal since all projects were backed by Ufa. Thus, as the dis tributor, Ufa had to guarantee most of the production costs. In any case, Sokal was not happy with the kind of projects being assigned to him, so he formed his own independent I jcompany, H. R. Sokal-Film. At that time, he was one of the i jfew producers in Berlin who financed entire productions without being covered by a guarantee. Only after the film was completed did he sign a contract with a distributor. 156 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 7 Of course, Sokal could make a more lucrative deal at this : stage, but he also took a greater risk that he would lose {everything he had put into a production if no one wanted to distribute the finished product. A producer usually tried to pre-sell his film in certain territories and to raise some money, in addi tion to the capital he may or may not have had at the beginning. It was a very precarious business— many of these independents were always teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.^ But Sokal was a gambler. And he liked the freedom of being jable to choose the productions with which he would become iinvolved. Since The Holy Mountain, Sokal had independently I {produced several successful films, one of which was the 1926 film classic. The Student of Prague (Der Student von Prag). When Sokal met Fanck again in 1929, it was obvious to him that Fanck was unusually despondent; ". . .he told jme that he had almost sold a picture to Universal in Berlin, I but at the last moment, it fell t h r o u g h . Fanck explained to Sokal the story which was destined to become the best mountain film that Leni Riefenstahl would act in for him. i jin fact, outside of the films that she directed herself, Riefenstahl favors The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Die Weisse Hôlle vom Piz Palu) above any of the other films in which O she participated. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 5 9 Apparently Fanck's problem with Universal boiled down to a conflict over the climax of the film. . . . Universal wanted the film to have a purpose. "Why do these people climb that mountain? Do they find gold there? Or do they want to seduce a girl on top of that mountain?" They wanted anything substantial. And Fanck couldn't understand this. They didn't speak the same language.^ Sokal read Fanck's eight-page treatment, then: j During lunch, on a paper napkin, I wrote him a con- I tract— buying the story, buying the treatment, en- I gaging him as the director and also promising a contract to Leni Riefenstahl to play the lead, j Everything on a paper napkin. I was convinced I that it was a good story.^ ! Because no one else was willing to take a chance on Ithis film, Sokal was forced into financing the whole expen- jsive project on his own. He actually had to borrow money for the essential production costs; and luxuries, such as insuring himself against accidental injuries to the actors, jhad to be foregone because he could not afford them. "If anything would have happened to one of the leading actors, everything would have been lost.Sokal's gamble proved to be a rejuvenating experience for all of them— Fanck, Riefenstahl, and Sokal himself. The venture ultimately proved so successful that The White Hell of Pitz Palu is considered by many to be the "definitive" work in the mountain film genre and, outside of S.O.S. Iceberg, Fanck's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TF9I most famous work. The White Hell of Pitz Palu was listed as the second largest grossing film in Germany for the year 1 1930,^ a fact which undoubtedly prompted Carl Laemmle of Universal to promote several other cc-productions on Geirman mountain films. (The most successful of these co-produc- itions included two Trenker films: The Doomed Battalion (Berge in Flammen) and The Rebel (Der Rebell), and Fanck's own S.O.S. Iceberg, which again starred Leni Riefenstahl.) It was probably also the popular success of Pitz Palu which encouraged Harry Sokal to produce Fanck's next two films; and when Leni Riefenstahl decided to break with Fanck after the second of these films, to make The Blue Light (Das Blaue Licht), Sokal followed suit and co-produced that film along with her. Fanck's contribution to Pitz Palu should by no means jbe minimized. The impressiveness of the film is felt mainly I through the documentary footage which must be accredited to jpanck and his cameramen, Hans Schneeberger and Richard jAngst. Also Sepp Allgeier, cameraman for Fanck from his j beginnings in film, shot the aerial rescue scenes from Udet's plane and all of the studio scenes which Pabst directed in The White Hell of Pitz Palu. Pabst, incidental ly, was so pleased with Allgeier's work that he hired him Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - - i6q for his own next film. Diary of a Lost Girl (Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen). Of course, the plot of the film, as with all films in this genre, afforded ample opportunity for the photographing of spectacular natural effects which in Pitz Palu were aided on occasion by dynamite, magnesium torches. and set construction on location. The plot of the film again centers around three characters. Dr. Johannes Krafft (Gustav Diessl), a brood ing climber called "the ghost of the mountains," because for a year since his honeymoon he has kept up a continuous search for the wife he lost on the North Wall of the Pitz Palu, a 12,835-foot peak situated in the Bernina Alps of Switzerland. True to Fanck's demand for authenticity, this location is where most of the outdoor scenes were shot. A young couple, Hans Brandt (Ernst Petersen) and Maria Majoni (Leni Riefenstahl), celebrating their engage ment, meet Dr. Krafft in the Diavolezza shelter located near the North Wall. The next day, disregarding warnings from the area guide, Christian, all three decide to scale the hitherto unconquered side of Palu. Hans, in foolishly trying to impress his fiancee and Krafft, gets caught in an avalanche that leaves him precariously hanging at the end Df his rope in the middle of the wall of ice they were Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ----------------- uï} climbing. Krafft attempts to save the younger man who has suffered a bad blow on the head while Maria holds the rope, but in doing so his own leg is crushed by a boulder loosened in a smaller snowslide. Though all three are now somewhat safer on a ledge halfway up the ice wall, since both men are badly injured they are obliged involuntarily to wait for a rescue party to save them. Some students who have also been heedlessly climbing in the area spot the stranded trio through binoculars and move in their direction to give help, only to be caught themselves in a gigantic avalanche which buries the entire I ! {group. For three or four days, the unfortunate trio are forced to experience almost unbearable suffering— hunger, freezing conditions, a blizzard. Then rescue comes in the form of Ernst Udet, the intrepid World War I flying ace, who spoLs them from his aircraft. Unable to reach them himself, he circles around their location until Christian, with a jrescue crew that has searched the whole previous night by torch light through the glacier crevasses, is finally able to reach them from above. Unfortunately only two remain, Hans and his fiancee. Both of them were saved from certain ieath by Dr. Krafft. Krafft kept Hans from destroying Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . - - 1621 himself when the half-mad younger man attempted to jump off the ledge. And, in giving his only protective garment to Maria to keep her from freezing to death, Krafft sacrificed his own life. All that remained of Dr. Krafft was a note he left indicating that he had struggled off to be reunited with his bride in the icy Inferno. Obviously the story itself called for several dramatic and sensational events, some of which had already occurred in Fanck's other films, but not with the success he was to achieve in Pitz Palu. For instance, one will remember the avalanche scene in The Holy Mountain photo- t ■graphed by Schneeberger and Riefenstahl while completely at ! ithe mercy of nature so far as the timing of the event and I Itheir own physical safety were concerned. I I The script of Pitz Palu called for several snow- slides : two smaller ones encountered by the trio while on !its ascent of the North Wall which could actually be simu- I jlated fairly easily by throwing snow into the frame of medi- i itun and close-up shots, and the full-fledged, massive ava lanche which buried the group of students who were trying to save the three stranded companions. To capture this latter event on film in long shot, in the realistic way Fanck wanted, meant more precise and complex preparations Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --- TF3 than had ever been planned before. Richard Angst somewhat facetiously explained why they finally decided to create the avalanche with dynamite: Had I waited for the avalanches to come naturally, I would still be waiting! Besides, the natural avalanches always seemed to come at night or when I was in the middle of something else. . . .^ Therefore, rather than waste time, Fanck, Angst, and Schnee berger met with a Swiss guide who knew the conditions and peculiarities of the area where they were shooting. With him they decided on the size and direction of the avalanche they intended to create. However, the placing of the dyna mite guaranteed only the direction of the fall and approxi mate size of the snowslide, so there were always unknown factors that made the work extremely hazardous for everyone Outside of the factor of creating this "natural" phenomenon, the cameramen still were faced with the problem of capturing the event on film. One must remember that the year was 1929 and cameras were still of the hand-crank variety. Richard Angst recently explained the difficulty of accomplishing this task with the equipment available at that time : We didn't have any motors on our cameras. . . . And because we had no sound, we hollered directions to one another, at the same time continuing to turn the camera at eighteen frames per second. Even now, this rhythm of turning eighteen frames is still in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 6 4 my body. . . . And while we were turning the camera with one hand, we had to turn the tripod with the other. When we did the avalanche, we told the Swiss specialist, "When you are finished [lighting the fuse], please give us a sign with a red flag" so we would know how long it would take before the dynamite exploded. We knew that thirty meters of fuse meant that we had a minute and a half before the explosion came. So when he gave this signal, we started turning our three cameras. In sixty feet, the hand starts to get tired— but after eighty, ninety, or a hundred feet, another cameraman yelled, "Something must have happened. Let's stop." We all agreed— then "Wham!" The explosion came and we were too late. We had to start all over again. And you know, we had to do all this in below freezing weather, turn ing the camera without a handkerchief or gloves because you had to have the right feeling.^ This total dedication of the cameramen on Pitz Palü produced some of the most stunning photography of its kind. The avalanches and the panoramic shots of climbers in the mountains have been used "frequently through the years— from Lost Horizon down to Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe and Lost City of the Jungle" — while practically all of the location footage was used in the 1952 remake of this film starring Hans Albers and Liselotte Pulver. Fanck remembers receiving a telegram from Douglas Fairbanks asking him where the camera was placed to get one of the spectacular shots in Pitz Palü. Fanck proudly re plied that a 600mm. telephoto lens had been used, a piece of apparatus that was a rarity at that time and which duly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TS31 {impressed Fairbanks. I It was not only Fairbanks who was intrigued by the {ingenuity apparent in the photography. There were many I {others who not only recognized the obvious expertise but I I {also the danger inherent in the execution. These qualities I are particularly evident in the scenes in which the night rescue party assembled in the village, ski out into the black wilderness, their way lit only by the torches they carry. The procession of lights from the hundreds of searchers winding their way up the slopes and into the icy fissures gives one an almost awesome, religious feeling. Fanck was also one who strongly promoted the use of I {movement in his films. Though it sounds basic, many film makers were not aware of this fundamental cinematic princi ple. Fanck always tried to incorporate movement in his footage to create interest and excitement. He probably accidentally hit upon this principle because the location photography, through which he gained his fame, generally had to do with some kind of action anyway. But it was his {insistence on inherent movement within the frame or, subse- Iquently when cameras became smaller, apparent movement created by moving the camera itself that inspired his photographers in that same direction. They continued to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — _ — — -------------------------------- rsg follow his style in this respect whether or not Fanck was at the location when specific sequences were being shot. If there is any one principle which motivated Fanck in the photographing and editing of his films, it is this principle of incorporating some kind of movement whenever possible— and it is this same principle inherited from Fanck which formed the basis of Leni Riefenstahl's own philosophy of filmmaking. Though Riefenstahl claims that Fanck was not her teacher in any literal sense (Fanck did not set out to teach her formally— or any of his crew— the rules of his technique), it is obvious that much of his intuitive and I t isomewhat unconscious cinematic sense was absorbed by Riefen stahl and practiced by her on her future film projects. Her own reliance on the kinesthetic principles of movement as seen on the screen are most clearly evidenced in her documentary films. This sense of hers is probably as much a result of her background as a dancer as it is a result of reinforcement through Fanck's influence. Still Riefenstahl unmistakably assimilated many of Fanck's working methods into her own. For instance, when it was unfeasible for Fanck to take camera and crew to a location because of its inaccessibility— as the icy ledge on which the trio is stranded in The White Hell of Pitz Palu— or if it was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------- 167 impossible to find a location which coincided with his men tal image of a sequence— as the ice cathedral for the dream sequence in The Holy Mountain— rather than change the con cept of the scene by weaving the story into an available location, Fanck had the set constructed, usually at great I I expense. Most often, for the sake of authenticity, the sets were built outdoors where the unpredictable weather condi- i jtions generally destroyed parts of the sets, prolonging the I jtime spent on these scenes and causing the costs to soar astronomically. I This rather unrealistic sense of perfection finds lits most obvious counterpart in Tiefland, Riefenstahl's last i completed film project, in which she had an entire Spanish village, modelled after authentic designs, constructed in the Dolomites. Rather than change the script to accommodate jwhat locations were available to her during wartime in Ger- ! many, Riefenstahl brought "Spain" to the Tyrol at great expense; and because, unlike the real location of the vil lage in Spain, it snows in the Dolomites and costly time was lost in waiting for spring to melt the heavy snowfall which threatened to destroy entirely the newly constructed set. This is not to say that Riefenstahl's perfectionism vas always an artistic overindulgence, for the perfection Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -----------------------------------------------------------------rgg that is obvious in the photography and editing of her docu mentary films amply justifies the time and expense involved in its achievement. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the documentary material with which both Riefenstahl and Fanck worked best was, by its very nature, disorganized, thus requiring their kind of perfectionism, patience, and organizational ability to create something artistic out of jthe chaos. It also happened that the subject matter of I jRiefenstahl's documentary films was far more significant jthan that of Fanck's mountain fantasies which may account i jpartially for the fact that her films are better known tod^ I However, the same kind of extreme perfectionism jexerted on the storytelling portions of Fanck's films and in the dramatic features of Leni Riefenstahl proves itself unjustified, often self-indulgent, and extravagantly unpro ductive. This is probably a result of the fact that the dramatic material, in contrast to the documentary material, had already been scripted into a formal structure, thus allowing far less spontaneous experimentation during the shooting phase and requiring a minimum amount of creative organization beyond the production stage. Both Fanck and Riefenstahl to an even greater degree worked best in situa tions which did not require their adhering to a highly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----------- 159 structured initial filmic plan. This is particularly true of Leni Riefenstahl who seems to be burdened by the struc ture of her dramatic films, but whose creative visual and intuitive kinesthetic senses are unleashed by the photo graphing and editing of events which are structured in real ity, but which subsequently lend themselves to cinematic reconstruction. Riefenstahl's penchant for experimentation was probably also nurtured by having worked on Fanck's films. She was always looking for new ways of seeing whether that involved trying a new combination of filters, a new film emulsion, a new angle of view requiring hitherto unused apparatus, or new filmic concepts concerning well-estab lished or routine real-life events. Riefenstahl’s most noteworthy experiments in all of these areas understandably took place on her documentaries. For instance, like Fanck in the documentary footage shot for his films, Riefenstahl searched for new technical apparatus. Zoom lenses were used for the first time on Olympia, just as the 600mm. telephoto lens was used on Pitz Palu. Riefenstahl was always looking for an underlying concept which would provide a different visual impression of an event. The marathon race in Olympia was shot from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------— -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------T7U the point of view of the runner, not from the usual point of view of the spectator. It was this same motivation to see an event in a visually unusual way that very likely prompted Fanck to photograph the rescue party, not during the day when searches of this kind usually take place, but at night in order to be able to film it by torch light. Fanck was one of the few directors who was fasci nated by the visual effect of light on snow and ice. He and his cameramen were so absorbed by the innumerable variations jinherent in this phenomenon that they took pains to incor- iporate unusual scenes into the dramatic story. The most j jobvious examples are to be found in the film S.O.S. Iceberg, land here in the torch scene from The White Hell of Pitz Palü. The fact that the rescuers had to search for bodies in the dramatic icy fissntes of the glacial mountain pro vided the cameramen with the opportunity to play with varia tions of light and dark. By bouncing reflections of light off the ice and shining the light from the torches through the ice, they were able to create a poetically eerie chiaroscuro effect as the rescuers wind down on their skis among the dramatic glacier walls, silhouetted against the reflecting ice formations and seen through the smoky curtain caused by the burning of the torches they are holding. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — —— ------------------------------------------------171 To create these unusually beautiful visual impres sions required great stamina and courage on the part of Richard Angst, who was simply handed a description of the kind of effect Fanck was looking for, then left alone to I capture it on film in the period of one week.H I While on location for the shooting of this sequence, I jAngst was the cameraman, the director, an actor, and also jthe production manager who had to make sure that there was ; enough food for the crew, that all the proper equipment was javailable, that there were enough torches and that the shooting was finished on schedule. i During the day, we did the location hunting. I ! decide J the spots where we would lower ourselves into I the crevasses, how much rope we would need, how we I would shoot the scene, and so on. Then we went back to our little hut. When night came, we knew I exactly what we were going to do and where we would j put the camera.12 I Even though all the preparations had been carefully made, the hazards of shooting a scene like this one could never be eliminated entirely. In order to get enough brightj ness to expose the relatively slow film, the actors had to jcarry magnesium torches which, vhen lit, give off a powerful j Î light, but unfortunately lasted only an average of about two minutes. During this brief period of time, the planned shots had to be completed, a difficult task under any cir- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 2 ciimstances, but an almost impossible one when shooting inside a "Dantean" hole of ice. On top of this, there were other problems; The heavy smoke emitted from the magnesium torches necessitated that all the people involved get out of the completely black crevasse as quickly as possible [after the flame had gone out]. This is a task which is not without danger when one thinks about the steep icy walls and the treacherously thin snow bridges over the crevasses. No less dangerous were the runs of the skiers who carried the torches. Often they had to ski into darkness because, after the magnesium torches went out, the skiers were completely blinded, so that at first they could not even see the lanterns which remained constantly lit. One additional observation must be added. Any handling of magnesium flares meant the constant dan- ! ger of explosion. . . . Despite all precautions, ! any time Dr. Fanck shot a film using these torches, I burns and accidents of some kind occurred. iOne will remember Leni Riefenstahl's almost disastrous ex perience on The Holy Mountain. But, as Angst explained, the danger of explosions was not the only hazard encountered when using the magnesium flares: Sometimes the weather made it impossible to shoot with the torches, because if there was a wind storm, the actors could have had fire blown in their faces. However, having braved these perilous situations, Angst and his crew came away with some hauntingly beautiful footage that Fanck edited into a stunning sequence which has been duplicated by other directors in at least two films (the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------ r n British The Glass Mountain and the American High Conquest) The kind of dedication displayed by Richard Angst was not confined solely to the cameramen, but extended itself as well to the actors. Besides the risks taken by those carrying the magnesium flares, there were other instances when actors actually hurt themselves severely in the performance of their stunts. The scene that comes to jmind immediately is the one in which Ernst Petersen, while {attempting to prove his prowess as a climber, gets caught Iin a snowslide and smashes his head against the icy wall as jhe goes crashing down to the end of his rope. There is no i {question in looking at the footage that Petersen actually j Idid crack his head, almost knocking himself out in the per formance of this scene. Leni Riefenstahl also had some terrifying experi ences of her own to relate. At the beginning of the film, {there is a flashback sequence depicting Dr. Krafft's recol lection of the day he lost his bride. Mizzi Goetzel, who {was playing the part of Maria Krafft, absolutely refused to fall backward into a crevasse for the shooting of the scene. Rather than use a dummy, Leni reluctantly agreed to perform the stunt after having been convinced by Fanck and the rest of the crew that she would have to fall only fifteen feet. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - ^ 17^ When the cameras started to roll, Leni convincingly tumbled backward into the jagged fissure, but, out of camera view, she actually dropped some fifty feet, cutting herself badly on the sharp cracks in the icy walls and ending up with painful bruises from the rope which abruptly broke a fall three times the distance she had expected.These exploits of Leni Riefenstahl are all the more impressive when one realizes that she was basically very timid about taking such risks and constantly had to overcome her fear each time I 1 p I she performed such feats. Of course, not all of the dangerous scenes were jauthentically recreated. If a particular stunt appeared to I |be too risky, it was shot in such a way as to give the illusion only of actually being performed, as Richard Angst was quick to admit: A close-up shot at 10,000 feet can look the same as a close-up at 100 feet. If it's shot properly you can give the impression that it was done at 10,000 feet.^® But there was no faking of the stunts performed by Ernst Udet in The White Hell of Pitz Palü, his first film. The script called for him to do some sensational trick fly ing while on a rescue mission in search of the stranded trio. He was accompanied by the cameraman Sepp Allgeier who got some spectacular aerial shots while the p^ane was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I — ------------------------- 175 {being "lashed about like a splinter in the wicked mountain I 2 0 lair currents. " ! I From below, Ang ! Schneeberger recorded the incredible antics of Udet which unfortunately are all but lost on the viewer unless he "is well enough acquainted with flying and with early aircraft to assess the unbelievably hazardous— even miraculous— flying undertaken so casually 21 by the amazing Udet." This is the same Ernst Udet who [became a distinguished member of the Luftwaffe, but subse quently rebelled against Goering and the Nazi’s war poli- jcies. Most people are convinced that he committed suicide i I as a result of having participated in the Nazi regime; others who knew him well, such as Tay Garnett and Andrew Marten, are convinced that because of his rebellion and the fact that he helped "untold numbers of Jews" to get out of Germany, he was forced to crash his plane.^2 The location work on Pitz Palü took five months to shoot. During most of this time, the cast and crew were forking under subfreezing conditions. Gustav Diessl had to jwork much of the time, during the shooting of the scenes in Which the trio is stranded on the icy ledge, in only a thin shirt because the script called for him to give up his packet to save Maria from freezing. While the jacket may Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ~ v m have sufficed to save the character, Maria, it did not do much to protect Leni from the cold while acting in these scenes. She had to work for such prolonged periods of time inside the icy cave with the weather often hitting fifteen degrees below zero centigrade that she contracted a painful bladder infection that afflicted her periodically through out her life, incapacitating her for weeks on end, until fairly recently when a new drug cured her of this recurring illness. This chronic disease interfered with her work on S.O.S. Iceberg, Triumph of the Will, Olympia, and Tiefland, and it recurred . . . even later, many years after the war. . . . The hospitals wouldn't take me any more because they thought there was nothing else they could do for me. . . . One day, after the war when I was in Italy, a doctor gave me some modern medicine. It was danger ous because other doctors told me if I took this medicine (probably one of the new sulpha drugs), I would go blind. But I had no other choice, so I tried it. And since that time, I have been cured. The fact that the cave, in reality the entire ledge, was constructed outside in an easily accessible area near their hotel did not alleviate the actors from the punishing weather conditions. It only saved them and the crew from having to climb the North Wall of Palü each time they re sumed photographing this extensive sequence. It also meant that the location was accessible to Pabst, who directed not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. n 24 ---------------------------------------- YTj only the studio scenes but also the important acting scenes on the ledge, "like when the young man [Ernst Petersen] loses his mind, and my acting scenes with Gustav Diessl. As Sokal said, "Since we had many scenes in this location, we had to build the ledge."^5 The ledge was con structed against the background of the mountains, in much the same manner as the ice cathedral had been for The Holy Mountain— and the problems encountered with it were also similar. It was a wooden construction covered with linen which would freeze in a build-up of layers when sprayed with water. But the construction was plagued for some weeks by the Swiss Fohn, while forty people, including Sokal himself, struggled to make the ice form until the weather broke and the normal freezing conditions returned. Marc Sorkin, Pabst's assistant director of Pitz Palü, elaborates on the problems his crew encountered in trying to keep their equipment in operating order while shooting the ledge scenes : . . . We had four cameras, and every once in a while we would take two of them to the hotel to warm up, and use the other two in rotation. Everybody was all wrapped up. We had lights and windmachines out all the time, and it was very difficult to keep all the equipment in shape when you are all wrapped up in heavy clothes and thick gloves. Ten people had to fill the machines with snow each time, to create a snowstorm from the windmachine. That was a real snow story— not made of paper like in a studio! You Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------------------------------------------I7F know what hard snow feels like flying in your face with the power of a windmachine behind it? I had enough of the mountains for a while.^7 As has been mentioned before, Riefenstahl was ad mired by most of the men for putting up with the harsh con ditions encountered in the location shooting. Richard Angst emphasized this: . . . Working in the mountains is certainly quite different from working in a studio. And she was always the only woman among twenty-five or thirty men. She did a very good job. I was very impressed with her at that time. . 28 Sorkin, a Muscovite who had defected to Berlin dur ing the Revolution, had obviously had previous experience with harsh winter weather, but he supports Angst's state ment and elaborates further: . . . it was terribly cold up there in the mountains in winter. Most of the cast and help came down with pneumonia. But Pabst and Fanck, they must have had a sadistic drive; and you can see that in the pic ture. Later on in the Albers version [the 1952 re make] , in the studio, Hans Albers would stand in the studio and make like he was freezing; but in the original Pabst version, we really froze. All night long we were drinking hot wine and punch, just to keep on breathing. That is why the film is so good; you can see all the harshness of the weather on the faces of the people. And I must say that Riefenstahl was wonderful ; never mind what she did later— I know she became a Nazi and all— but in this picture she was driving herself as hard as anybody, and more. She worked day and night. Schneeberger was in love with her— and she with him, by the way— and they were a good team. She worked harder than anybody. Even Pabst had to admire her: he said, "It's terrible, what a woman!" I was all right. I had my old real Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 7 9 Russian fur coat with me. And yet I was so cold I had to drink all night. And you can imagine the I actors. . . .29 ! I Sokal is not sure whether Leni's performance is a I i direct result of her working under Pabst or whether her per formance might have been influenced not so much by her act ing ability as by the harsh conditions which she was required to endure. "... She really felt the cold and the drama there in the mountains. . . . She had to really suffer during the making of that picture. Riefenstahl recalled: My most important scenes were shot after having i climbed for hours, with me dead tired, looking i exhausted, or else with my face drawn into deep I wrinkles caused by the bitter cold.^^ One of the reasons for the difficulty in finding financial support for The White Hell of Pitz Palü, outside jof Universal's objection to the script and Fanck's shaky I reputation as a money-making director, was the studio's I unwillingness to take a chance on Riefenstahl in the leading jrole. Most of the industry had type cast her into winter scripts featuring athletic roles requiring little or no act ing ability. And although the script for Pitz Palü re quired a leading woman who could ski and climb, Riefenstahl was probably rejected because the role also required acting [ability. After all, the studio could always hire a good Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------------— ------- TÏÏÔ actress and fake the location work in specially constructed sets— a technique that was frequently practiced by the stu dios at that time. At first when Riefenstahl was a successful dancer and had been offered several film roles, Harry Sokal had lassumed she would make a good actress probably because she was an expressive dancer; however, after having seen the two previous films she had made for Fanck, by the time the Pitz Palu project was contracted for, Sokal felt justified in proclaiming; "I never considered her a very good a c t r e s s . Then why did he continue to make films with I jher? I It was not because of her acting that I made pic tures with her . . . but because she was an excel lent collaborator. I liked taking her counsel and discussing things with her, whether it was about scripts or scenes or cutting. . . . I liked discuss ing with her everything connected with pictures. That was the reason I liked working with her. And when she came up with the idea of directing— nobody in Germany would have trusted her with a picture. I was willing to take that gamble because I knew that she could do it with a certain kind of help. 33 Sokal made two more films with Riefenstahl as an actress and Fanck as a director: Storms over Montblanc and The White Frenzy; he was planning another film with the same combina tion: The Black Cat; and he co-produced Leni Riefenstahl's first film as a director in which she also acted: The Blue Light. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --- 1 3 1 ] Riefenstahl daims that it was she who suggested that Sokal hire Pabst to co-direct on Pitz Palü because "I knew that Fanck was not so good with actors.Apparently Riefenstahl had met Pabst some time before, respected him, and admired his work. It is also likely that Riefenstahl's relationship with Fanck had already deteriorated to the point that she found it difficult, if not impossible, to act junder his direction. She was certainly unhappy about the jpart she had been given in The Big Jump, and even today loften refers to the bad roles she was forced to play as the i [reason for her rather mediocre performances. Actually, the I jproblem lies a little deeper. The fact that Riefenstahl did not like the roles she had been given to play is really no excuse for her mediocre acting. Were she a gifted actress, once she had accepted a part her personal feelings should not have made a difference in her performance. Whether or not Riefenstahl was consciously aware of the fact that her acting ability was only average is questionable, but she was perceptive enough to realize that a performer, no matter how profound his talent, must rely strongly on the encouragement and judgment of the director. For example, of her own per formance in a later film, Tiefland, which she also directed, Riefenstahl commented, "I can't look at myself in this film Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. because the acting is simply dead. I needed a guiding 182 hand. «35 It is true that Fanck had very little success with his actors, but it is also evident that it took a director of exceptional ability to get a good performance from Rief enstahl. Pabst was that director and as one writer lamented, it is too bad that after Pitz Palü "there was no more Pabst in Leni Riefenstahl's own career. Her acting ability, I though it matured and quietened, thus gaining a certain Ipower never rose above the highly competent.Actually, Pabst directed several of her scenes in Tiefland, but by Ithis time, . . it didn't work out as well any more as jit had in Pitz Palu." Riefenstahl felt that Pabst had I I {developed a different style since his sojourn in Paris and Hollywood— a style which now conflicted with her own. So {all the scenes which Pabst directed for Tiefland "had to be ! re-done. Along with Pabst, several of his crew were also {hired for Pitz Palü; Ladislaus Vajda, Pabst's script writer, I jco-authored the screenplay for Pitz Palü with Fanck. Fanck had written only the treatment when Sokal signed the con tract to produce the film. Erno Metzner, who designed some important films for Pabst, is probably best known for his Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------ 1831 avant-garde sets in Per Überfall (1928). Metzner designed the few sets used in Pitz Palü, but in contrast to Czer- wonski's work on The Big Jump/ Metzner's sets are so well integrated with the location material that they "are usually recognizable as sets only because of camera movements which would be impossible under conditions of actuality."^8 Marc Sorkin, who served as assistant and editor on a number of Pabst's films, also came onto the set of Pitz Palu as his jassistant director. ! I When asked why Pabst had been hired to co-direct Pitz Palu, Sokal had this to say; I alT .ys considered Fanck a good writer— or rather a good "inventor of stories." He always had ideas, he was a great cameraman with an eye for pictures, and he was a man who knew the mountains and every thing that could happen there— comedy, drama, or tragedy. These were his qualities. But, he knew nothing about people. And I knew that. I told him, "Look— I want to make a great pic ture. We'll do our best. Now this requires direc tion of these three people." The person considered to be the best director at that time was Pabst. And the best was good enough for me. So Fanck agreed. And I took up Pabst to collaborate.39 As can be imagined, Fanck was not particularly happy with this arrangement, but he was by no means in a command ing position since he desperately wanted to make this film, and Sokal was the only producer who would risk financing it. Sokal had the habit as producer of keeping his hands Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T 8 Î I in every phase of production: I collaborated from the start: from the conceiving of the story to the last words at the end of the shooting script, up to the last cutting of the pic ture. And I never stayed away from the camera. That, of course, posed many difficulties with the director— and particularly with Fanck. On all three pictures I made with him— three and a half if you count Heilige Berg— we had terrible fights. It was i the end of our relationship up to the moment when I we started another picture. . . . But when I really i had an outstanding director, I was only too happy j to stand by and say nothing. In the scenes that I Pabst directed, I didn't say one word.40 I Fanck really did not have much choice, so when he I jwas assured that Pabst would direct only the dramatic scenes iand he would still have control over the "action" sequences I {on location, . . . he agreed to it finally. He didn't think it was necessary, of course. . . . He is not a man like Trenker. Trenker would go through wars to achieve his ends, but Fanck's character was a little soft. . . . That's why I succeeded in getting my way.41 Actually, when asked about the relatively superior quality of Riefenstahl's acting in Pitz Palü, today Fanck offers as explanation that the part suited her particularly {well, grudgingly adding that Pabst was able to do more with her in the studio scenes than he was.42 Though most film critics and intellectuals sharply denounced Riefenstahl's acting performances in these early films, Fanck claims that he continued to employ her, against Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------- — ---------------------------------------T O all advice, as the female lead because he felt . . . she had acted quite well in my film. Die Weisse Holle vom Pitz Palu, and also performed quite nicely in Per Grosse Sprung and in my ski film Per Weisse Rausch. I considered all this malicious criticism to be exaggerated and unfair. . . . The main reason why I did not drop Leni Riefenstahl de spite all the bad reviews was the fact that there hardly would have been an actress who would have endured with us such hardship and such a primitive life in the mountain cabins. lActually, Fanck was being unfair to Riefenstah] in claiming today that the "main" reason he kept rehiring her was the fact that she would endure conditions other women would not, In fact, Riefenstahl was a definite asset to have on the crew for a number of reasons besides her willingness to suf fer hardships. She helped Fanck find new faces to play leading roles in the films. Harry Sokal claims that both he and Fanck "very much appreciated her continuous interest in the working process and [we] considered her collaboration and counsel on everything.Marc Sorkin, in a previous quote, made it clear that "she worked harder than anybody." And Pabst, in contrast to Fanck, was so impressed by her jgenuine interest in the whole process of filmmaking and her jbudding talent, that he strongly encouraged her at this time to try directing on her own. Unfortunately Fanck had a tendency in his old age to claim every success was his; every failure, someone else's. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -----------------------------------------------IHÎ He had even deluded himself into believing certain projects of his were unqualified successes when, in fact, they were only average fare. Actually Fanck never quite forgave Riefenstahl for leaving him; and his derogatory comments about Riefenstahl's uncontested masterpieces only prove how envious he was of the success she achieved on her own. It is all the more disheartening to realize that Fanck was not motivated in making these statements against Riefenstahl because of a strong political conviction stemming from a clean anti-Nazi background, as is the case with many other sincere Riefenstahl detractors. Fanck was very much a bene ficiary of the Nazi film industry until, for reasons he was not willing to disclose, Goebbels took a dislike to him shortly after the outbreak of the war. At this time, it was Riefenstahl who came to his rescue, recommending him to Albert Speer for a project which she had to turn down her self because she was already involved wiVh work on Tiefland. Walter Traut, a former crew member on some of Fanck's films and production manager on most of Riefenstahl's still knew both of them well in 1971. At that time he lamented Fanck's attitude toward Riefenstahl. "He should speak a little better about her. He should be proud of her But instead he always wanted to take the credit himself. «46 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 Unfortunately, as the years went by, Fanck gradually slipped into an increasingly unrealistic relationship with the outside world, which is one reason why he was not able to hold onto any job. Traut tried to help Fanck after the war: . . . but I couldn't because he didn't want me to do anything more than introduce him. After that, everybody had to know that he was the Dr. Fanck. No one else could do any talking. I couldn't help him because he is so vain. . . . He has always claimed that ^ invented every style and every tech nical innovation. If you were to show him a T.V. camera today, he would say he invented it. He really, honestly believes this.*? Riefenstahl's performances in Fanck's films might not have been well received by the intelligentsia, but there was no doubt that she was a popular success at the box office, no matter what the quality of her acting, and surely this fact must have had some influence on Fanck. One must not forget that the mountain films were "an expression of something typical in the German psyche that developed in 48 the years between the first and second World Wars." After all the sensuous vamps and hothouse beauties who for so long had reigned in the German cinema, she was a breath of fresh air; the new Germany of athletics and freedom saw in her a symbol.*^ The nature films of Fanck and his disciples always portrayed the mountain "almost as living beings— beings one may be on good terms with or in opposition to, worthy Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TF81 adversaries and cruel enemies, but in any event something against which one proves one’s human worth by tackling it."50 ! I I The following description of The White Hell of Pitz I ' “ ' [PalU could apply equally well to any one of Fanck's other fountain films: I ! . . . an extraordinary document of Alpinism, a trag edy unrelieved, whose central figure is nothing less than a mountain range. Against the cliffs, the crevasses, the avalanches and the glaciers of this forbidding monster a few mortals pitifully cling, grope and struggle in a vividly rendered human tragedy which serves only to enhance the grandeur, the cruelty, the fatality of the mountain itself.51 The real heroes of all these films were the mountains and 1 the elements of nature. Besides avalanches, blizzards, and sweeping vistas of mighty glaciers, the actors in these films appear puny and insignificant by comparison. They are almost unneces- I I jsary elements who find their way into the film only because another story involving another eternal triangle has been [forced into this overwheIming world. It is no wonder that I St critics reviewed the actors' performances in conjunc tion with comments such as this one on Pitz Palu: . . . here, as never before, is the living spirit of the mountains, vivid, rarified, terrifying and lovely. Other mountain films we have had, but we have never had mountains— almost personifiable, things of wild and free moods, forever changing. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 8 9 The glorious rush of avalanches punctuating silence, warnings of greater, more terrible torrents. Snow blown up in a bright fringe on the ridges. Sun, cloud, the never ending revelations of light. . . 5 2 Would that the actors could have received such glowing notices! Instead, the same reviewer commented somewhat elliptically on the main actors; no less flatteringly, but far less enthusiastically: For the hero Diessl, the "Alleinganger" ["the lonely climber"]— with a commanding sullen beauty, and heroic attributes. For the heroine, Leni Riefen- stahl, renewed and unexpectedly fresh, unexpectedly charming. A flowing free rhythm, a breath-catching beauty, genuine charm. Not blatantor manufactured, but sensed with authenticity. . 53 Throughout his film career, Fanck tended to obscure the characters in his films, just as he had done in the very beginning with Hannes Schneider, using them "purely as foreground for the starkly beautiful mountain scenery."^4 Fanck's bias toward making the mountains the real stars of his films is probably as much a result of his inability to elicit good performances from his actors as it was a result of his greater talent and interest in experimenting with visual effects in the documentary footage. Richard Angst made an interesting observation on Fanck's method of direct ing and putting a film together: Dr. Fanck had a very different style of directing. If the actor had to portray homesickness or anger or any other emotion, Fanck would cut to a mountain. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190! . . . It was very hard for an actor or actress to play in a Fanck picture, not only because the moun tains were bigger and stronger which made the people look like nothing, but because he used eighty per cent mountain footage in his films and only twenty i per cent of the footage had people in it. It's very difficult to play against such overwhelming odds.^S Paul Falkenberg, one of Pabst's editors, described the difference in editing techniques that he observed on Pitz Palu: I remember most vividly, a lesson in cutting, a study in contrast, so to speak . . . when Pabst was fin ishing White Hell of Pitz Palu. Pabst and Fanck were cutting side by side in two different cutting rooms— Pabst, as usual, cut a scene and screened at once; sometimes, he made one or two corrections, and that was that, while Fanck spent hours ponder ing over his material and then very, very laborious ly had two scenes spliced together, went to the pro jection room and looked at it once, twice, three times— went back, took it apart, put something else in. . . . Actually, the upshoot [sic] of Fanck's method was that whenever he didn't know how to go on, he put in a few feet of clouds— passing clouds— or an icicle— beautiful photography— a shining effect against the sky— you know, just to cut away from the scene, to get a break. . 56 Several of the reasons why The White Hell of Pitz Palu is a much more integrated film than any of Fanck's other productions are because of Pabst's steady, secure influence and because the scenario is simpler and less filled with excessive melodrama and burning passion. Ladis- laus Vajda's contribution as a writer cannot be overlooked, for surely he was a tempering influence on Fanck who never Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1911 before, or since, came so close to humanizing his charac ters. But without a doubt, the major credit for the suc cess of the dramatic performances given in this film must go to the sensitive direction of G. W. Pabst. The White Hell of Pitz Palu was Pabst's ninth film following such classics as The Joyless Street, Secrets of a Soul, and The Love of Jeanne Ney (Die Freudlose Gasse, 1925; Geheimnisse j einer Seele, 1926; and Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney, 1927). I Right at the very beginning of the film one is I Iaware of Pabst's unseen presence. The film opens with i jmultiangled establishing shots of the snow-covered Palu in I jail its glory, but these quickly lead to a close-up of an icicle dripping in the sunlight. There follows a cut to a close-up of a hand catching the drops of water, back to the icicle, and finally to a long shot of a girl lying in the sun on the porch of the Diavolezza hut, her hand under the melting icicle, her mind obviously preoccupied by other {things. A man appears, sneaks up on the girl, and surprises I jher with a kiss. Having set up a relationship between the two young people, Pabst takes us inside the hut with them where they discover an entry in the cabin's log describing the fate of Dr. Krafft's young bride, Maria (also the name Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - - ------- -----------------------------------------------------TF21 of the character Leni Riefenstahl plays in the film). A dark, brooding figures appear in the doorway of the cabin, and from this moment, one begins to feel a cer tain, unspoken tension building between the engaged couple and Dr. Johannes Krafft. The relationship among these three is subtle, almost deceptive. For instance, when Hans goes outside to cut some wood, there follows a lengthy scene between Maria and Krafft involving what appears to be the beginnings of a romantic interest. The whole scene is played with Diessl and Riefenstahl on opposite sides of a table drinking some hot tea. Not a word is spoken until {Riefenstahl reaches across the table and gently touches his [hand reassuring him that she understands why he is so melancholy and asking him to tell her what happened. This is the impetus for the lead in to Krafft's flashback which is handled via the melting icicle seen by him through the window of the hut, a visual tie-in with the concluding shot of the flashback in which the grieving Krafft sits emptily jstaring at a formation of icicles near the spot where he has just lost his wife. The resemblance of Maria to Krafft's bride and her compassionate concern over the older man's sense of loss leads the viewer to believe that a romantic relationship is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 9 3 bound to develop. Pabst creates an ambiguous/ psychological situation, then uses the emotional tension to motivate the observable decisions made by the characters. To illustrate, Pabst brings the situation to a point of action the follow ing morning, as a result of an equivocal incident which took place the night before. The couple had decided to retire ! early, while Krafft was making an entry in the log indicat ing that he intended to climb the North Wall even though {he and the couple had just been warned by the guide, Chris tian, that the snow was melting and avalanches were inev itable. Krafft falls asleep on the primitive bed of hay next to Maria who is now sleeping between the two men. In the middle of the night, while still asleep, Krafft uncon sciously moves his hand next to Maria's head. She rolls over on it and in so doing wakes her fiance who anxiously reviews the situation. Convinced that the incident has harmlessly occurred during their sleep, he himself dozes off iagain. I Early the next morning, Krafft awakens to find the I young woman's head in his hand. A look of pleasure crosses his face, but almost immediately it changes and we discover that Krafft has decided to leave for Palu at once. Ulti- Imately, as has already been indicated, all three of them Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------— — ----------------------------------------------- C T resolve to climb the icy North Wall, but Pabst has already set up this emotional undertone so that most of what hap pens during the climb is a result not only of natural phenomena but also the psychological tension underlying the relationship of these three people. Tension then exists on two levels: in the action scenes, man is pitted against nature, and in the dramatic performances man is set against man, his situation complicated by feelings of loyalty and ia sense of survival. It is this multilevelled drama, held I together by the subtle emotional undertone that integrates Iplot with environment far more successfully than Fanck's jusually blatant melodramatic stories. To be sure, this {film is not entirely free of sentimentality, but as Sieg- i ! fried Kracauer observed about Pitz Palu, sentimentality I 5-7 Iseemed to be "inseparable from that variety of idealism." j Marc Sorkin, with uncommon insight, described i ( jPabst's general philosophy as a director: . . . He didn't like spectacles. His method was intimate, psychological, realistic. He never acted to show his actors what he wanted. Most directors do that. Pabst never demonstrated. He explained. Brainwork. For him the most important part was the choice of the actor. He used to say, "If you find the real actor for this part, you have the picture." He did all his own casting. . . . We never had cast ing directors over there. Another thing: Pabst always looked for new people. Many actors started their careers with Pabst. Pabst always worked with his actors; he felt that an actor must be absolutely Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1951 clear about his part, and understand his character. But he never told the actor what to do. It took more time this way, but it was worth it. And yet, he was a fast worker, as directors go. Other direc tors at that time, especially the well-known ones, would stay a hundred days in a studio working on one film. But Pabst was always well prepared, he knew what he wanted, and a picture would take him a few weeks only. But he was also meticulous. If he wanted a particular angle, he would take a day to prepare the shot. If the producer squawked, he would mostly be able to tell him that a particularly dif ficult traveling set-up would take care of two or three pages of the script in one shot. He never insisted on a long shot unless he had a good dramatic moti- 1 vation. Other directors would go to complicated I set-ups, which would end up as one foot in the final ! film. Not Pabst. For him a long shot meant action, I and it would never end up on the cutting room floor. I He was quite unlike the other directors of the peri- I od; they were very jealous, mostly, they'd never let I anybody see the script, with the result that the actors didn't know what was going on. He was a re sponsible man and a hard worker. But Pabst's influence extended beyond directing into the editing phase of the production, as was implied earlier. However, even without Pabst's direct involvement in the editing phase, his working methods helped to make it abso lutely clear how a scene should be put together. Therefore even had Fanck or someone else been required to put together some scenes that Pabst had directed, their assemblage should have been relatively simple. Paul Falkenberg offered this comment about working for Pabst: . . . Pabst knew the way he wanted it, and if you knew him and the way he wanted it, then it was duck soup to edit for him. I mean, his pictures were the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19& easiest to cut that I've ever come across. 59 If one analyzes Pitz Palü, one can see the truth in Falkenberg's statement. For instance, in the opening scene just discussed, Pabst did not use the lovely shot of the glimmering icicle merely for the sake of its inherent beauty. ! iThe melting icicle also conveys an effective visual impres- jsion of the environmental conditions in the Alps, so that Iwhen Christian comes to the hut to tell Krafft and his Icompanions about the danger of avalanches, his warning is i not isolated and merely a necessary verbal plot exposition. Then, of course, the icicle serves to introduce us to the characters and provides us later on with a skillfully inte grated visual bridge to the essential flashback sequence of Dr. Krafft. Pabst used the icicle as a leitmotif, whereas Fanck might have been inclined to use it merely as a strik ing cut-away to get himself out of an editorial problem. Concerning Pabst's philosophy of editing, Marc Sorkin added: . . . He always shot for the editor; he knew the effect he wanted before he shot the scene. His pic tures were very simple to cut. On the other hand, not every editor could work for him. He gave you good material, but you had to work hard, too. You had to know his material very well before you started. In a particular shot you had to find exactly what he wanted to extract from it, and get it out. You couldn't just cut— out, in— finished. You could always ask him. He would talk to you, tell you Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — --------------------------------------------------------- T57 what he wanted, explain again and again. And you couldn't fcol him, either. He knew his material. All of us who worked with Pabst were very close to him. You could always talk to him. Especially me— my position was sort of privileged because I had started with him. And he'd argue or else accept your opinion. And yet he kept an iron discipline. And that is very necessary in a studio. But every body, down to the last property man, could come to him on the set and say, "You know, Mr. Pabst, I think so and so is wrong." And if it was a very good idea, he'd give the man a mark (a dollar at the time). Pabst said that he wanted everybody to be involved in the pictures he was working on. You could never do that with other directors. They were afraid of advice. Not Pabst. He would listen to everybody.^0 Pabst was a sympathetic director who, being genu inely confident in his craft, was more inclined than Fanck to encourage the development of a talent when he discovered it in someone else. This was true not only of his rela tionship with actors but, as we have already seen, Pabst strongly urged Leni Riefenstahl to try directing on her own and he inspired Sepp Allgeier to do some of his best studio photography. Despite the undesirable working conditions, company morale on Pitz Palfi was remarkably high and the camaraderie and experiences shared on Pitz Palu resulted in some very close f -indships that lasted for years. Louise Brooks, an American actress imported by Pabst to Germany, had leading roles in two of Pabst's films. Pan dora 's Box immediately preceding Pitz Palu and Diary of a Lost Girl immediately following. Because of her work with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------- ïgg Pabst at this time, the Toronto Film Society, while putting together program notes on the film, wrote a letter to her asking if she knew anything about The White Hell of Pitz Palu. Her answer attested not only to the unusual fellow ship the members of the Pitz Palu crew felt for one another, but she also gave some interesting insight into Sepp Allgeier, Pabst, Gustav Diessl, and Riefenstahl: During the production of a film, the director, the cast and the crew are much too occupied with the business on hand to linger over some completed film. The filming of G. W. Pabst's THE DIARY OF A LOST GIRL was an extraordinary exception. Pabst had just finished directing THE WHITE HELL OF PITZ PALU; our camera man Sepp Allgeier had photographed it; and its stars, Leni Riefenstahl and Gustav Diessl occasionally visited the DIARY set. Immediately they would gather together to talk and laugh about the filming of PITZ PALU. Not like professional film-makers, but like children reviewing a dangerous adventure in which they had all behaved with great good will and even greater courage. They laughed about the good-natured Diessl being almost frozen to death while he was photographed through a slab of ice. They could never praise enough the courage of Ernst Udet, the pilot of the aerial shots. . . . Sepp Allgeier never thought to add that he and his camera were also in the plane. Sepp was Austrian, blonde, bronzed, handsome and a champion skier— the most unlikely man I ever saw behind a camera. For, in my time, camera men were a grim and critical lot who acted as if they accom plished their task in spite of crazy directors and actors who should be photographed through burlap. Sepp was happy and relaxed, always smoking his pipe, never arguing with Mr. Pabst about setups. In fact, he was so relaxed that on one hot July day he came on the set wearing only sneakers and shorts. Mr. Pabst threw a fit. Although Sepp argued that if I could be photographed wearing a bathing suit he ought Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199 to be allowed to photograph me in shorts, Mr. Pabst made him go and put on pants and a shirt. Gustav Diessl . . . was the best actor I ever worked with. In SIX TALKS ON G. W. PABST (1955), one of his assistants, Paul Falkenberg disagrees with my opinion and makes Pabst look rather a fool for having used Diessl more than any other actor. . . . Falkenberg says "Pabst had a difficult time with Diessl who was rather good-looking, but by no means a born or trained actor. He had no acting technique."® 2 There is an interesting side light to this Diessl controversy involving Leni Riefenstahl. As Sokal has said before, both he and Fanck collaborated with Riefenstahl on 'practically everything. However, on occasion Sokal claims they rejected her judgment as "naive." Such a case involved Sokal's hiring of Gustav Diessl for the lead in Pitz Palu. . . . since Trenker was out of the question because of the bad blood between him and Leni Riefenstahl, we had to find someone new. I thought that it was of utmost importance that he not be an established star because— for that kind of picture, for that kind of character, that lonely man in the mountains— I felt the anonymity of the person was very impor tant 63 So, on the recommendation of Pabst, Sokal received Diessl jinto his office for an interview. Up to that time Diessl was relatively unknown even though he had worked with Pabst on three previous occasions and would act in four more of his films following Pitz Palu. These were: In the Spell of the Claw (Im Banne der Kralle), 1921, Pabst's first film in which he only participated as an actor himself; Crisis Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2ÜT51 (Abwege), 1928; Pandora's Box, 1929; Four from the Infantry (Westfront 1918), 1930; The Mistress of Atlantis (L*Atlan- tide), 1932; Comedians (Komodianten), 1941; and The Trial (Der Prozess), 1947. Sokal remembered: . . . The moment he entered my office, I was con vinced that he was the man. I talked to him for about half an hour and during that time, just by accident, Leni Riefenstahl came into my office and I introduced them. As soon as she looked at him, I saw by her expression that she didn't like him. She left and while Diessl was still in the room, my office clerk brought me a piece of paper on which Leni Riefenstahl had written : "Wenn Du diesen Mann engagierst, ist der Film kaputt!" ["If you hire this man, the film will be ruined!"] I laughed out loud because I knew she was so wrong. Two minutes later I gave him the contract.^4 Louise Brooks commented: Pabst loved Diessl because he did not muddy direction with some private "acting technique." Pabst loved Diessl's "rather good-looking" face for its arresting quiet. It was a portrait face like the faces of those other Pabst favorites— Greta Garbo, Brigitte Helm, Valeska Gert and Fritz Rasp. Leni Riefenstahl's face was neither beautiful nor arresting. She had no impact on the screen as a face; and in PITZ PALU the movements of her beau tiful body were bundled up in bloomers. But when I met her on the set of DIARY I found that in real life she had plenty of impact, both of face and body. Her eyes were brilliantly intelligent and she moved about with the dancer's grace which always bewitched Mr. Pabst. Listening to the animated conversation between Leni and Pabst, measuring her fine legs, I was vio lently jealous until I realized that she did not visit the set as an actress looking for a job, but as a future director looking for instruction in her craft. And nobody who has seen Leni Riefenstahl's OLYMPIA can doubt that she was a brilliant pupil. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — 2^ Louise Brook's observation about Riefenstahl visit ing the set of Diary of a Lost Girl "as a future director looking for instruction in her craft" is an interesting one. We already know that Pabst had strongly backed the idea of Riefenstahl directing a film on her own. We also are aware of the fact that Riefenstahl, though happiest with her role in Pitz Palu, was generally disheartened by the kind of [films she had been doing. At the time she visited the Diary set, she was probably already unhappy about the part she would be playing in Fanck's next feature. It was right about this time that Riefenstahl started seriously to con sider making The Blue Light; so if she did seek out Pabst's advice, it was very likely concerning this film. But know ing something about Riefenstahl's deep-seated initial temer ity in undertaking any new venture at which she might fail, it was most likely Pabst's sensitive understanding and gen tle support which she sought as much as his specific in struction. There is no doubt that Pabst, even this early in her career, admired Riefenstahl and had great faith in her talent. Riefenstahl never forgot his loyalty to her and even tried to help him out when, on his return to Austria in 1939, he feared great animosity from the regime because Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20^ he had spent so much time in the United States and France, i As Louise Brooks indicated, Pabst very much admired "the dancer's grace." Brooks herself was a modern dancer and the pupil of the eminent Ruth Saint-Denis; Valeska Gert, to whom Riefenstahl had been compared numerous times by the dance critics during her first successful dance season, appeared in three of Pabst's films (The Joyless Street, 1925; The Diary of a Lost Girl, 1929; and Three Penny Opera [Die Dreigroschenoper], 1931); and the second to the last film that Pabst directed, Roses for Bettina (Rosen fur Bettina, 1956) was about a ballerina. So it |seems more than likely that Pabst was at least partly in- ! jtrigued by the dancer in RiefensLahl. The White Hell of Pitz Palu was one of the last successful silent films, but before its premiere at the end of 1929, Sokal was very worried: Sound came in in the middle of our production. When the picture was finished three theaters in Berlin had already played sound. The day of the opening in the biggest theater in Berlin— Ufa Palast am Zoo— on my way to the office, I passed the theater at ten o'clock in the morning. And when I saw a line of people standing at the box office, I couldn't believe my eyes. No names were up on the marquee, just the title. The White Hell of Pitz Palu, and a few stills in the windows. It was absolutely unheard of at ten o'clock in the morning. But that's one of the se crets of the motion picture business: you can never tell what will be a success!^® Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203 The silent version of The White Hell of Pitz Palu was released in Germany on November 15, 1929. It was re- released for the 1935-1936 season in a talking version with a new music score done by Giuseppe Becce, a favorite of Fanck and Trenker who also scored Riefenstahl's two dramatic features. The film was again a "tremendous success." Then in 1952 a Swiss remake of the original, produced by Harry Sokal and Friedrich Mainz, was released with new scenes written by Erna Fentsch. This remake was directed entirely in the studio by Rolf Hansen with Richard Angst again at the camera. It starred the popular Hans Albers and Lise- lotte Pulver. Its title? FohnI It was not a big success. Though the original version was silent, the photography and direction were handled so brilliantly that one was actually given the impression of being able to hear the dripping of the melting icicle, the roar of the ava- jlanches, the bitter whistling of the swirling blizzard wind. |And of course, the musical accompaniment added much to the I [tension and excitement of the original film. Sokal, who also had some influence on this aspect of the film, made some interesting observations about the use, and the relative success, of the music in the various ver sions of this film: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "2Ô41 When I came back to Germany after the war, I was asked to do a remake of Pitz Palu. So on that occasion, I looked at the 1935 sound version which had been made in my absence. I looked at this new version together with Becce in the projection room. The picture had been ruined by his music. You know why? Because there was music from the first foot to the last— without interruption. I said to Becce: "I can't believe it. Didn't you ever experience the calmness, the quietness in nature? And what about the natural noises in nature? You force the audience to follow your feelings with your music. You are dictating the feelings that the audience has to have throughout the whole pic ture." He had ruined the picture by overscoring. I have had some very interesting experiences with music— especially with Pitz Palu, because it was a silent picture. At the time of its original opening, premiere theaters had great orchestras. When Pitz Palu opened at the Ufa Palast, we had an orchestra of eighty men. The director of the orches tra (Heinz Roemheld) partly used already composed classical music which fit the mood of the picture and partly a few pieces he had composed himself. As I mentioned before, I had some influence over every thing— so also on the music. I had some arguments with the director-composer. Even though I'm not a musician, I wasn't quite in agreement with him about the music for certain parts. Remember the rescue scene during that stormy night when the men of the village are going out to the rescue while the women of the village are praying in the little church? I said, "Here, when you see the church, I would suggest playing either the 'Ave Maria' of Gounod or Schubert and during the stormy mountain scenes, that piece of Mussorgsky, 'Night on Bald Mountain.'" He wanted to do me a favor, so he did it. There is another scene where the students are coming to the rescue of the three main characters and they come to a couloir. If an avalanche were to come down, it would come this way because that's the line of least resistance with no impediments along the way. So they come to that couloir and they decide to risk crossing it. And while they are crossing it, the camera tilts up. You see on top of the mountain the overhanging crevasses. The menace I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — — - ^ You feel it! All of a sudden, it breaks. And that's the way the avalanche starts. So I heard the music he composed for this. I felt it was all wrong. I said to him, "Look, to create suspense, when they start crossing the cou loir, it should be quiet to build tension. There should be no noise in contrast to what will come. And then you start with the whisper of the cracking noise. And then the thunder of the avalanche coming down and throwing the students into the crevasse. There should be no music, only the thunder of the avalanche. And when the avalanche dies down, there should be quiet again. No music." So he agreed with that and it was one of the most effective moments of the picture. A few days later, the opening was in London. There I didn't have any influence. Every cinema had its orchestra and each orchestra leader had his own music. Most of them played thunderous music through the whole scene. It made the whole thing go flat.®' But within six months after the premiere of the isilent version. Universal released a synchronized version of Pitz Palu that incorporated the sound track ideas of Sokal. Essentially Pitz Palu was still a silent film. Universal had just taken advantage of the new technology to fix the music and sound effects permanently to the picture. To some who saw the film, even after "talking pic tures" had been established as the new direction in film history-, Pitz Palu seemed to herald "the return of the silent film, ,.68 Sokal's awareness of the importance of using con trast in the sound track to build tension was only one of the reasons the original synchronized version of Pitz Palu Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 was such a popular and critical success. Paul Rotha offered some other reasons: If the producers ask why the public preferred this simply-made film to the newest four-thousand-pounds extravaganza in colour, I can willingly tell them— because "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" fulfilled some of the elementary duties of the proper cinema which the four-hundred-thousand-pounds extravaganza in colour did not— because it showed mountains and snow and people far from the muck and artificiality of the studios— because the public did not know the actors by name— because for once they were able to forget Elstree and Hollywood ever existed— they for got the horrors of the star-system and of faked scen ery. And after many months of bleating speech they were shown again that a film could be clean, healthy, vigorous stuff. "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" was exemplary of good cinema, as opposed to the false ness of the talking film, and it was received with open arms 69 I On the other hand, Harry Sokal felt that the ano- I I îiymity of Gustav Diessl was "a great help to the success of !this picture." He also blamed part of the failure of the jl952 remake on the fact that he was "forced to take a star," jnans Albers. "He was a very good actor, but he was not that t I 'kind of man. People expected something entirely different I jfrom Hans Albers. They certainly did not expect him to be Ian Alleinganger in the m o u n t a i n s . I I In the United States and England, Universal released i Pitz Palu in a silent version entitled Prisoners of the Mountain and in two synchronized versions, one including just musical accompaniment and sound effects, the other with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------- — ----------------------------------------------- ZÏÏ7 the addition of a "dramatic interpretation" by Graham Mc- Namee, a well-known radio announcer and newsreel commenta tor of the time. McNamee's narration, which had him ver bally reiterating the wonders of the Alps, was so poorly received by the critics in both countries that this version did not last very long. The Toronto Film Society made an interesting obser vation about the reason why the score of the version includ ing just musical accompaniment and sound effects makes less of an impact today than it did at the time of the film's original release. The Society pointed out that the various themes in Pitz Palu "were later deployed by Universal in horror films and serials (especially Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, and Flash Gordon) so that it thus occasionally seems like a 'canned' score today. The 1935 version did not fare much better, the main reason being that the incongruity of the natural photography and melodramatic plot were more noticeably accentuated by 72 the spoken dialogue than by the previous use of titles. Then, of course, in 1952, the Swiss remake with Hans Albers appeared in New York under the original title. The White Hell of Pitz Palu, but none of these subsequent Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. " Z T J B l [versions was able to approach the success of the stunningly lovely, original silent version of 1929. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ^Gideon Bachmann, ed., "Six Talks with G. W. Pabst: The Man— The Director— The Artist," Cinemages 3 (New York: The Group for Film Study, Inc., 1955), p. 47. ^Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. I O } Herman Weigel, "Filmografie," Filmkritik, August |l972, p. 436. i Interview with Sokal, 'Ibid. Gibid. j Friedrich v. Zglinicki, Der Weg des Films (Berlin: jRembrandt Verlag, 1956), p. 603. i ^Interview with Richard Angst, Berlin, Germany, 10 July 1971. ^Ibid. ^^William K. Everson, The White Hell of Pitz Palu, Program Notes, 1967-1968, Toronto Film Society, Toronto, p. 4. l^Interview with Richard Angst, Berlin, Germany, 7 July 1971. l^Ibid. 13 14 Zglinicki, Der Weg des Films, p. 604. Interview with Angst, 7 July 1971. ^^Everson, The White Hell of Pitz Palu, pp. 3-4. 209 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — -------------------------------- ' 1IÔ ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl by Kevin Brownlow, 11 October 1970. Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 15 August 1971. ^^Arnold Fanck to author, 27 April 1971. I Interview with Angst, 7 July 1971. 20 Louise Brooks quoted in Everson, The White Hell of Pitz Palu, p. 3. ^^The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Program Notes), 25 February 1965, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, p. 56. 22 Interview with Tay Garnett, Los Angeles, Califor nia, 26 April 1971; interview with Andrew Marton, Los Ange les, California, 14 December 1970. 23 Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^Weigel, Filmkritik, p. 395. 25 Interview with Sokal. ZGibid. 27 Bachmann, Cinemages, pp. 36-37. 28 Interview with Angst. 29 Bachmann, Cinemages, p. 36. ^^Interview with Sokal. ^^Leni Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis (Leip zig; Hesse und Becker, 1933), p. 43. 32 Interview with Sokal. 3^Ibid. 34 Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 ^^Weigel, Filmkritik, p. 408. ^^David Gunston, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film Quarterly 14 (Fall 1960): 10. ^^Weigel, Filmkritik, p. 407. ^^Everson, The White Hell of Pitz Palü (Program Notes), 15 November 1966, Theodore Huff Memorial Film Soci- lety. New York. ^^Interview with Sokal. 40lbid. ^^Ibid. Interview with Arnold Fanck, Freiburg, Germany, 23 July 1971. ^^Fanck to author. Interview with Sokal. ^^Interview with Riefenstahl. ^^Interview with Walter Traut, Munich, Germany 10 IAugust 1971. 47lbid. ^^Erik S. Saxtorph, "Die Weisse Holle vom Piz Palü," Pet Danske Filmmuseum, January 1962, p. 1. ^^"Peasant Legend of the Alps," November 1932, [British Film Institute, London, England. Saxtorph, Pet Danske Filmmuseum, p. 1. ^^'Prisoners of the Mountain," New York Times, 12 January 1930. ^^'Ihe White Hell of Pitz Palü," Close-Up, December 1929, p. 545. S^Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2Y21 ^^Gerald Fairlie, Flight Without Wings (New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1957), p. 141. Interview with Angst. ^^Bachmann, Cinemages, p. 44. 57 Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (New Jersey : Princeton University Press, 1947), p. 155. CO Bachmann, Cinemages, pp. 37-38. S^lbid., p. 38. ^°Ibid. ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 46. i g2 I Louise Brooks quoted in Everson. I I ^^Interview with Sokal. I ® ^ I b i d . ^^Louise Brooks quoted in Everson. ^^Interview with Sokal. G?Ibid. ^^Edwin Schallert, "The White Hell of Pitz Palu," Motion Picture News, 10 May 1930, p. 53. ^^Paul Rotha, Celluloid: The Film Today (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1933), pp. 32-33. ^^Interview with Sokal. Everson, ' The White Hell of Pitz Palu," p. 4. 72 Lotte Eisner, The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardu (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 312. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C H APTER V I I I STORMS OVER MONT BLANC The next production in which Leni Riefenstahl par ticipated was Dr. Fanck's first sound film, Storms over Mont Blanc (Sturme uber dem Mont Blanc [1930] ; also released under the English title Avalanche). By now, filmgoers recognized the name of Dr. Arnold Fanck, mainly a result of the success of The White Hell of Pitz Palu, and expected a beautifully-photographed, exciting melodrama set in a spec tacular mountain location. Storms over Mont Blanc did not disappoint many of these filmgoers; nor did it disappoint many of the film critics who generally lavished praise on the photography in the film and almost unanimously rejected — as William Boehnel, reviewer for the New York World-Tele- gram, put it— the "woefully inadequate"^ plot line. The story was always the weakest element of the Fanck films and Storms over Mont Blanc is certainly no exception. The con tinuity merely suffices to make us cognizant of the hazards encountered by anyone who braves such treacherous mountains as these. 213 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ A young meteorologist, Hannes, is stationed at a lonely weather observatory situated at the top of Mont IBlanc. On Christmas, he is visited by an older scientist jwho, previously in his youth, had manned the same station, jlhe old professor has brought along his daughter, Stella, who eventually falls in love with the young scientist, a love which he obviously reciprocates. Shortly after the awakening of this romantic interest, the father is killed in ja snowslide. Therefore, at his suggestion, Stella leaves I Wont Blanc to stay with Hannes' friend, a musician in Ber- jlin. Before her departure, arrangements are made for Hannes jto join her briefly thereafter on his next vacation. ! In the intervening time, the scientist can think of I Inothing but Stella. However, as he is counting the days until he will see her again, he receives a letter from his friend informing him that he too is in love with Stella and intends to marry her soon. Hannes decides not to take his leave; his dreams having turned to despondency. That night, when he goes outside routinely to inspect the wind measur ing instruments, he pulls off his vitally protective gloves to make some drawings. In a moment of distraction, the gloves are blown away. As he perilously fights his way back toward the cabin through a blinding blizzard, Hannes' Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -- — ---------------------------------------- 2X5 hands start to freeze. By the time he reaches the shelter, his hands are so frostbitten that he is unable even to light a fire to protect himself against the cold of the storm which continues to rage outside. I } Since staying in the cabin without a fire would mean almost certain death, Hannes realizes that he has no choice but to try to make it down to the village. He is able to ski about halfway down before the yawning glacier crevasses iWhich riddle the mountainside force him to turn back. On I jhis return, he discovers that the door to his cabin has been (blown off and the interior is now a solid mass of snow and i lice. Hannes manages to tap out an SOS signal on the radio with his elbow. The message is received by Stella who or ganizes and heads the rescue party. For long periods of time they are held up in their efforts to reach the marooned scientist since they must often scale the "almost perpendicular mountainside" with ropes and frequently they are called upon to cross wide chasms in the Bosson Glacier of Mont Blanc by portable lad- I Ider-bridge. Ultimately the rescue party is impeded in its efforts by the same gaping crevasses that prevented Hannes’ descent from the summit. It is now up to Ernst Udet to reach the freezing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2TS scientist before it is too late. But the flight is not an easy one, for Udet must brave an electrical storm through which his tiny Piepmatz is precariously bounced around amidst the mountain peaks which are often concealed by a thick array of clouds. The final obstacle to be overcome is the landing of the plane on the Mont Blanc glacier. Ernst Udet was the first pilot ever to accomplish this feat. Hannes is found just barely alive, a revitalizing fire is started in the cabin, and the two lovers are finally reu nited. As usual in these mountain films, the plot is of minor significance. One can very readily find fault with the motivations and rationale for the behavior of the char acters. For instance, this young meteorologist is con stantly threatened by the real possibility of freezing to death in the storm-prone heights of his mountain-top observ atory. Siegfried Kracauer asks some pointed questions which lay bare the shallowness of the story line and the charac terizations. Why is it that Hannes decides not to take his leave from these inclement conditions to spend some time with the woman he loves? Because he has received a letter from his friend indicating that he also loves the woman Hannes idolizes. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I 2 Ÿ Î \ I The letter suffices to make the meteorologist give up his love. He does not think of asking the girl how she herself feels about him; full of self-pity and noble sentiments, he leaves her to his friend.^ A New York Times reviewer pointed out another major plot incredulity concerning the apparent ease with which Udet lands his plane and rescues the freezing Hannes. The rescue of the hermit meteorologist from almost certain death through ravines, snow avalanches and raging Alpine tempests becomes slightly fantastic when an aviator accomplishes the seemingly impossible by piloting his plane past crags and mountain tops in a sixty-mile gale and landing nonchalantly on the summit of Mont Blanc.^ Why did the rescue party not call on Udet in the first Iplace or, at least, sooner than they did? And though this jwas the first time, even in reality, that anyone had landed ja plane on the Mont Blanc glacier, Udet made it look so jeasy for the cameras of Angst and Allgeier that the inher ent danger was masked by the pilot's expertise, thus making the plot construction that much weaker. Another reviewer found that, though the story had some "human appeal" in the young scientist's predicament, it was negated by what he called "a mischance hardly likely to befall t. experienced man we presume him to be."^ These few examples should suffice to indicate that the purpose of the plot was not in-depth characterization or even logical story construction, but rather the primary Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ------------- -2 1 3 1 function was to provide a rationale for the magnificent nature photography of Fanck's cameramen; in this case, the work of Hans Schneeberger, Richard Angst, and Sepp Allgeier. All of Fanck's mountain films contain spectacular location photography, but many critics found Storms over Mont Blanc to be even more impressive than The White Hell of Pits Palu. Some of the most outstanding shots on which Fanck places special emphasis in Storms over Mont Blanc are the "majestic cloud displays."^ Of course, most of the jstory's action takes place on top of Mont Blanc, the highest jpeak in the Alps on the border between France and Italy. At ja height of 15,781 feet, Mont Blanc towers above the rest of the Alps, with its summit most of the time beyond the cloud cover. Leni Riefenstahl wrote: With the exception of the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa, which look like little islands in a sea of clouds, everything else beneath us seems to be lost in the clouds. We are separated from the rest of the world by a blanket of clouds.^ It was Siegfried Kracauer who first proposed a con nection between the mountain film genre and the soon-to-be- established Nazi ideals. And it is with the clouds and the story of Storms over Mont Blanc that he specifically tries to prove his theory. Kracauer makes a point of the passion ate way in which Germans pursue mountain climbing. "Far Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21^ from being plain sportsmen or impetuous lovers of majestic panoramas, these mountain climbers were devotees performing 7 the rites of a cult." In this, Kracauer seems to be making a point well-taken. In fact, this mountain-climbing cult was not limited to any one particular class of Germans, but rather spread itself across a broad segment of the popula tion from the university community to the labor force. For instance, one will recall Fanck's devotion to the mountains while a student of geology, and remember that many of {Fanck's cast and crew gladly left menial jobs to join him Iin the making of this new kind of film. However, in his I {elaboration of his premise, Kracauer draws a conclusion I {which appears unwarranted and goes beyond his facts. Long before the first World War, groups of Munich students left the dull capital every weekend for the nearby Bavarian Alps, and there indulged their pas sion. . . . Full of Promethean promptings, they would climb up some dangerous "chimney," then quiet ly smoke their pipes on the summit, and with infinite pride look down on what they called "valley-pigs"— those plebian crowds who never made an effort to elevate themselves to lofty heights. . . . Their attitude amounted to a kind of heroic idealism which, through blindness to more substantial ideals, ex pended itself in tourist exploits.® Kracauer implies frequently throughout his book that as soon as the Nazis supplied the other "more substantial ideals," the cultists were able to see clearly that their energies were misdirected and were thus easily won over to the Nazi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 I cause. „9 Kracauer denounces Storms over Mont Blanc partly because of the characterization of the young meteorologist. When he dovmheartedly gives up the woman he loves to his friend, Kracauer comments that after all it is the lot of Hannes "to remain above the clouds and all mortals Unfortunately, for Kracauer, the German film between the two World Wars becomes I . . . merely a history of incurable regressions. Every gesture on the screen, every gag of the story i department, every shifting of the camera, is evalu- i ated only with reference to the fundamental thesis to be proved. 10 With Storms over Mont Blanc, Kracauer is attempting to make a case for the receptiveness of the mountain cultist to the Nazi vision and for the relationship of the mountain films to the Nazi films. Since Storms over Mont Blanc con- jtains quantitatively more spectacular cloud footage than any other of the Fanck films in which Leni Riefenstahl partici pated, Kracauer feels justified in making a concrete connec tion between this film and the "Nazi documentary Triumph of the Will" in which "similar cloud masses surround Hitler's airplane on its flight to Nuremberg.For Kracauer this conclusively "reveals the ultimate fusion of the mountain cult and the Hitler cult."^^ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------------------------- m One can see how Kracauer could come to such a con clusion, but being mindful of the personality of Leni Riefenstahl, the driving force behind her ambitiousness and ith , inspiration for much of her filmic ideas, it seems {likely that Riefenstahl was more subconsciously influenced i jby her experiences on Fanck's films than she was by any I philosophical or psychological forces which might tenuously {connect the atmosphere of Storms over Mont Blanc and Triumph i iof the Will. I Leni Riefenstahl is more an intuitive filmmaker than i ! an intellectual one— and it seems likely that the decision I ■ jto open Triumph of the Will with Hitler descending through i the clouds in his plane was more aesthetically instinctual on her part than calculatingly political or religion's, as some have claimed. One must also remember that Sepp Allgeier, one of the three cameramen on Storms over Mont Blanc, was the main cameraman on Triumph of the Will. Thus he could easily have fallen back on the photographing of Hitler in his plane flying through the clouds much in the same manner as Ernst trdet's flights had been photographed for several of Fanck's films. Allgeier knew, for example, that clouds can be photographed quite beautifully in black and white, especially Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 222 I when the use of filters is employed. This technique, as iWell as time-lapse photography was familiar to Riefenstahl land all of Fanck's cameramen. Therefore, with the variety land experimentation possible in the filming of clouds, it i jis not surprising that Fanck and his camera crew indulged I jthemselves in this type of subject matter. But falling back on what is familiar photographical ly is a far cry from calculating a symbolic effect. Much jsymbolism has been read convincingly into the opening se quence of Triumph of the will, but this symbolism was not intended by Leni Riefenstahl. Of course, thit. does not negate the symbolic interpretation, but it does negate a deliberately-planned metaphorical significance for this se quence on the part of the filmmaker. Intent is important in this case, and it seems that this is the one aspect which Kracauer erroneously assumes. I However, one cannot deny that these mountain climb ers and filmmakers considered themselves a privileged class, kfter experiencing an exhilarating flight through the moun tains with Udet right before the major shooting on Storms over Mont Blanc had begun, Leni Riefenstahl wrote; We fly through fantastic cloud formations surround ing the peaks. The sight coming out of the clouds is beautiful with the giant mountains stretched out beneath us like sleeping grizzly bears. . . . We Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. [ m I both . . . enjoy looking down from such heights, a pleasure which could not be experienced by any ordi nary mortal looking up from below. It is probably comments like these that gave Kracauer the "proof" he needed to build his case. Though undoubtedly there were some mountain climbers that considered anyone "valley-pigs" who had never experienced the awesome grandeur of these "palaces of Nature," still it seems more likely that Leni Riefenstahl was inspired by her experiences in the mountains and felt more pity than contempt for those "ordinary mortals" who would never know their glory. On several occasions in her writings, Leni Riefen stahl refers to the "magnificent clouds" and the "mysteries" of the m o u n t a i n s .14 But in these passages, more than any thing else, she seems emotionally moved by what she saw. "I cannot describe in words how beautiful it is up here— Iso free, so far away, so close to the clouds and the I (stars— "15 Perhaps it was this inability to verbalize her experiences that caused Leni Riefenstahl to turn to visual images, but it was always more of an emotional or an aes thetic impression that she tried to convey, rather than the political one implied by Kracauer. Along these same lines of thought, Charles Elliott, an Irishmen who fought with the British during World War II, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 2 ^ had these perceptive comments to make: Mountains have played considerable part in the glamorisation of man's spiritual aspirations since the beginning of time, vide "Great things are done when man and mountains meet," Blake. Arnold Fanck obviously felt this. . . . It is not irrelevant that many of those associated with the Fanck films did not in fact collaborate [with the Nazis]. Probably the best known was Col. General Ernst Udet, who died mysteriously in 1941. It seems reasonable there fore to conclude that films dealing with mountains as a subject are not specific to any ideology. Though Dr. Fanck devoted his talents to portraying the visual and "spiritual" atmosphere of the mountains, he frequently carried his aims to an extreme. This is particu larly apparent in his preference for making Nature the lead ing character in his films, and it is another of the reasons for Leni Riefenstahl*s disenchantment with Fanck's method of filmmaking. It has already been mentioned that Leni Riefenstahl was not particularly happy with the roles given her by Dr. Fanck. This may be an explanation for her ever-increasing involvement with the other aspects of film production. For instance, L'Encyclopédie du Cinema lists Riefenstahl as participating on Storms over Mont Blanc in these areas: 17 ". . . producer, co-scenarist, actress and co-director." Recalling Harry Sokal's comment about the fruitfulness both he and Fanck experienced in collaborating with Riefenstahl Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ on every phase of production, her participation on Storms over Hont Blanc in these other officially-uncredited areas seems plausible, especially since Dr. Fanck fell ill with a bad case of the flu right before the initial shooting on Storms over Mont Blanc was to commence. Dr. Arnold Fanck is given credit for writing and directing Storms over Mont Blanc and H. R. Sokal for the Produktionsleitung. Dr. Fanck's flu necessitated that he remain behind in Chamonix while the rest of the cast and crew proceeded to climb to the Dupuis cabin, a primitive shelter part of the way up the mountain.IB After almost a week of unpredictable weather at the Dupuis cabin, the film unit worked its way up to the Vallot shelter situated at about 14,000 feet. From there the crew made excursions in search of appropriate locations. They remained in this area for approximately two weeks, complet ing most of the shooting there and the bulk during three months on the Bosson Glacier. It was only after they had started shooting in the vicinity of the Vallot cabin that Dr. Fanck arrived to supervise the directing. Considering Leni Riefenstahl's dissatisfaction over her roles, her increasing interest in the other aspects of production, her determination to get a job done in whatever Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 2 6 manner was necessary, in short, her eagerness to partici pate in any way she was able, it is not unreasonable to assume that the entry in L'Encyclopédie du Cinema is entire ly accurate, even though official credits for Storms over Mont Blanc list her only participation as an actress play ing the role of Stella Armstrong. In recalling the part that Riefenstahl played in getting additional financing for The Holy Mountain and the occasions that Riefenstahl took over directing for Fanck in his absence, the entry becomes quite credible. Riefenstahl's difficulties as an actress were mostly but not entirely of her own doing; for in the Fanck moun tain films she had almost unbeatable competition; Nature is the hero of the action. It is the begin ning and the end. The entire impact of the moun tain world, the oceans, the forests and the gigantic icebergs work and have the effect of the powers of fate which human beings have always had to wrestle and against which they have had to prove themselves.^® If one considers the disadvantage at which any actor is put in playing opposite such a formidable background, one tends to sympathize with the situation of the performers. Unfor tunately for Riefenstahl, and eventually for Fanck, the intelligentsia as well as some of the more serious and important film critics attacked the mountain films for their melodramatic and sentimental plots, for the ineffectual Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------ — 2T7I mixture of overwhelming backgrounds with the petty details of the characters' lives and loves and for the generally poor quality of the acting due primarily, so the critics claimed, to Fanck's preference for casting non-actors in the leading roles. » It is quite apparent why Fanck was biased in favor of the non-actor. His principal concern was that his per formers be able to carry out the physical feats required by the script. That the individual could act was of secondary importance if he or she were an accomplished mountain climber and/or skier. Bela Belazs, in his foreword to Fanck's book, Stürme uber dem Montblanc,^^ reveals another, perhaps sub conscious, factor at work in Fanck's selection of a partic ular person for a role; the external appearance of the individual and the appropriateness of these physical quali ties in relation to the environment within which the person would perform. Sepp Rist is a perfect example of the use of this criterion in the casting of the lead for Storms ovei Mont Blanc. Rist, before his motion picture debut, was a police radio-operator. He had had no background in acting, but he was a champion skier and climber and, most important ly, he looked the part of the brooding scientist who was to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — be marooned on the hostile summit of Mont Blanc. Here is Balazs' impression of Fanck's choice of Rist for the lead in this film: . . . Now, look at his hero, his meteorologist, this Sepp Rist! . . . Was there ever a critic who has doubted that he is a piece cut out of this scenery, that each glance of his, each feature, each gesture is born out of the stone and storms? But in the visual art of film, the photographic art, it is more important to find an outward appear ance for the character, and the director accom plishes this by choosing the right type.^^ It does not matter what the person does in real life or what his personality is like. What is important is how he appears, the impression he makes on the screen. For Balazs, Sepp Rist was the perfect choice for the part of Hannes because he appeared to be hewn out of the rock of Mont Blanc itself, so perfectly did his features and actions fit into the environment of the film. This analysis is understandable when one examines Balazs' theories on the art of film. For him, an actor on the stage is a more consequential being than he is in the film where ultimately he must share his importance with in animate objects through the use of close-ups and the juxta position and intercutting of these shots in the editing process. On the stage the living, speaking human being has a far greater significance than dumb objects. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TZS They are not on the same plane and their intensity is different. In the silent film both man and object were equally pictures, photographs, their homogeneous material was projected on to the same screen, in the same way as in a painting, where they are equally patches of colour and equally parts in the same composition. In significance, intensity and value men and things were thus brought on to the same plane. Even in the talkie the speaking human being is still only a picture, a photograph. The word does not lift him out of the community of common mater ial. . . .23 For Balazs, the motion picture had "discovered the soul of things"24 in relation to human beings. Beyond this, Balazs believed that what made film an art was its unique ability to strip away our imperceptj-veness to the inanimate around us; for example. Nature in the mountain films of Dr. Arnold Fanck. In all this, the underlying force of the medium rests in its power to manifest human feelings even through the presentation of lifeless objects, "for what makes objects expressive are the human expressions projected on to them. The objects only reflect our own selves . . ."2- Therefore it follows that a closer relationship between human being and inanimate object will result in greater expressiveness, especially if both appear to derive from Liie same substance— as is the case with Sepp Rist in Storms over Mont Blanc. Unfortunately, Leni Riefenstahl did not project the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23t) same rapport with the mountain environment as Rist did. Her greatest assets, so far as most of the critics were con cerned, were her abilities as a mountain climber and skier. Even Dr. Fanck readily admitted that: Leni Riefenstahl learned to ski very quickly and did it rather well; she soon joined us in our most difficult climbing hikes and was always a good sport. Since my entire crew consisted of first- rate skiers and mountaineers and since we were working in the wildest glacier crevasses and on the faces of rock and ice as high up as the peak of Montblanc, Leni Riefenstahl had to go through a rough training with us . 26 But what was really admirable in her was how she, being a city person who had never been on a mountain, endured all the hardship and this rough, primitive life with us in the mountain cabins of the high Alps and how she overcame her basically timid nature again and again. But, as an actress, Leni Riefenstahl was not so successful. One critic lamented that "her acting ability is even below the film leading woman's average." Riefen stahl 's major liability was her tendency to exaggerate, a technique which worked to her advantage while dancing on the stage, but which Fanck was unable to help her signifi cantly tone down for the cameras. Balazs succinctly described the problem of transposing acting techniques from the stage to film, in this way: In films in which a slight movement can express a deep passion and the tragedy of a soul can mani fest itself in the twitching of an eyebrow, broad Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23lJ gesturing and grimacing become unbearable. . . . The microscopic close-up is an inexorable censor of "naturalness" of expression; it immediately shows up the difference between spontaneous reaction and deliberate, unnatural, forced gesture. Only nature moves naturally, even in human beings, and only the unconscious reflex-like reactions of the soul im press the onlooker as natural gestures.29 Here again one can perceive Balazs' concern for the integration of all the aspects of film in order to project a more profound sense of reality. Unfortunately Leni Riefenstahl*s unrestrained theatrical style of acting in most of these early mountain films tended to break the illu sion of authenticity captured with such success in the exquisite location photography. It is true that in the Fanck films. Nature became too awesome an opponent for any actor to play against with complete success. However, even under these circumstances, some of Fanck's actors gave more integrated performances than others, and even Riefenstahl achieved a more convinc ing characterization in The White Hell of Pitz Palu under the tutelage of Pabst. But because of the insurmountable disparity between man as protagonist and Nature as antag onist, many critics, as has been noted previously, wrote disparagingly of Fanck's films. Balazs did not deny that some of the criticism aimed at these mountain films was justified, but he felt that the rage with which many_______ j Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 2221 critics attacked Fanck was unwarranted. The love stories in these films are undeniably fanciful and bordering on the Kitsch, but Balazs maintained that the contrast between the lives of the characters and the environment in Fanck's films is directly responsible for the successful portrayal of the power and grandeur of Nature. And, according to Balazs, without the "petty" details of the characters' lives, there would have been little or no audience identification with the films. It was the drama of the story, no matter how preposterous, which captured the audience's imagination and involved it in the film experience. There were other moun tain films made at this time, but none attained the same box office success that most of the Fanck films did. Balazs conjectured that this was probably due to the fact that these other mountain films relied solely on the assemblage of spectacular nature photography, playing down the audi ence 's involvement by not providing the element of identi fication achieved through dramatic film structure.From comments of his such as these, it is obvious that Bela Balazs had a special interest in the German mountain film. Therefore, it is not surprising to find him later on collab orating with Leni Riefenstahl on her own mountain film and her first directorial project. The Blue Light. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------233i Most critics failed to observe that no matter how unexceptional the story and direction of the actors might be, it was still this dramatic element that sustained inter est in the critically acclaimed mountain photography. This is not to conclude foolishly that the films were far super ior to the critics' evaluations of them. It is offered primarily as explanation for the relative box office success of the Fanck films, an aspect overlooked by most reviewers. One must also not overlook Fanck's fascination with the assemblage of shots using a technique he called "free fantasy." For Fanck this meant an intuitive arrangement of shots related by association of form or movement. This was not a method of editing exclusive to the Fanck films, but in Fanck's hands the cutting of the skiing sequences seemed uniquely to flow and sparkle with the excitement and joy of the sport. In the earlier and more tranquil parts of the pic ture [Storms over Mont Blanc] he gives us stunning views of a group of skiers as they dart and whirl in bewildering configurations down the snow-blanketed slopes. Though the newsreel cameras have many times devoted themselves to winter sports, it has remained for Dr. Fanck to show us the true ecstatic thrill and beauty of ski-running.31 It was action sequences like these, brilliantly photographed and edited, coupled with a dramatic story, that usually drew audiences to the theaters when a Fanck film was playing. I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. was some twenty years later that Leni Riefenstahl was to take inspiration from similar sequences encountered on Storms over Mont Blanc for a color skiing film which she was never able to complete called The Red Devils. Storms over Mont Blanc was not only Fanck's first sound film, but it was, in the words of one writer, "the first talkie made in the Alps."^^ The indifferent manner in which this colloquial phrase is inserted into the review of this film is indicative of the lack of esteem accorded these mountain films by the critics. However, one cannot deny that the coming of sound posed several problems for Fanck which were not altogether successfully resolved. At the time Fanck started the Mont Blanc project, sound was relatively new. The motion picture financiers (Aafa-Film A.G. was the production company backing Storms over Mont Blanc) in these early days demanded its use with out any consideration for whether or not the film would be improved significantly by the incorporation of this new technological advance. For the investors, "talking pic tures" meant a more commercially-viable product. Any other considerations became secondary. Obviously some conflicts were bound to arise between the artists and the bankers over the aesthetic merits of the silent film and, even more Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------- 239 SO/ over the use of long stretches of silence within a talking picture. Balazs' observations on this subject are uniquely interesting, especially in relation to Leni Riefen stahl 's professed belief in the avoidance of dialogue in a film for as long as possible, in light of Balazs' contribu tions to The Blue Light and as an exemplary attitude common to most artists working in the early sound film: The unsolved inner contradictions of the sound film are manifested among other things in the fact that nearly every director prefers to avoid much speak ing and wants scripts in which there is as little dialogue as possible. This in itself discredits the talkie and shows that it is an unnatural form of art— rather as though a painter were to prefer paint ing pictures without colours. I Fanck, unlike many of his contemporaries, experi- need less concern over the introduction of sound than he otherwise might have felt had he been making films of another type. His mountain films relied heavily on action, requiring little verbal explanation. This is a fortunate situation, for even in the few instances when dialogue was presumed necessary in order to advance the plot of Storms over Mont Blanc, it was generally evaluated as being "inef fective and spasmodic.To compound the situation, when Storms over Mont Blanc was exported to England and the United States, all the German dialogue was dubbed into Eng lish, causing one British reviewer to lament: "the effect Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------ 23g is not good; it tends to emphasize the weakness of the dialogue, which is poor in any case."35 The major drawback of the dubbing technique— and one that is still with us today— was the lack of coordination between the sound of the spoken English dialogue and the movements of the actors' lips speaking German. Though this dubbing technique was relatively new at the time Storms over Mont Blanc was re leased, it was . . . a device which is apparent enough not to fool any one and which has so halting and mechanizing an effect on the actors that it is only in the pan tomime scenes that they seem to be human.36 Bela Balazs recognized another factor at odds with the practice of dubbing a film into a foreign language which surely hampered Storms over Mont Blanc; . . . there is also an inevitable inartistic, sham quality in all synchronization, because every lan guage has inseparably pertaining to it a play of features characteristic of the people speaking the given language.37 To clarify his observation, Balazs offered an extreme ex ample which nonetheless applies in some degree to the dub bing of all films: "To speak English and accompany the no speech with Italian gestures is a monstrosity. . . ." Aside from the problems of dialogue and dubbing, the other areas of sound in this production were relatively successful in enhancing "the stark impact"of the Alpine Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tn\ environment. Storms over Mont Blanc was particularly effective in the integration of natural sound effects with the visual atmosphere. The biting wind of the blizzard, the roar of the avalanche, the cracking of the Bosson Glacier ice, the lonely sound of Udet's plane braving the electrical storm and landing in the eerie silence of the isolated Mont Blanc glacier all contributed to the ebb and flow of dramatic tension creating a powerful contrast between raging storms and motionless tranquility which gave new dimension to the visual elements. Even the music was picked to do more than merely underscore a dramatic moment. Siegfried Kracauer himself found it unavoidable to praise the choice of musical selec tions. He specifically called attention to the music playec through the observatory radio: . . . fragments of Bach and Beethoven from an aban doned radio on Mont Blanc intermittently penetrate the roaring storm, making the dark altitudes seem more aloof and inhuman. During this time, Leni Riefenstahl was no doubt asking herself a decisive question regarding a test which most silent film stars faced with trepidation. Would her voice record adequately well for the sound film? Over the years, Leni Riefenstahl's voice has lowered in pitch and become slightly raspy, but as a young woman she possessed Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “ Z7B an indistinguishably pleasant voice which did not detri mentally compete with her visual appearance— except perhaps when she was forced to portray anger or consternation. In these instances, the pitch of her voice would rise natural ly, but at the same time it acquired a mildly unpleasant shrill quality. Fortunately, however, her normal speaking voice did not draw attention to itself. The only vocal drawback she had to fight was the strong Berlin accent of her speech. This was a handicap she was well aware of and one which in some measure hurt her performances with German-speaking audiences. By the time Storms over Mont Blanc was released commercially, Fanck was overwhelmingly conscious of Leni Riefenstahl's disillusionment with, and her aversion to, the kind of films she was making with him. Something obvi ously had to be done if he wished her to continue working with him. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES William Boehnel, "Avalanche," New York World-Tele- gram, 29 March 1932. Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler; A Psychological History of the German Film (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947), p. 258. ^Richard W. Nason, "Avalanche," New York Times, 26 March 1932. ^The Bioscope, 27 May 1931, British Film Institute, London, England, p. 18. ^Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 257. ^Leni Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis (Leipzig Hesse und Becker, 1933), p. 59. n Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 111. ^Ibid., p. 258. Ibid. ^^Hans Sahl, "From Caligari to Hitler," Modern Review, August 1947, p. 476. ^^Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 258. l^Ibid. 13n: Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, pp. 52-53. 14 Ibid., p. 21 15 Ibid., p. 37. ^^Charles Elliott, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film 49 (Autumn 1967): 38. 239 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2401 ^^Roger Boussinot, éd., L'Encyclopédie du Cinema (Bordas, France, 1967), p. 1277. 18 Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 55. l^ibid., p. 58. 20 Friedrich v. Zglinicki, Per Weg des Films (Berlin: Rembrandt Verlag, 1956), p. 603. 21 Arnold Fanck, Stürme über dem Monthlane : Ein Filmbildbuch (Basel: Concordia Verlag, 1931), pp. v-x. ^^Ibid. ^^Bela Balazs, Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970), pp. 58-59. 24 25 Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., p. 60. 26 Arnold Fanck to author, 21 May 1971. 2^Ibid. 28 C. Hooper Trask, "Sturme uber dem Montblanc," New York Times, 25 January 1931. 29 t Balazs, Theory of the Film, pp. 76-77. ^^Fanck, Stürme uber dem Montblanc, p. vii. "Avalanche," New York Post, 29 March 1932. 32 Picturegoer Weekly, 31 Novembér 1931, British Film Institute, London, England, p. 20. Balazs, Theory of the Film, pp. 71-72. 34 The Bioscope, p. 18. ^^Picturegoer Weekly, p. 20. ^^"Avalanche," New York Post. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "Z?n ^^Balazs, Theory of the Film, p. 69. 39 David Gunston, "Leni Riefenstahl," Film Quarterly 14 (Fall 1960): 10. ^^Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 258. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C H APTE R I X THE WHITE FRENZY The "something” that Dr. Fanck did was to begin working on a shooting script which Riefenstahl, in looking back, considers to have been his best. The film was to have been called The Black Cat (Die Schwarze Katze). The story was based on a real incident in the life of Fanck's camera man, Hans Schneeberger, "a highly decorated hero of the Austrian mountain troops."^ As a lieutenant in World War I, Schneeberger was required at one point to hold with a force of sixty men an important position against the Italians in the Dolomites. For months, while at the top of the mountain, Schneeberger and his men heard digging going on underneath them. The Italians had conceived of a new method of literally under mining hostile positions. They would tunnel under enemy lines, set the explosives, retreat, and then blow up the position. Schneeberger surmxsed wlat was happening, but was helpless to take any counter measures. All he and his men could do was to wait. In actual fact, the Casteletto which ________________ 242______________ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■2T3 they were defending was eventually blown up. Schneeberger with only about eight of the sixty men survived the explo sion. With these few remaining men, Schneeberger was able 2 to hold the position until replacements had arrived. Fanck's script, written around this incident, pro vided a role for Leni Riefenstahl which she was actually looking forward to playing. She was to perform the title role of the "Black Cat." Fanck had turned the story into a spy film, giving Riefenstahl a more substantial acting role than she previously had had. The part appealed to her tre mendously, for it was based on the life of the daughter of the famous mountain guide and soldier, Innerkofler. This young woman acquired the nickname the "Black Cat" because of her clandestine agility in the mountains. As a spy, she was to penetrate the enemy lines, discover the predicted time of the explosion, and relay the information to the Austrians so that they could retreat to safety just before the mountain was blown up, allowing the whole troop to return later unharmed to their original positions.^ The film was to have been an expensive, superproduc tion financed by H. R. Sokal-Film. In conference, Sokal and Fanck had agreed that Luis Trenker would be the perfect person to play the male lead. By this time, Trenker had Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■ --- 2 3 3 1 "created a screen personality somewhat like that of John Wayne . . . the rugged outdcorsman, simple and honest, always ready to help the heroine by deeds of physical cour age ."^ He was the German counterpart to our indomitable cowboy hero and the mountain films were Germany's equivalent of our Westerns. However, since Trenker was no longer on good terms with any of Fanck's team, Sokal and Fanck made a special effort to make up with him. So sure were -they that he would not be able to resist the part that "we gave Trenker the story to read." Unfortunately, "he sent it back and said that he wasn't interested. Several weeks later, Sokal read a notice in the trade papers describing a forthcoming production of Luis Trenker entitled Berge in Flammen (The Doomed Battalion is the 1932 American remake of this film). According to Sokal: I was very young at that time and very impulsive, but I knew without reading his script that he had stolen the idea. So I put an ad in the [trade] paper with a warning against that picture. Then he sued me for slander.® The case, which eventually became one of the most notorious in German film history, was brought up in court and with the two scripts of The Black Cat and Berge in Flammen in hand, it was discovered that Trenker's script was not only the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. same story, but that "eight or nine phrases [had been] taker verbatim out of our script. Trenker had lost this first legal battle, but he obstinately appealed his case to a higher court. At this point, Sokal, having read Trenker's script in court, real ized that it was superior to Fanck's script. If I would have been a cold-blooded Hollywood-type businessman, I would have said to myself, "Let's forget about The Black Cat because the Trenker ver sion is better . . . for the very simple, classical reasons of unity of time, place, and action. Fanck's story was about the mountains, an Italian officer, a love story, Roman society, and so on, whereas Trenker's story eliminated the "spy business" from the plot and made the central character "the man himself in position at the top of the mountain.Trenker, of course, played this war hero himself. A look at the summary of the plot of The Doomed Battalion reveals how much Trenker lifted from the original Schneeberger incident. It dealt with an isolated combat episode of World War I set against the snow peaks of the Austrian Tyrol. A mountain top is held by an Austrian bat talion, and since it proves inaccessible to direct attacks, the Italians below start drilling a tunnel into the rocks so as to dynamite this position. While the Austrians, unable to forestall the enemy action, listen helplessly to the ominous tapping in the mountain, one of their officers [Trenker] goes on a daredevil ski patrol down to his native vil lage, which serves the Italian headquarters. There he learns the date set for the explosion and returns Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 4 6 in time to warn his comrades. His exploit enables the "doomed battalion" to evacuate the position just before it is blown into the air.10 The central portion of the script dealt with the actual com bat, but Trenker enclosed the film within a frame— a favor ite German device which was used later on by Leni Riefen stahl in her own first film. The Blue Light. In the opening sequence of Trenker's script . . . the Austrian officer [Trenker] and the Italian commander, his future antagonist, are seer* together on a mountain excursion immediately before the out break of hostilities— two friends elevated above nationalistic prejudices? in the finale, the ex enemies resume their old friendship a few years after the war 11 It does indeed seem that the Trenker script was the better of the two. Then why did Sokal not make a deal to do the film with him after the first court trial? The reason provides an interesting story— again involving Leni Riefenstahl. Sokal knew that Riefenstahl was disheartened by the kind of roles she had been playing. The idea of com bining the "Black Cat" character with the Schneeberger storj was born of her despondency. Of course, the leading role was written by Fanck with her in mind. However, one look at the Trenker script reveals the absence of a female lead and the incorporation into Trenker's own part of the plot essentials found in the "Black Cat" character of Fanck's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■ --— ---------------------------------------------Z31 script. Sokal was torn between a sense of loyalty toward Riefenstahl and his businessman's instinct which told him that Fanck's The Black Cat was an inferior script. It [Fanck's script] was very good, but not as good as Trenker's. . . . But I would have felt like a traitor if I had arranged something with Trenker. Then Leni Riefenstahl would have lost the chance to play the "Black Cat" because in the Trenker version, that part no longer existed. So out of pure loyal ty, I didn't do that. It was stupid of me.^^ Sokal's regrets are understandable, especially in light of what was to happen next. Trenker appealed to the next higher court and ultimately won against Sokal. Sokal laughs now when he recalls how Trenker defeated him; "Trenker was such a good storyteller, you couldn't believe he could tell a lie; but he was the biggest liar you can imagine!Trenker was so convinced that he had a good script, stolen or not, that having lost in the first court, he dauntlessly appealed his case, hired good lawyers, and eventually won. The final judgment proclaimed that the idee for the story came from an actual incident which was public knowledge, therefore the rights to its use belonged exclu sively to no one person.What is still annoying to Sokal today is that Berge in Flammen, completed in 1931, was more successful than anything Sokal had done up to that date. Also interesting is a look from Riefenstahl's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2ÏB perspective as to why The Black Cat was never produced. Her story is fascinating primarily because of its omissions. Riefenstahl claims that Fanck tried to get backing for The Black Cat directly from Ufa. When the script was rejected. Fanck supposedly offered it to numerous other companies. "Everyone who reads it is absolutely enthusiastic— but at this time, no one cares to make a war film."^^ In her book, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, Leni Riefenstahl places The Black for The White Hell of Pitz Palû "in a single night.How ever, the Sokal chronology and explanations concerning The White Hell of Pitz Palû and The Black Cat seem far more Cat chronologically before the making of The White Hell of Pitz Palii. 16 In fact, she claims that the failure of The Black Cat project gave Fanck the impetus to write the script likely, primarily because both stories have been corrobor ated independently by Andrew Marton.In the case of The Black Cat there is additional evidence in that the timing of The Black Cat script coincides exactly with the legal proceedings between Trenker and Sokal. Furthermore, the release of Berge in Flammen and The White Frenzy, the comedy Fanck directed in place of the ill-fated The Black Cat, also coincide precisely. In her book, Riefenstahl never even alludes to the Trenker controversy over the script, nor Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------— ----------------------------------------- Z39 does she mention that there were other war films being produced at this time— two of which were Trenker's own (Berge in Flammen, 1931, and Per Rebell, 1933). For one reason or another, Riefenstahl felt it necessary, or perhaps easier, to hide the real reasons for The Black Cat not get ting beyond the script stage. Perhaps she avoided telling the whole story about The Black Cat because it involved two men for whom she feels great animosity today: Luis Trenker, for reasons previously stated, and Harry Sokal, for the major altercation she had with him over rights to The Blue Light. Interestingly, Riefenstahl will again use this same justification— "no one cares to make a war film"— later on in connection with another of her favorite unrealized projects, a spy film called Mademoiselle Docteur. However, in the context of the Mademoiselle Docteur film, her ex planation is much more believable than it is here. Having lost the case to Trenker, Sokal agreed to finance another heastily-put-together film project by Dr. Fanck called The White Frenzy. This film has been released under several titles both in German- and English-speaking countries. In Germany, it was known as Per Weisse Rausch; in Austria, as Sonne uber dem Arlberg. It was shown in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250 England originally and later released in 9.5mm format under the title The White Flame. And in the United States, the film has been shown under all of the following titles: The White Ecstasy, The White Intoxication, The Ski Chase, and The White Frenzy (to avoid confusion, the author will here after refer to this film by the latter title). As Dr. Fanck explained, . . . I had to use the crew I had engaged for The Black Cat. I had to make a picture fast. If I had won the case, I wouldn't have made Weisse Rausch, it . . . was fundamentally only some silly story about a chase in the snow. This is not exactly an overwhelmingly positive statement on the film which replaced Sokal's favored The Black Cat proj ect. And understandably so. In fact, Riefenstahl was not particularly happy with the substitution either. It is interesting to note that the two comedies made by Dr. Fanck with Leni Riefenstahl were the result of the failure to realize two more substantial, big-budget productions which initially appealed to Riefenstahl as an actress. The fail ure to produce Winter Fairytale resulted in The Big Jump and the loss of the court case over The Black Cat produced The White Frenzy. In both cases, Riefenstahl was asked to play parts which were totally abhorant to her. The reviews for The White Frenzy and Riefenstahl's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------Z53 performance in the film were mixed due partly to the film's erratic release dates. The White Frenzy opened in Berlin at the Ufa Palast am Zoo in December of 1931; however, it was not released in England until the spring of 1933 after Riefenstahl's The Blue Light had already enjoyed a success ful engagement. And the film was not released in New York until March of 1938, a time when political feelings about Hitler's Germany and especially Riefenstahl's prominent position in the film industry could not help but color the reaction to this film or any Teutonic import, no matter wher it was made originally. But political reaction aside. The White Frenzy simply does not stand up well even alongside the other Fanck-Riefenstahl films except, of course, in the area of photography and skiing. As Sokal mentioned, plot is prac tically nonexistent in the film, probably due to the haste with which the project was put together after his unsuccess ful legal battle over The Black Cat. What story does exist in the film is broken up into into three distinct, but loosely-connected, sections. It opens with some novices learning to ski in the by-then-well- known St. Anton am Arlberg School of Hannes Schneider. In the film, Riefenstahl is coached by the famous real-life Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. _ ^ headmaster of the school, Schneider himself, while two other enthusiasts, Guzzi Lantschner and Walter Riml, humor ously try to learn the sport from textbooks, performing "seemingly incredible feats on the flowing white slopes, as if in scorn of the published documents, which they hold open in their hands. The next and major portion of the film is devoted to a "fox hunt" on skis in which some fifty ski champions, led by Lantschner, Riml, and Rudi Matt, play the village "hounds" hot in pursuit of Schneider and Riefenstahl, by now an expert skier, who play the "foxes," leaving a trail of black paper circles along the way as mock "scent" clues for their pursuers. Every possible skiing maneuver is brilliantly and excitingly, as well as sometimes comically, displayed in this part of the film. However, this chase idea for The White Frenzy was by no means a new one, for Dr. Fanck in 1922 had already completed a nondramatic film starring Hannes Schneider entitled Foxhunt in the Engadin (Eine Fuchsjagd im Engadin). This film actually served as part two to Fanck's first film. The Wonders of Skiing (Das Wunder des Schneeschuhs, 1920), both parts of which were completed before Leni Riefenstahl joined the Fanck film team. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------- 253 In the final section, Schneider and Riefenstahl are ensnared by an eight-year-old boy, Lothar Ebersberg. This young boy was the son of a Dr. Ebersberg who, at that time, was a close friend of Dr. Fanck. Eventually Riefenstahl too became good friends with the Ebersberg family and a particularly strong friendship developed between her and Mrs. Ebersberg. The Ebersberg home was on the top of a mountain in Kitzbuhel, Austria. Some years later, during the war and at its close, Leni Riefenstahl would rely on the Ebersbergs for protection and would use their house fre- oi quently as a refuge. In The White Frenzy, Lothar Ebersberg, has remained behind to set a trap for the "foxes," enabling him to snatch the hats from their heads, signalling that he has won the contest, and this without ever having left the village. In the final scene, Schneider and Riefenstahl are discovered in the middle of a fort made of snow resembling a bullfight arena, presumably built by their young captor. They are being bombarded with snowballs thrown by all the villagers who are revealed sitting on the wall of snow encircling the two victims. In the process of defending himself, Schneidei accidentally falls into a hole in the middle of the arena; Riefenstahl follows suit and the villagers roll a huge snow Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------2sq ball over the opening. Meanwhile, young Ebersberg appears holding the two caps he has deviously acquired, and the scene fades out with everyone laughing uproariously. By today's standards, the humor in The White Frenzy is not so much amusing as it is trite and exaggerated, but it was a somewhat unusual film for the time of its re lease. The White Frenzy differed from most German films of the early 1930's in that it was unabashedly a happy film, relying for atmosphere on the open air and sunshine of the skiing region of Arlberg in the Austrian Alps near Switzer land. Though there were other comedies made in Germany during these first years of the sound era, they did not constitute a major output in production, thus making The White Frenzy all the more atypical, especially when one looks back on those years realizing where the German film industry would soon be heading a short time hence under the aegis of Hitler and Goebbels. In some ways. The White Frenzy proved itself to be more of a popular success than many of Fanck's other moun tain films which relied heavily on "gloom-laden Alpine melodramas, overhung with sombre tragedy and the workings of a mystic, merciless fate.” The light-hearted, carefree atmosphere, along with the magnificent skiing displays. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "Z53 combined to make The White Frenzy Fanck's most successful sound film at the box office and one of the best skiing films made to date. One can easily imagine that it would still be a popular film among skiing enthusiasts today were it readily available for viewing, primarily because of the presence of the many champion skiers who are featured in it along with Hannes Schneider, the father of modern skiing technique. It is likely that to devotees of the sport these factors would outweigh the film's inadequate plot and the generally humorless situations in which the performers find themselves. Trude Weiss, a critic for Close Up magazine, wrote an enthusiastic and perceptive review of The White Frenzy on its release in 1932, comparing it as a comedy to previ ous Fanck productions; Having seen the former mountain-films, I was always sorry that their serious plots were never adequate to the beauty of their settings. In attempt ing to match the action with the power and sternness of the mountains themselves, withal mellowed by ten- derest pangs of love, the general result was Kitsch among beautiful surroundings. One felt the beauty of the places would be so much more enjoyable if unassuming comedy instead of some Kitsch tragedy were made the raison d'être. In the latest Fanck film the old wish is real ised. It is really a "white frenzy" of snow and sun and movement, and a good deal of humour. The best ski-masters of Austria take part in it, and when they "fly" down the slopes, twenty, forty of them, in swift curves, the glittering snow spraying round Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -559 them, you too, in your seat in the dark, get the thrill and happiness of a glorious day in the moun tains 23 Allowing for differences of taste concerning some of the slapstick humor found in The White Frenzy, Weiss's comments indicate an acute awareness of the kind of subject matter which best suited the refreshing outdoor environment of the snow-covered mountains. It is ironic to note that Fanck might never have made his two emotionally bright and sunny comedies had circumstances not forced him away from his natural preference for blood and thunder histrionics. Though there was considerable difference of opinion on the comedy found in The White Frenzy— one critic might call it "crude"while another might refer to it as 25 "pleasing" — there was almost a consensus on Riefenstahl's performance in the film. Her part in The White Frenzy was that of an innocent and unsophisticated young woman who travels to St. Anton to learn the new techniques of skiing, taking instruction from the world-renowned skier, Hannes Schneider. Riefenstahl turns out to be such an able pupil and he such an outstanding teacher that in no time she is able to keep up with the master well enough to partner him in the chase. In one of the opening scenes, Riefenstahl gives the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ~Z51 impression of being a likable tomboy sitting cross-legged on a table playing cards while she, the young Ebersberg, and some of the men discuss the next day's "fox hunt." This is her best scene in the picture so far as acting is concerned, for one senses a naturalness in her performance here that is sadly lacking in the rest of the film. In reality, one suspects that the success of her acting in this brief scene is due to the fact that she probably was not acting at all, but rather playing herself. Throughout the rest of the film, her performance consists of skiing bravely, if not aesthetically, at the side of Schneider and of smiling broadly into the camera. Even though Riefen stahl 's Thespian talents were no more than average, the fundamental problem with her in The White Frenzy, as pro ducer Sokal notes, lay in the miscasting of Riefenstahl in the leading female role by Dr. Fanck. Even if she had been a great actress, she simply did not fit the part visually: It's ridiculous what he [Fanck] did with Leni in Weisse Rausch. . . . She didn't even look the part. With her face, she couldn't be expected to play the part of that naive little girl.^G Interestingly enough, most critics who reviewed The White Frenzy at the time of its release either dismissed Riefen stahl 's performance briefly in a sentence or two: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "23a . I don't think comedy is Miss Riefenstahl's line of country . . 27 or . . . though it is Leni Riefenstahl's latest pic ture, The White Flame compares unfavorably with any of her previous mountain films.28 or they ignored her acting in the film entirely, mentioning her only in summarizing the plot or in giving cast credits. Is it any wonder that Riefenstahl at this time was seeking other avenues for artistic expression? She surmised career problems on these productions well before the critics and public began to grow weary of Fanck's stereotyped mountain films. In fact, by the time the five months cf shooting on The White Frenzy had begun, Riefenstahl had already started work on the script for The Blue Light. She had even made some initial probes for financial backing of the project, unfortunately with no success. By the time Storms over Mont Blanc was completed and with the loss of The Black Cat property to Trenker, Riefenstahl's uneasiness about the way her acting career was limping along had finally pushed her to a point of cri sis, forcing her into a decision requiring independent action on her part. . . . I kept asking myself: "Did this work really give you complete satisfaction?" . . . Strange as it may seem, though acting was fascinating, I was still Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259 looking for something else. I studied the camera and lenses; I became acquainted with film stock and filters. I had cut film and surmised through this how new effects could be attained. Without wanting it, my attention was turning to these things more and more- I fought it because I was an actress and did not want to dissipate my energies in many directions. Even so, I could not help observing everything around me with an eye to how it would look on film. I wanted to capture these images on film myself. Moun tains, trees, human faces, I see completely differ ently, according to my individual moods and emotions. My desire to create these things continued to grow in me.29 Since Riefenstahl wrote this after having completed her last film for Fanck, she might be accused of trying in retrospect to justify her continued participation on these films, especially in the wake of critical notices which generally acclaimed her dramatic performances as merely tolerable. Even the studios had typecast her in roles requiring little more than athletic prowess. Actually, one senses that all along Riefenstahl was preparing herself and gaining the confidence she needed to break with Fanck and begin making films on her own. Even before shooting on The White Frenzy became a legal inevitability, Riefenstahl had already completed a rough draft of The Blue Light, her first independent dramatic film, which she began putting together partly from images she encountered wherever she went in the mountains. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -----------------------------------------------------------------2FÜ The waterfall/ the crystal, the menacingly thin dry boughs of a lonely tree— the rays of sunlight trying to break through the mist, and the glistening dew on the grass and flowers, the austere, gaunt faces of the strange mountain farmers— I saw Junta pursued through narrow village streets. And then I saw the bridge, heard the echo of the mountains repeating "Junta, Junta I" And over all, shining high above on the rocky face of the mountain, the "Blue Light." Why not make a film out of this? A legend on film. And so I began the first sketch of my film. The Blue Light.30 Riefenstahl, as always, enthusiastically showed the rough draft to her friends. Their reaction to her script, as can be expected, was equally enthusiastic and encourag ing. However, Riefenstahl was aware of the practical neces sity of also convincing someone with financial resources that the project not only was feasible but a money making venture as well. As indicated, Riefenstahl speculatively showed the manuscript to some producers to no avail. "They 31 considered the idea tedious, even impossible." Though Riefenstahl was in some measure discouraged by this reac tion, she was so infatuated with the story that she contin ued to explore possibilities for its realization on film. Undoubtedly one of the main reasons for her continued participation in The White Frenzy production was money. Hei salary for the film would go directly into The Blue Light project. However, even though Riefenstahl's mind was now preoccupied with her own film production, participation on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261] The White Frenzy set was not entirely unpleasant, for Riefenstahl was working with a crew she knew and for which she felt some rapport and she was performing with some of the finest skiers of that time, the most important of whom included the previously-mentioned Guzzi Lantschner, Walter Riml, and Hannes Schneider. This was not the first time, nor the last, that Lantschner and Riml would appear in films as a kind of Mutt and Jeff comedy team on skis. Both men were ski-racing champions with Guzzi then holding the world speed record of sixty-six miles per hour. Fanck made stunning use of Guzzi throughout the film, but there is one outstanding sequence which impressed more than one reviewer: . . . Herr Lantschner, the great Austrian ski-runner, does a sensational mile-a-minute dash down a moun tainside, which can be relied upon to lift any prop erly constituted audience out of their seats.^3 Lantschner performed a number of other incredible feats, not the least of which included a spectacular flying leap over the snow-covered roofs of three mountain cabins. Herr Lantschner seems to have been the Germans' latter-day Evel Knievel on snow. For at least one reviewer, it seemed as if the whole film had been turned by Dr. Fanck into a "side-show" for Lantschner to display his skill on the s l o p e s .^4 Though Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — his stunts were indeed of the more unconventional variety, making them all the more unforgetable, it remained for the gangly, long-legged Walter Riml to offset the slight, "pint-sized" build of Guzzi Lantschner in order to create the few authentically funny sequences in the film. Lantschner and Riml portray two carpenters from Hamburg, hard at work, learning the intricacies of skiing. It is the contrast of their sizes in their masterful spoof ing of the complex nuances of the sport, from initial exer cises through ski jumping, that provide the film with its genuinely-amusing, lighter moments. It is obvious from most of the critical notices that reviewers found the superb skiing in The White Frenzy the most memorable aspect of the film as the following exerpts indicate : . . . a film of rare pictorial beauty which should prove a delightful experience for both devotees of the newly popularized sport and for the non-skier alike. The former will study it as a graphically illustrated cinematic textbook . . . and the latter may sit back contentedly, just as we did, and marvel at the graceful dexterity of the performers . . . The film . . . proves itself to be: a continuous lesson in the fine art of skiing, given through example, rather than by textbook methods. . . . detailed and intimate insight into every branch of ski-running and jumping. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -- 2F3 For the ski nut there can be no equal or possibly sequel to "Chase." [It] contains all the thrills (almost felt) of trick turning, leaping, scaling, stopping, etc. For the average it's a super-glori fied sportreel of the stuff which will get a rise out of the most disinterested . . . "Sky [sic] Chase" very easily lives up to the bally of being the best skiing picture to reach these [American] s h o r e s .^8 The distinguished nature of The White Frenzy was due in no small part to the presence of Hannes Schneider. In one instance, the film was even referred to as "Hannes OQ Schneider's The Ski Chase," putting Fanck in a definitely inferior position to the more popularly familiar skier. For those who know something of skiing, there is special pleasure in watching Hannes Schneider, the famous "head-master" of the skiing school on the Arlberg, giving special skiing lessons to Leni Riefenstahl.40 When Schneider first started making films in the early 1920's, it was because Dr. Fanck had convinced him that the notoriety would be good for him. However, by the time production got underway on The White Frenzy some ten years later, Hannes Schneider was no longer in need of any publicity. He was already the best-known skier in Europe, with his fame reaching out as far as Japan. Therefore, Schneider's reason for agreeing to make The White Frenzy probably stemmed from a feeling that it would provide a kind of respite from the pressures of his other activi ties 41 However, some years after its completion, Hannes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3531 Schneider would regret ever having made this picture, partly Decause of his strong anti-Nazi feelings and partly because of the unpleasant relationship that eventually resulted from having worked with Riefenstahl on the film. When The White Frenzy was finally released in America in 1938, the film's appeal was not restricted to the skiing alone, for many knew of Schneider's detainment in Austria by the Nazis. One reviewer found the combination of Schneider, falsely iden tified as Jewish (he was Catholic but had a strong Semitic appearance), and Riefenstahl, "romantically linked with Der Fuehrer,enticing features to the film's release in America. Still, generally, the overall atmosphere during the actual shooting on this film was one of camaraderie. Indeed a general sense of fellowship prevailed on all the Fanck film productions, a situation which undoubtedly re sulted from the "family" atmosphere Fanck encouraged on the set and off. This kind of closeness was almost a necessity especially when the crew and performers were working in re mote locations under inclement conditions. They could rely only on one another to maintain company morale. When they were not shooting, the crew would often gather in one of the mountain cabins to sing, play the guitar and harmonica. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265 and tell stories. Many deep and last friendships developed on thes3 mountain films, some of which still survive today. Fanck formed the Freiburger Berg- und Sportfilm Gesellschaft, his own school of filmmaking, shortly after completing his first few nondramatic productions. A number of excellent filmmakers, including actors, producers, and cameramen, were trained in this school and eventually went on to distinguished careers of their own, many of them undei the direction of Fanck's protege, Leni Riefenstahl. For instance, one of the men who proved to be vital ly important for Riefenstahl on both Triumph of the Will and Olympia was her production manager, Walter Traut, whose acquaintance she first made on the Fanck films. Traut had worked on practically all of these films beginning as far back as The Holy Mountain. On many of the early films Traut was not given screen credit because his duties consisted mainly of carrying equipment to and from the shooting loca tions, occasionally doubling as a skier for one of the less adept actors and generally helping out whenever a need arose. On The White Frenzy, Walter Traut served as assist ant to the producer, Harry Sokal. Eventually he worked his way up to positions of more responsibility on the Fanck crews, ultimately ending up coordinating all production Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 6 problems on Riefenstahl's two massive documentaries. Today Walter Traut is a producer for the German production com pany, Gloria Film, in Munich. Traut's advancement in the Fanck school was fairly typical. The term "school" is used loosely by all who refer to Fanck's film organization. The Freiburger Berg- und Sportfilm Gesellschaft did not provide so much a formal education in the techniques and methods of film production as it did an opportunity for eager young people to learn the craft of filmmaking according to their own initiative and abilities within an atmosphere of encouragement where know ledge was freely shared by all concerned. Most of Fanck's crew came to his attention initially as potential members because of their unique abilities as skiers. They were all healthy, vigorous young men, most of whom were students at the time of their part-time employment on these mountain films. Traut and several of his friends, including Harald Reindl, Riefenstahl's assistant director on Tiefland, were studying to be lawyers at this time. What generally hap pened was that motion picture making becarue so interesting and all-consuming a job that most of these young men gave up school to continue working full-time with Fanck. The skiers who became cameramen within the Fanck Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "2T: organization were a special breed unto themselves. Four of these cameramen— Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst, Albert BenitZj and Hans Schneeberger— matured into outstanding craftsmen who eventually acquired prominent reputations within the overall German film industry. Richard Angst, a Swiss citizen and protege of Sepp Allgeier, was the main cameraman on The White Frenzy and the only one of the four men who did not get along well with Leni Riefenstahl. As a consequence, Angst, unlike the others, did not work directly on any of the films which Riefenstahl directed later on. As for these "others," Sepp Allgeier was the main cameraman on Triumph of the Will; Albert Benitz photographed Tiefland; and Hans Schneeoerger, The Blue Light. Angst had been working on the Fanck films since The Holy Mountain. He became Allgeier's assistant on The Big Jump and, with The White Hell of Pitz Palu, only three years after joining the Fanck crew, he began his career as a full-fledged cameraman. Angst's father was an architect and a very fine painter, a background which undoubtedly affected Angst's aesthetics and visual sense for composition. In fact, the whole golden era of the German film in the 1920's sprang from a fundamental empathy and understanding of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- aesthetics of painting on the whole. For no other nation has the film been a plastic art as it has in Germany. At times too deliberately pictorial, too static but always full of lovely and brilliantly composed scenes (whether it be an ordi nary kitchen or the wide vistas of an epic), their films constantly remind us that their directors were artists. Murnau, Wiene, Karl Grune are painters; Fritz Lang is a painter and an architect too. From this time on nothing was to come amiss to the Ger mans— psychological dramas, epic, mystery, fantasy, romance, naturalism, or fairy story. They were to attempt all these, and attack them as painters. It was as though the Rhenish artists, the early lovers of chiaroscuro, had been reincarnated in these bus inessmen who wanted to give Germany a new art, and who succeeded in doing so for a few years.^4 From the very first moments in The White Frenzy, when the scene of trees in summer match-dissolves into snow laden boughs, one is aware of the cooperativeness between photographer's eye, camera, and the natural surroundings. To paraphrase Bardeche and Brasillach, "this film constantly reminds us that the cameraman is the artist." Even the terminology which Angst used to describe his work as a photographer included some of the same vocabulary an artist might utilize in discussing a painting. One of the reasons the four previously-mentioned cameramen stood out from the others trained in the Fanck school was their ability to handle studio conditions equally as well as location shooting. Each circumstance demanded a different skill, which Angst surprisingly described; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263 The studio situation is a little easier than the location because on location you have only one light— the sun. Or worse, maybe even you have to work with out the sun. And you don't have a set designer like in the studio who says, "That's what you have to show." On location, you have to find the right spot, the right composition. But the interesting part about [working in] the studio was the chance to paint with light. And that's wonderful! You couldn't paint with light on location. But you [still] always had to study the situation to figure how to get the best impres sion . . .45 It was Angst's insistence, even on location, of shaping the photographic image rather than merely recording haphazardly the environment in front of the lens that in spired him continually to search for unique effects created by the interplay of the snow and his single source of light, the sun. For instance, there is this story of an Angst discovery: We were shooting some scenes on the top of Mont Blanc. It was a wonderful time, but stormy. In the summer, the snow on the top is not the same as in winter. It's like glass. The storm picked up lit tle bits of ice from the snow. And while the storm was raging outside, I saw a wonderful impression: the actor fighting against the storm in this light against the sun. The sun was in the picture, but the icy snow made it a little bit soft.46 Angst was intrigued by diffuse lighting and the effective use of backlight, as the following example from The White Frenzy will indicate: One day, thirty minutes before the sun set, I made a shot with the sun against me. The sun was shining Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------- 27g just a little bit over the whole scene. A skier was coming down the hill with a few others follow ing him. He made a little Schuss turn and the snow went up around him like smoke. And in this smoky snow you could see the shadows (silhouettes) of the other skiers. That night we had a talk and I said, "I have a wonderful idea. We must have a big ski race in this film and I want to shoot the whole thing with this backlight.’ ’ It was a sensation in Weisse Rauschl^^ Indeed it was a sensation as Angst rightly declared But it was not just silhouettes and backlighting that causée Fanck and the others to adopt Angst's ideas quickly for a chase in The White Frenzy. This "fox and hounds" hunt afforded the cameramen almost infinite variety in the way they could visualize the event. In one particular instance, the Alps were used especially effectively as an almost blinding backdrop for extreme long shots in which a large group of skiers are seen coming over the top of the precip itous snow banks. It creates much the same emotional ef fect as a scene in which Indians suddenly appear coming over a hill in our Westerns. Or perhaps, the following critic's verbal analogy comes closer to describing the emotional impact of Angst's photography in this instance: . . . the swift band of pursuers, , . . time and again, may be seen in the distance, swarming down the sides of the mountains in a cloud of snowy smoke, looking for all the world like a cluster of Arabs whose horses are kicking up the desert sands. 48 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "Z7I Throughout The White Frenzy, one is most consciously aware of the aesthetic arrangement of blacks and whites in individual compositions: myriads of skiers underexposed to create only silhouettes swooping across the vast expanses of brilliantly-lit snow; the use of sidelighting, captured in early morning or late afternoon, to produce long stretch ing shadows on the white plain; backlighting to bring out the herringbone pattern caused by the impressions left in the virgin snow by the skis of the pursuers on their way up a slope; and shots of only the skiers' disembodied moving shadows against a blanket of white. These striking chiaro scuro effects, mentioned by Bardeche and Brasillach as being so popular with the German artists of the twenties, can be attributed for the most part to Angst's ingenuity, but its success was not lost on Leni Riefenstahl who later, in her own films and especially in Olympia, would use this chiaroscuro technique eloquently herself. If there is one criticism of the German film which absolutely does not apply to these mountain films, it is the denunciation that they were "too static." If anything, the Fanck films sometimes went far in the opposite direc tion, eliciting comments such as this one about The White Frenzy : "There is so much swiftness and movement in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272 film that sometimes you long for a moment's pause to study the landscape.Actually it was "swiftness and movement" in combination with close-ups and unusual camera angles that gave life to The White Frenzy's immature story. All of the cameramen who worked with Fanck, and later with Riefenstahl, believed strongly in the effectiveness of movement on the screen. Their photography proves it and so did their distaste for the sound film which, in most cases, forced the cameramen and directors into static compositions in order to accommodate the spoken dialogue. There are no more obvious examples of a filmmaker's aversion to dialogue than Fanck's The White Frenzy and Riefenstahl's The Blue Light. Both films rely almost totally on the visuals and music to communicate the filmmakers' ideas, and in neither case is dialogue resorted to more than half a dozen times. Richard Angst summed up all of their feelings very simply: "'Movie' means 'Bewegung,' 'movement.' You see, if you have a camera, you must go with the actor. You can't always be still and stationary."^® And the mountain films certainly provided the kind of situations which nourished this philosophy. To Angst it was very important to convey a visual impression to the audience, not from an objective neutral Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273 distance, but from the point of view of the performer. Here again one can see a possible influence on the filmic thought and style of Leni Riefenstahl particularly apparent in the marathon sequence of her documentary, Olympia. It is obvious from the enthusiastic manner in which Angst related the following stories that he derived a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from devising unusual ways of capturing subjective visual images : In Piz Palu we had a scene with these students from Zurich coming into an avalanche. It was my respon sibility to create the impression of how it would ^ to come into an avalanche. So I made a ball out of wood— in two parts— and in the middle I put the cam era. I started the camera and closed it in the ball, and then I dropped this camera 6,000 feet from the top of a mountain. It rolled and turned. It saw snow, then sky, then snow. . . . The same impression as if you experienced it. Of course, there were no reflex cameras in 1931 and the cameras used by Fanck's photographers— usually the atest model of the French DeBrie— did not even have separ ate viewfinders through which the shot could be framed with any degree of accuracy; therefore, the cameramen were faced fith an additional problem. The only way to frame a compo sition and focus the image accurately was to look through a c 2 nagnifying focus tube at the back of the camera. This allowed the photographer to view a dim image through the oase of the film itself. Naturally this necessitated the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TPk use of a black cloth while using the peep hole in order to prevent fogging of the film. It also helped the cameraman, once he had acclimatized his eyes to the darkness, to see the faint image, not an easy feat in the bright, reflective snow-covered environs of the Fanck films. This practice, if it were necessary today, would be impossible with current film stocks because of the presence of the standard antihalation backing. For focusing and f-aming, later models of the DeBrie— like the DeBrie-Parvo "L" used by Riefenstahl on The Blue Light— used a movable ground-glass system operated by the movement of a levet. "This movement automatically moves the film in such a way that it is out of the exposure field." When the lever was brought back to the original position, the camera was ready for shooting. However, during the actual shooting itself, the camera operator still had to view the faint image through the base of the film. Angst explained his solution to the problem of framing and focusing in this way: When you start as a cameraman, you have to have a black cloth, but after one year, your eyes are so used to it you need only two or three seconds of black to be ready to shoot. So, at this time, I always had black goggles. Then I went to the camera, put the goggles down, and I was ready to shoot imme diately. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 It is clear with this explanation that Angst had to find a different method of recording the subjective^ head- on, moving shots of the skiers. "I couldn't look through the camera and ski at the same time ITherefore, when the little Bell and Howell spring-driven cameras were made available, Angst took advantage of their size and portabil ity and strap-mounted one of them on his own skis. With this arrangement he was able to capture some of the most thrilling images in The White Frenzy. You know there were sixty ski racers going down the mountain. And I followed them from behind with the camera on my ski. And then we did the same thing again, only this time, the sixty people followed me with the camera on the back of my ski. . . . It was very dangerous because the camera changed the weight and feeling of the ski. This left foot of mine was broken four ,imes, and my neck six or seven times. That's the difference between studio and lo cation. But during the premiere of this picture, the people went crazy at these scenes!^® The way Angst took the traveling reaction shots o.f Riefenstahl's smiling face provides another interesting example of his inventiveness: As a young boy, I sometimes rode on a carousel. I said to myself, "That's the pointI" So I made a kind of carousel with me in the middle. I had a long piece of wood coming out [from the center] with three men [on the end]. On the other side [opposite the three men] was another long piece of wood with Leni on the end. The men pushed and we all went around with me in the middle and the camera steady. You had the same feeling as if you were Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 27g going straight. The audience didn't know you were really going around.5? Finally Angst tried using the same technique, mount ing the little Bell and Howell on his own skis, to record subjective views of the ski jumps, but it did not work. The weight of even this small camera completely threw him off balance. So I took jumping skis— you know, there are special skis. They are very broad and longer and lighter and more flexible. I tied these skis together and in the middle I made a little tripod for the Bell and Howell. Then, on the top of the jump, I let the skis with the camera go and they went down and jumped more than a hundred and fifty feet! At the bottom we had some straw to break the fall of the camera. . . . Then I shot some close-ups of the jumper on the •» ^ A . • • ■ ■ These close-up shots could then be intercut with the point- of-view jump shot to create what one critic called "an unequalled sense of the swift exhilaration of the sport. Fanck knew how to maintain interest in action sequences like the chase in The White Frenzy by judiciously intercut ting detailed close-ups and reaction shots with glimpses of the flying leaps, dives, skids, and mass pursuits of his champion athletes. Much of The White Frenzy, and especially the "fox and hounds" hunt, was improvised on location by all the participants— director, cameramen, and actors alike. This Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----------------------------------------------- Z T J I kind of film posed problems for Fanck as writer-director that were sometimes very different from the standard situa tion : When you make a normal film in a studio, you do it like you build a house. Everything is done accord ing to a pattern you set up— number one, two, three, four. Then the editor follows the pattern in put ting the film together. But when I make a film I can't use a manuscript in any way because I don't know sitting at my desk what I am going to find out in nature. So, of course, I have to improvise.^0 Since the location dictated an improvised style of shooting on The White Frenzy, Fanck ended up with an enor mous amount of skiing footage which he then had to organize into a coherent, exciting whole. Leni Riefenstahl was at his side during the cutting process and unquestionably formulated some of her own theories about editing at this time and even borrowed ideas from Fanck concerning the physical layout of the editing room itself— a design which she would modify, in setting up her own editing facilities at the Geyer laboratories in Berlin, and later use while organizing the vast amount of footage she had for her docu mentary films. Today Riefenstahl unfortunately claims this idea for the layout of the editing room as entirely her own, giving no credit at all to Fanck. From this time, with Riefenstahl on the verge of making her own first film, up Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 7 8 to the present day, there has been an unpleasant rivalry between the two filmmakers, often resulting in such ungen erously one-sided claims as this one concerning the editing room design. Fanck described his solution to the editing of the skiing footage for The White Frenzy in a letter to the author : I had a cutting room constructed in which I could mount up to 800 scenes against lit ground glass screens (light boxes). Without this I would have hardly been able to manage the organizing of my ski film, "Der Weisse Rausch." For this film I had shot 34,000 meters of ski scenes alone for which I could not have established any sequence in advance. . . . The arrangement of something unified and complete out of such a large amount of material would never have succeeded without my cutting room. Fanck was a much better editor than he was a direc tor. This is acutely apparent in the way the superbly- edited chase sequence for The White Frenzy becomes more of an interruption to the overall filmic structure than it does an integral part of it. As with much of Fanck's mater ial, the chase is a good idea used to no particular end. It was now up to Leni Riefenstahl to take all the technical information that she acquired while working on the Fanck films and turn her skill and knowledge about filmmaking toward more specific goals. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ^Interview with Henry v. Jaworsky, New York, 10 September 1972. ^Leni Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis (Leip zig: Hesse und Becker, 1933), p. 42. ^Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. ^David Stewart Hull, Film in the Third Reich (Berke ley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 14. ^Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. Ibid. 8 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. 10. Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947), p. 260. 11 Ibid. 12 Interview with Sokal. 13 Ibid. 14. interview with Jaworsky. 15_. Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 42. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. ^^Interview with Andrew Marton, Los Angeles, Califor nia, 14 December 1970. 279 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28q 1 Q Interview with Sokal. ^®"The Ski Chase," New York Herald Tribune, 26 March 1 9 3 8 . ^^Interview with Isabel Schlichting, Alicante, Spain, 2 July 1971. ^^David Gunston, "The White Flame," Classics on 9.5 mm, ca. 1959, p. 27. ^^Trude Weiss, "Sonne uber dem Arlberg," Close-Up, March 1932, p. 59. ^^"The White Flame," The Cinema-Booking Guide Sup plement, 5 April 1933, p. 3. ^^Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 257. ^^Interview with Sokal. 27i*Thriiis in the Alps," Daily Telegraph (London), 27 February 1933. ^^"The White Flame," London Sunday Times, 26 Febru ary 1933. ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 67. 30lbid. 31lbid. ^^"The White Flame," The Observer (London), 26 February 1933. 33"Thrills in the Alps," Daily Telegraph. ^^"The White Flame," London Sunday Times. 35"The Ski Chase," New York Times, ca. 26 March 1938. ^^"The Ski Chase," New York Herald Tribune. ^^"The White Flame," The Cinema-Booking Guide Sup plement, p. 3. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ' 2831 ^^"Der Weisse Rausch," Variety (Hollywood), 26 March 1938. ^^"The Ski Chase,” New York Times. ^^Weiss, Close-Up, p. 59. ^^Gerald Fairlie, Flight without Wings (New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1957), p. 193. 42"per Weisse Rausch," Variety. ^Interview with Walter Traut, Munich, Germany, 10 August 1971. ^^Maurice Bardeche and Robert Brasillach, The History of Motion Pictures (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1938), pp. 195-96. ^^Interview with Richard Angst, Berlin, Germany, 10 July 1971. Ibid. ^^"The Ski Chase,” New York Herald Tribune. Weiss, Close-Up, p. 60. Interview with Angst. ^^Ibid. C O "DeBrie Model E," American Cinematographer, Decem ber 1925, p. 25. ^^"DeBrie-Parvo Model L," American Cinematographer, April 1927, p. 4. ^^Interview with Angst. S^ibid. ^^Ibid. 5?lbid. SGlbid. ^^Gunston, Classics on 9.5 mm, p. 29. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Interview with Arnold Fanck, Freiburg, Germany, 23 July 1971. ^^Arnold Fanck to author, 27 April 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C H APTE R X THE BLUE LIGHT The Blue Light (Das Blaue Licht), Leni Riefenstahl's first film as a director, is primarily significant in her career because it is the one which ultimately intrigued Hitler and eventually provided her with the opportunity to make the Nazi documentaries which have insured her lasting notoriety as a filmmaker. What made The Blue Light the captivating film that it became for Hitler were the same qualities which garnered praise for it outside of Germany. The photography was outstanding, the casting superb, and the atmosphere created overwhelmingly involving through the almost imperceptible blending of fantasy elements in a world of reality. Concomitantly important to the technical accomplishments employed by Riefenstahl and her crew in translating the story of The Blue Light to celluloid is the plot of the film itself. It is here that one finds the major difference in this first film of Leni Riefenstahl to the other mountain films in which she participated for Dr. Fanck. And it is essentially, though not exclusively, here 283 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 4 with the plot that one can assume the film elicited such excessive praise from Riefenstahl’s future benefactor, Adolf Hitler. Until relatively recently, Leni Riefenstahl had claimed that the story for The Blue Light was based on a peasant legend of the Alps. In fact, the actual shooting of the film took place both in the Dolomite region of the Sarn Valley just north of Bolzano in South Tyrol where the legend supposedly originated and in the Italian section of Tessin in Switzerland. Assuming that the plot of the film itself was not enough of a clue to suggest unequivocally that the film was based on an authentic legend, Leni Riefen stahl opened her film with the following prologue, ensuring that the audience would not mistake the origin of the story: We, the people of the Dolomites, far from the strife and turmoil of the outside world, dwell primitively in the rugged wilderness and magnificence of the Italian Tyrol. We are a simple peasant folk and strange legends have come down to us through the centuries cast ing shadow on the peace of our lives. Above all do we cherish the legend of Junta, The Mountain Girl, whose story we have reverently en graved for future generations. Several years ago, Leni Riefenstahl changed her mind and began claiming that the plot of The Blue Light was not taken from an old legend, as she had pretended in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----- Zgg past, but that the story was an original idea of her own. When asked recently why she had previously professed the legendary background of the film, Leni Riefenstahl replied: I was afraid. It was my first film. I was afraid if I said it was my own, the critics would say that it's no good. I was lying a little bit. I said the story all came from the Sarntal. But every charac ter, everything that happened [in the film] came from my head. I wrote it like a legend . . . but it was my own idea.l From this, one can assume that Riefenstahl now feels confident enough to admit that she lied about the origin of the story since The Blue Light is now considered her best dramatic fiction film and since it achieved a certain degree of commercial success on its initial release, at least in England and France. One must also keep in mind that at the time Riefenstahl was making The Blue Light in the early 1930's. Hitler was on the verge of taking power and the collecting of folktales and legends was soon to become one of the Nazi's important means of instilling deep-rooted national pride in the German people. The whole nationalistic appeal of The Blue Light will be examined later on in this chapter, but for now suffice it to say that Leni Riefenstahl, who was only just beginning to come under the influence of Hitler during the making of this film, would certainly not at this point have disavowed the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289 the legendary origin of the story in favor of professing it as an original idea. Of course, today it is to her advan tage to make such a claim; however, the truth of the matter lies somewhere else entirely. Leni Riefenstahl actually got the idea for The Blue Light from a novel called Crystal Mountain (Bergkristall) which was published in Basel, Switzerland, in 1930. The book was written by Gustav Renker, a Swiss author who had grown up in Austria. By the 1930's, Renker had published a number of other books, most of which used the mountains extensively as settings for the stories. Dr. Fanck had discovered the Renker novels some years before and the title, though not the story, of one of them. Holy Mountains (Heilige Berge, published in Leipsig in 1921) found its way into the first Fanck picture in which Leni Riefenstahl par ticipated as an actress (Fanck used as the title of The Holy Mountain the singular Der Heilige Berg). So Riefen stahl could have been aware of Renker's work from the very beginning of her career in films. Before detailing the importance of the legend-like qualities of the Renker story which Riefenstahl modified for use in her film. The Blue Light, it is essential first to summarize the plot of the film in order to be able to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. refer to specific story points within the context of the overall film continuity (for a comparison, see the summary of Gustav Renker's novel, Bergkristall in Appendix B). The story takes place in Santa Maria, a picturesque, secluded little village nestled in the Tyrolean Dolomites at the foot of a majestic waterfall, although the estab lishing scenes of Santa Maria with the waterfall in the background were actually long shots taken of the tiny vil lages of Foroglio, Sonlerto, and San Carlo in the Tessin region of Switzerland.^ All other action supposedly taking place in and around Santa Maria was shot in the Brenta- Dolomites of Northern Italy, specifically in Sarentino, the little village inhabited by the local peasants Riefenstahl used in her film. Most other nonspecific locations were found in Val-Bavona with additional meadow scenes taken in the Maggia Valley of Switzerland. And Mt. Crozzon served as Mt. Cristallo, the peak from which the "blue light" emanates in the film.^ The time is the middle of the nineteenth century, about 1866. The main character, played by Leni Riefenstahl, is a semiragged, romantically-wild and mysterious young woman by the name of Junta. The dress which Leni Riefen stahl wore as Junta was itself a study in romantic idealism Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28g which did not fail to impress even Charlie Chaplin, a new acquaintance made by Harry Sokal in St. Moritz where he was spending some time on another film after the release of The Blue Light. Chaplin expressed his delight with the photo graphic style of The Blue Light and particularly with the character of Junta on several occasions,^ but the following story told by Harry Sokal is one of the more interesting ones: I stayed five weeks in St. Moritz with Charlie Chap lin. . . .A very funny thing happened. Shortly after that he made a picture with Paulette Goddard. I think it was City Lights [it was Modern Times]. In this picture, Paulette Goddard plays a gamine, a little girl from the street. Not only was Paulette Goddard a similar type to Leni Riefenstahl, but she was wearing the same kind of rag-dress that Leni Riefenstahl wore in The Blue Light and the same hair do. .. . Chaplin liked Leni Riefenstahl.^ He even told Sokal that besides The Blue Light he liked Leni Riefenstahl's performance in The White Frenzy, a com ment which naturally surprised Sokal since he himself con sidered that film to be one of Riefenstahl's worst.® Junta lives in the verdant pasture land outside of Santa Maria where she tends her flock of sheep with a lad of about ten years of age who appears to be her only friend. Some critics have claimed this young boy to be Junta's little brother, but the film itself provides no specific indication as to any blood relationship between the two. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. She enters the village only rarely because the superstitious peasants consider her to be a witch. They accuse her of luring the young men of Santa Maria to their deaths on Mount Cristallo. Once a month, when the moon is full, a strange blue light radiates from the highest cliff of this mountain. It mesmerizes the young men who then, against any odds, are determined to reach the glow. But Junta is the only one able to conquer these heights safely. For the simple peasants, this is reason enough to fear her and brutally cast her out of the village whenever she approaches. Junta is very shy. But even were she able to over come her timidity, she would still have great difficulty in communicating with the hostile villagers since they cannot help but suspect her of sorcery. Why else would she be the only one to come back alive from Mount Cristallo? The film opens with the arrival in Santa Maria of two strangers who appear to be a newly-married couple on their honeymoon. They are practically overrun by the vil lage children who avidly try to entice them into buying some bits of crystal for which the area is known. One of the first things the couple notices upon entering their room in the simple Gasthaus is the medallion-shaped photo Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — --- Z9T graph of Junta which is framed by small round, brilliant- cut crystals. It is evident that Junta is venerated almost as reverentially as a patron saint might be in this pre- dominantly-Catholic region of Europe. The medallion rests in its place above the word "Historia" on the worn leather cover of a book containing her complete story. A close-up of the medallion slowly dissolves away taking us three-quarters of a century back in time. Junta's photograph melts into a beautifully-com posed shot of shimmeringly clear, natural crystals amidst dark, wet, rough-hewn rocks. A slender hand comes into frame and gently removes one of the perfect crystals. Only now are we permitted to see the living portrait of Junta. As she examines the crystal, we see this beautiful young woman in profile, hauntingly lit by a diffuse backlight created partly by the sun sifting through the mist of the nearby waterfall and subtly aided by additional diffusion ir front of the lens. It might be noted at this point that there is no other film in which Riefenstahl is so adoringly photographed. This is due in no small part to the strong affection that Leni Riefenstahl and her cameraman, Hans Schneeberger, felt for one another at this time. Riefen stahl has often admitted that Schneeberger was the one true Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "251 love of her life, and Schneeberger's photography of her in this film is an enduring tribute to that love. Junta is suddenly startled by a noise. As she turns to look, we see off in the distance a stagecoach vigorously wending its way up the narrow, curving mountain road. Riding inside is Vigo, a young Viennese painter, who has come seeking several days of peace and quiet in this remote village. The stagecoach stops on the outskirts of town where there is a magnificent panorama overlooking Santa Maria, the surrounding valley, and the waterfall. Vigo descends from the coach and speaks to one of the peasants who gives him further directions to the village. Just before leaving this scenic spot, Vigo catches sight of a weather-beaten bas-relief chiseled out of a wall of rock at the side of the road. The crude carving depicts Christ crucified sur rounded by Mary and several other mourning saints. That evening at dusk, after the day's harvest has been brought into the village, several of the old peasant women on their way to church spy Junta furtively slipping into town. She has some berries in a basket which she hesitantly offers to several wizened old peasants who are drinking wine together in the village square. Among them Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292 is Vigo. Just at that moment, a group of children spot the pathetic outcast and seize the opportunity to make fun of her. They mockingly dash past Junta knocking the basket out of her hands. The contents are strewn all over the ground, unfortunately revealing that the basket contained more than just berries. Some of the crystals Junta had gathered by the waterfall that morning now lie accusingly exposed on top of the crushed fruit. A bold fat peasant, obviously the village merchant, picks up one of Junta's gems to examine it. In her anxiety. Junta gathers enough courage to attempt to get her treasure back. She pathetically tries to pull the crystal out of the peasant's swollen hands. Almost immediately she real izes the futility of her efforts. Frightened by the scorn of the other villagers, she abandons her treasure and rushes to the safety of her beloved mountains. Alone in his room that night, Vigo cannot get the image of the mysterious young woman out of his mind. But the noises of the peasants locking their doors and closing their shutters outside his window finally jar him from his reverie. It is the parents' futile attempt to keep their young men who are armed with ladders and ropes from leaving Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. town. There is a weird light from the full moon shining over everything, casting eerie shadows in the wake of the retreating youths. Out of curiosity, Vigo decides to follow the pro cession. By the time he reaches the rock carving outside of town, Vigo has had the chance to observe the blue light at the top of Mount Cristallo. He realizes where the youths are heading and himself decides to return to the village. The breaking of the next day brings with it funer als for those unfortunate climbers who perished on Mount Cristallo the night before. As the bodies are being car ried on stretchers through town, several of the distraught women and one of the men, Tonio, alert the others to the presence of Junta, who they observe standing timidly at the corner of one of the streets. The frightened peasants pur sue her through the village, picking up stones along the way which they hurl at her in hatred. After a desperate chase. Junta is on the verge of being trapped and stoned to death when Vigo intervenes, stopping the leader, Tonio, from following her any farther. Junta, exhausted and almost in shock, still manages to flee across the foot bridge out of town and into the forest. Vigo, now consumingly infatuated by the defenseless Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T5? waif, trails her into the rocky hills beyond the village. When she reaches her cabin. Junta collapses, sobbing in bewilderment at the side of her young companion, the little shepherd boy, who unsuccessfully tries to calm her fears. Soon Vigo approaches the cabin. He enters slowly so as not to frighten the poor hunted creature any more than she already is. He speaks softly to her and though she does not understand his language, she begins to trust this compassionate young stranger. By the time Vigo leaves her cabin that evening, he has befriended the tortured Junta. Though he is physically back in town that night, Vigo's heart and mind are obviously with the innocently- lovely Junta. And it is equally apparent on the next day that Junta's thoughts are far from the idyllic mountain top on which she sits. Soon after, Vigo, who by now has fallen in love with Junta, decides to return to her cabin. He stays with her, painting her portrait and gradually building up her confidence in him. Junta timidly returns Vigo's affection, but she always remains a little distant and spiritually remote from him. Then one night, a month later during the next full Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295 moon, Vigo awakens to discover the fascination that the blue light holds for this strange young woman. Spellbound by the light, she sets out for Mount Cristallo. Unbeknownst to Junta, Vigo follows her agile ascent to the shining peak. En route, he is in turn discovered by Tonio who cannot main tain the pursuit and meets with the same fate as the other unfortunate young men of Santa Maria. Tonio loses his hand hold and tumbles to his death. But Vigo, who has assidu ously traced Junta's path to the top, finds her sitting entranced in the midst of a blindingly bright cave lined with dazzling crystal deposits. It is from this place that each month the beams of the full moon reflect the mysteri ous bluish-white glow radiating from this, the highest peak of Mount Cristallo. Junta is startled by the presence of Vigo, but she trusts him and agrees to climb back down the mountain. Back in her cabin, Vigo explains that he intends to help her by revealing the route of access to the crystal grotto. He feels that once the peasants realize what is causing the light to glow and how valuable a mineral deposit the crys tal cave is, they will no longer fear Junta as a sorceress. If he can show them how to reach this fabulous treasure, he will make her rich and respected. Junta, of course, does Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2^ not understand a word of what he says. The next day, without Junta's knowledge, Vigo guides the peasants to her sacred spot. Now hungry for wealth, they plunder the cave of its riches, leaving only pathetic remnants of the once-brilliantly shining sanctuary. The rock has been chiseled black by the greedy villagers. As the peasants celebrate the most profitable day's work of their lives. Junta sits alone in the mountains, surrounded by mist, forlorn at the disappearance of Vigo. But soon the light of the full moon again beckons to her. She starts to climb the mountain just as Vigo is leaving the festivities in town. He is coming to tell her what he considers to be good news. When Junta reaches her once-secret sanctuary, she is heartbroken at what she sees. For a moment she stands despondently in the midst of her raped retreat. Then having lost her will to go on living, she leaves the spot and starts her descent. On the way down, she deliberately loses her grip and plunges to her death in the valley below. Too late to save the anguished Junta, Vigo discovers her body at the foot of the mountain. A close-up of Junta's beautiful face cradled in the arms of the sorrow-stricken painter slowly dissolves back to her photograph in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----------------------------------------------- 291 the medallion. A hand comes into frame, turns a page in the book, and we read: This was the sad end of poor Junta from Santa Maria. Her memory however continues to live on in the vil lage which has inflicted such terrible injustice on her. For without her such great riches would never have come to it from the wonderful "hell" of Mount Cristallo. The hand closes the book and we see the medallion for the last time. The honeymooning couple walk slowly to the window of their room and gaze in wonder at the water fall just outside. Only a mist reaches the earth at the bottom of the mountain about which they have just finished reading. To explain the lack of verbal understanding between Junta and Vigo, it should be understood that this section of the South Tyrol has been on a political-geographical seesaw of domination between Italy and Austria in much the same way that Alsace-Lorraine has been aggressively bar tered back and forth between France and Germany. During World War I, Austria lost the South Tyrol to Italy. It was against the background of this conflict that Riefenstahl was to have played a spy in the ill-fated Black Cat project. And it was this same fighting over the Tyrol during World War I that continued to serve as the basis of Trenker's transformed script for The Doomed Battalion. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -Z99 Though Hitler wanted to reacquire this section of the Tyrol, he also needed the support of Mussolini, so the South Tyrol remained geographically part of Italy, as it has to this day. However, the older people living in this area continued to speak a dialect of German even though their children were responsible for learning both languages and each of the villages were required to display Italian names corresponding with the original German. The Blue Light begins and ends with a framing story which takes place in the Italian Tyrol of the early 1930's; therefore it would be reasonable to expect most of the vil lagers to be at least partially bilingual. However, the body of the film is a flashback to the nineteenth century recounting the tale of Junta. At this time, though most of the villages in the South Tyrol were Austrian, a few were exclusively Italian and had always been so. Since the villages scattered throughout the area were usually isolated by the mountains, it was perfectly natural to find the inhabitants of one hamlet speaking only German while the residents of another spoke only Italian. This is the situ ation in which we find the story of The Blue Light unfolding The peasants living in Santa Maria as well as Junta, an outcast and possibly an orphan from the village, speak Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "279 Italian exclusively. Vigo, coining from a large Austrian city, speaks solely German; therefore, he is able to com municate verbally only with the innkeeper in Santa Maria, who is unusual in that he speaks a little bit of German. This highly-fanciful story, so well-suited to its setting, is imbued with the spirit and traditions of German Romanticism. Riefenstahl's expressed intent in making The Blue Light was to educate its audiences in the ways of another, more desirable era by replacing the barren realism of a society engulfed in technological speed and unrest with the peace and tranquillity of a world not yet com pletely lost.7 . . . Today— as well as then— I must disappoint all those who want to see this movie merely as enter tainment [italics mine]. It was not made for the moment to be forgotten tomorrow. . . . It is meant for those who still know "how to see."® This film is against every kind of sensationalism. And it does not exploit sex. No, I want the people to be influenced by the beauty and through the calm ness of the film so that they feel [Riefenstahl's emphasis] something— so that the film gives them something.9 Incurable romantic that she is, Leni Riefenstahl lived, and still does live, in a fantasy world all her own. With a childlike fascination which she has never outgrown, she believes in the unreal idealism expressed by Junta in this film. Even the photographic atmosphere in The Blue Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 0 Light under Riefenstahl's influence takes on the aspect of an idyll or "the world as it ought to be," very much in contrast to the Fanck films which were supposed to portray "the world as it is." In the light of what has happened to her career since the war, Leni Riefenstahl often wistfully looks back on the character of Junta, seeing in her a premonition of what was going to take place later in her own life. She is fond of referring to a comment written by a British author not long after the highly-publicized cancellation of her appearance at the British Film Institute in 1960 and the labor unions' rejection of her bid to do a remake of The Blue Light in England during the same year. I side with the idealist whose ideal carries him to the top . . . The articles in the Beaverbrook press, the Socialist questions in Parliament, were as the stones that drove Junta from the village. I believe that we must still seek the blue light even though others will extinguish it.^® In fact there is more than just a passing, isolated similarity between Riefenstahl's life and the character and experiences of the intuitive mountain girl. They both live for one ideal. For Junta, it is her beautiful crystalline retreat; for Riefenstahl, it is her art. When the grotto is looted by practical and mercenary men. Junta's "very soul is taken away. All she has to look forward to is gone. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------îîni There is no reason to go on living. Riefenstahl too feels that her soul has been taken away from her because practical, mercenary, and unsympathet ic men have not allowed her to continue to exercise her talent. Naïvely she continues to profess belief that she has done no wrong. Her only goal in life has been to strive to climb to the peak of perfection in her art. But unlike Junta, Riefenstahl will not easily give up her life even though she has constantly been frustrated for some thirty years by the emptiness of a life denied its expected attain ments. Riefenstahl goes on fighting because she never loses hope. Her ideals and talent once carried her to the top, but her all-consuming ambition allowed them to be contami nated and abused by a man in whom she and so many others unconditionally and unquestioningly believed. Much of what might have been a source of pride in a balanced German soci ety was ingeniously transformed by Hitler and the Nazis to serve their own purposes. The usual result was a perver sion of the original intent. The whole Ubermensch idea of Nietzsche is a good example. This is not to imply that all of Riefenstahl's films are in the same category as Nietzsche's work. They are decidedly not and will not be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3o: considered as such, but there is an approximation of the situation in the appeal that The Blue Light held for Hitler. In this case. Hitler chose not to exploit the product of her creativity, but rather the potential talent of the cre ator herself. Hitler did not exploit The Blue Light in Germany, but through this film he recognized Riefenstahl's value to him as a filmmaker. After all, many of the ideas in The Blue Light weie very close to the Nazi's "Blood and Soil" Weltanschauung. He saw that he could use her talents and ambition well to further his cause and his own image. But instead of promoting this first film of hers (the rea sons why will be discussed shortly), he commissioned her to make his own dramatic fantasy at Nuremberg appear as real and involving on film as Junta's world appeared in The Blue Light. An offer of collusion such as this would no doubt have been rejected by Nietzsche had he been alive during the Third Reich, just as similar offers were turned down by others who were more politically astute, less ambitious, and less willing to become a tool of Hitler than Riefen stahl was. A great part of Hitler's fascination for The Blue Light probably stemmed from the nationalistic qualities found in its romantic folk-tale background. During Hitler's Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303 reign, "the study of folklore was raised to a special place 12 of honor," but promotion of the nationalistic aspects of folk tales had been started many years before. During Christmas of 1812, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published a vol ume which in English came to be known as the Grimm's Fairy Tales (Kinder- und Hausmaerchen). It was a concerted effort on -the part of both brothers to ally themselves with the preservation of a cultural tradition established by such Romantics as Tieck, Novalis, the Schlegel brothers. Herder, Fichte, and Schelling, among others. The novelty of the Grimms' approach lay in "the principle of obtaining tales directly from the lips of storytellers, and seeking in 13 print other tales secured in a similar way." This led quite naturally to the recording of the narratives of illit erate peasants through which the Grimms hoped "to unlock the poetry and experiences of the German people . . Following in the steps of many of the German Roman tics, the Grimms believed that the culture of a people was tied directly to their genetic and environmental growth as a nation, and it was the hope that these folk tales would be an accurate indication of the "Germanic national soul which had its beginnings in the Middle Ages."^^ The Middle Ages was a significant period in German history, particularly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 553 appealing to Hitler as an era which the Twentieth Century might do well to emulate. One of the reasons he chose Nuremberg for the yearly Nazi Party Rallies was because among cities in Germany it was considered the jewel of the Middle Ages. This concept of nationalism found unadulter ated in the stories of the Volk was not lost on the Nazis, nor was it lost on Riefenstahl, who continued to claim throughout the thirties and forties that The Blue Light was based on a legend told to her by some peasants she encoun tered while walking alone in the mountains. There was also an attempt made to link politics and art, a notion which found its source in Langbehn's Kunst- politik. Here the idea was that art could ennoble and excuse politics while politics would encourage and produce art and "both were to inspire and perpetuate a moral reform of Germany.But what was it that provided the tangible link between the two? It was the Volk, "that mythical repository of character and strength of which every con- 1 7 servative German dreamed." To Herder and Langbehn, "Great art could spring only from the Volk, from an organic commu nity, from a specially cultivated nativist soil. Without 18 this earthy sustenance, the artist would perish." This idea is the precursor to the Nazi's "Blood and Soil" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305 Weltanschauung mentioned earlier. But how did the peasant fit into the picture? The peasant was considered to be; The best, the truly authentic German . . . He was the Volk incarnate; his virtues, his virility, had once constituted the strength of the people. . . . The peasant stood for all that remained un polluted in society, for all that remained fixed and rooted, and his greatest political virtue was his cheerful subservience— a quality rarely encountered among "modern" Germans. It even got to the point during the nineteenth cen tury that "everything could be explained and, if need be, excused by appealing to the newly discovered mystically 2Û creative forces of the folk." The political usefulness of such a concept is obvious, so it is not at all surpris ing to find the Nazi doctrines distorting and extending this notion of the Volk for its own purposes. It also makes sense then that the Nazis would promote the study of the stories of the Volk, only this time special emphasis was placed on tales that would do the Nazi cause the most good. This meant those tales involving cruelty and violence which had previously been expurgated during the Weimar Republic from most collections. It is true that cruelty and violence are found in the fairy tales of most countries, but in the Nazi collections the stress was on "the idealization of fighting, glorification of power, reckless courage, theft. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30^ 2 1 brigandage, and militarism reinforced with mysticism." The Blue Light, though it has many characteristics of German nationalism which Hitler undoubtedly was aware of, simply did not contain enough of the "right" kind of emphasis to make it politically worthy of special theatri cal exploitation by him when he came to power. It was too innocuous a story, but the spirit of nationalism was there, and Hitler saw how effectively Riefenstahl had captured her romantic legend in concrete images. The right tendencies were there and so was the talent, but the subject matter was not quite suitable for his extreme objectives. This is not meant to imply that Riefenstahl con sciously tried to fill her legend with material which might possibly be considered politically propagandistic. Even though she did mean to contrast an intuitive, romantic existence inseparable from Nature with a less-appealing more-civilized urban existence, as well as pointing up "the 22 mystical cult of a nature-mountain world," these facts reveal Riefenstahl more as a product of her times, a child of her culture, than they demonstrate political awareness on her part. To consider Leni Riefenstahl a politically aware individual is patently absurd, but it is equally senseless to attempt, as she has done in the recent past. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3ÔH to separate the political appeal of The Blue Light for Hitler from its aesthetic appeal for him. She asks in a letter sent to Kevin Brownlow, What do mysticism and romanticism have to do with Nazism? . . . Isn't Homer's Iliad full of mysti cism? How many other works of world literature could also be enumerated?23 What Riefenstahl fails to realize is that mysticism and romanticism in Germany were integral parts of a move ment to reawaken the national consciousness. And Nazism was the result of this renewed interest in nationalism through the German Romantic movement which flowered again after World War I. The reason for the return to Romanti cism at this time was quite simple. Romanticism was the most singularly German of all the literary movements. And its rejuvenation was . . . the natural reaction to the spirit of inter nationalism and pacifism fostered by the lost war and represented by the extravagant claims of the Jewish authors of Expressionism to turn literature into socialist and pacifist propaganda. This return to Romanticism after World War I was almost an exact repetition of what took place in Germany one hundred years before. With Novalis and several others at the head of the movement, the German Romantici:- î at that time "turned against the foreign elements in German culture represented by certain aspects of the European Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3# movement of Rationalism . . .”25 They condemned the En lightenment for its reliance on reason, logic, and thought, and for its encouragement of international standards which were contaminating and diluting purely German customs. One must also remember that the early part of the nineteenth century was a time when France's conquests had made it the most powerful and influential country in Europe. In this atmosphere, even the intellectuals in Germany began to seek avenues that would help them substantiate for their people a wholly Teutonic heritage. Then, over a century later. Hitler became the culmination of these efforts when he elaborated on the same Romantic arguments which had been expounded after the Enlightenment and reiterated after the First World War. But how did the folk tale fit into German Romanti cism? How did the Grimms further the movement, Riefenstahl reflect it, and Hitler use it? The first volume of the Grimm's Fairy Tales, pub lished in 1812, proved itself to be "the masterpiece for which the whole Romantic movement had been waiting. . . . As a group the Romantics profoundly venerated folk poetry and especially the fairy tale."^^ The Grimms provided the Romanticists, who were mostly creative people, with the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20^ scholarship and historical research their movement lacked for intellectual credibility. With the same fervor as the Romantics, the Grimm brothers argued for . . . the claims of imagination, of emotion and feeling, of individualism, and above all for a synthetic expression of the national genius in its manifold aspects of literature and art, of religion and philosophy.27 For the Romantics, the folk tale not only satisfied all these conditions, but because it was unquestionably the "literature of the common people," it was considered to be 28 "truly national and hence superior." It was Wilhelm Grimn, himself who proclaimed: "Only folk poetry is perfect. God himself wrote it as he did the ten commandments; it was not 29 pieced together like the mere work of man." Because they believed the folk tale of the peasant to be thus divinely inspired and since it had stood the test of time, the Grimms and their disciples went even further with their notions about the value of the folk tale They began to believe that folk tradition should also serve as the basis for the laws of the land: For true law could only be customary law rooted in the remote past, the living record of the aspira tion of untold generations. He [Jacob Grimm] and his followers had nothing but contempt for law codified according to new-found modern principles. And since natural law was founded on reason it, too, was suspect.20 (Italics my own.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -----------------------------------------------------------------3iq Even though the Romantic movement started out apol- itically, it eventually ended up in Germany, as in no other country, by changing both political and social concepts. Romanticism set out as "an aesthetic revolution" which began in poetry, but German Romanticism did not end there. It became "an interpretation of life, nature and history and this philosophic character distinguished it from roman ticism in other lands. The past and especially the Middle Ages, which was disdained by others, provided the German Romantics with . . . the wonderland they could not discover in the present. Repelled by the contemporary world, they sought inspiration in history. Time and time again, they confused poetry with history and poli tics. The German Romantics even began to live in the past or at least they came "so completely under the spell of its poetry, its legends, and its prophecies that they could not gaze upon it with rational detachment.But why should they want to look on the past with "rational detachment"? It was just this logical objectivity encouraged by Ration alism that they were fighting against. The form of romanticism which emphasized folk tra ditions, customs, literature, and language was "an impor tant factor in the historical evolution of modern Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 311 nationalism,which ultimately ended up in the politics of Adolf Hitler. Here then is at least a partial answer to Riefenstahl's question about what romanticism has to do with Nazism. And it should also indicate how Romanticism in Germany differed in influence from the movement in other countries. As previously mentioned, the romantic artist scornec the world of thought and logic in favor of a life devoted to the obedience and development of his inner feelings and emotions. The romantic longed for the wondrous, the mirac ulous, which could never be satisfied through reason. The more passionate man was, the more complete ly he lived. Passion was the prerogative of the artist, the poet, or the seer who obey his impul ses.35 If ever a definition described Leni Riefenstahl, the artist, this one does. The word "passion" so frequently creeps into her conversation and writing that one senses it has become almost a religion to her, excusing the consequences of any act taken in the pursuit of imagination and art. The romantic always considered himself a unique individual who "demanded complete freedom, in life and in work, for his creative g e n i u s ."3® The rules and regula tions of society which imposed limitations on individuals Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 1 2 for the good of their fellow men required respect from everyone else— not the romantic. No, the romantic felt he was a rare being who deserved unqualified liberty. It is not assuming too much to say that Leni Riefenstahl consid ered herself unique in precisely this way. And it just so happened that Hitler came along at the right time to pro vide her with the freedom she felt her genius required. Never mind what his politics were, she and her art were beyond all that. Yes, she agreed with some of what Hitler professed, but those policies with which she disagreed were not considerations about which an artist could be con cerned. The issue was not the politics of the individual who could guarantee her artistic freedom. The point was that Hitler was able and willing to provide her with an unprecedented opportunity to fulfill her destiny as a crea tive person. The idea that political concerns of other individuals are outside the domain of the creative artist is not new and is still being debated today. But in Riefen stahl 's case, her talent was about to be used directly by Hitler to exploit political persons and political ideas. The fact that Riefenstahl was naively disinterested in some of Hitler's policies and herself became involved mainly as a result of her own creative ambitiousness and because Hitler Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------------------------------------313 flattered her, does not excuse her actions but it does par tially explain how she became entangled in Hitler's propa ganda machine and why she accepted his offers to make the Nuremberg films. Besides, the romantic individual somehow felt that "all the conflicting opposites of life” would eventually be reconciled anyway. Harmony would prevail in a perfect society where everyone would be united "in an organic way . . . everybody would be fully himself and yet also fully 07 part of the whole without conflict or friction." How this harmony was to be achieved was another matter entire ly, but the theme of conflicting elements in society, past and present, was particularly dear to the romantics and no less to Leni Riefenstahl. Most of the films Riefenstahl directed, or had planned to direct, center around momentous thematic con flicts; some explicitly stated, others only implied. By way of example, in the two unfinished projects which came closest to production— Die Roten Teufel (The Red Devils) and Kleist's tragedy, Penthesilea— the theme was the battle of the sexes. In the film she was supposed to have done with Jean Cocteau, the title itself indicates the conflict of the story which pivots around the stormy relationship Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 314 between Friedrich und Voltaire (Frederick the Great and Voltaire) just as Sol y Sombra (Sun and Shadow— when used in combination, these terms in Spanish are closely associ ated with the bullfight arena), another unfinished project started in Spain during the fifties, indicates filmic conflict in its very title. Of the films that Riefenstahl did complete, the theme of Tiefland (Lowland), as planned by her, stands out. Here the main thesis cen tered on the contrast between land made fertile by water which has been artificially diverted from land now impov erished by its being denied access to the same water that once naturally irrigated its soil. In Olympia, the focal point is man's agonizing struggle to overcome his own physical limitations. And, of course, in all the documen taries, there is a constant ebb and flow in tension created, not only by the content of the films, but equally as well by the stylistic elements. A scene displaying a great deal of emotion is often followed by a tranquil moment and visual tension is frequently played in counterpoint to the musical accompaniment. There is no doubt that Leni Riefenstahl's feeling for the effective use of contrasts came from her talent and experience as a dancer. One will recall that many of the critical notices throughout her short dance Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------ 319 career made special mention of her eloquent ability to play contrasting movements off of one another. One moment her movements were strong and powerful; the next, soft and lyrical. She sensed perfectly well when to change the pace of the dance for maximum effectiveness, just as she almost infallibly perceived the importance of the same kind of changes later on in her films, especially in the documen taries . But what about the conflicting forces apparent in The Blue Light? As stated previously, Leni Riefenstahl consciously made an effort in this film to convey a feel ing and by so doing to inspire a similar kind of experience in the audience. Some critics, with reason, have claimed that the main confrontation in the film occurs between sacred Nature and profane civilization. Unreasonably, many of these same critics then concluded that the film is a representative piece of Fascist dogma, when in reality it is more representative of the post-World War I Romantic movement in Germany which was only later on twisted to fit Fascistic doctrines. Again, this is not to say that The Blue Light would not appeal to the Fascist mentality, but rather that its intent was more romantic than fascistic in nature. The important word here is "intent,” and it is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------------— ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------O T precisely with this concept that the major disagreement between this author those critics is focused. There is a fine distinction which must be made between "appeal" and "intent." Leni Riefenstahl intended to make a romantic film which would appeal to all people on an experiential level. It just so happened that the film and the ideas con tained therein also appealed to some who actively espoused the tenets of National Socialism. So far as the living artist is concerned, a different moral situation arises relating to the intent and the appeal of a creative work when that work is exploited by another person or group for a purpose contrary to the intentions of the artist. But this situation is clearly not applicable in the case of The Blue Light. The commercial exploitation of this film did not in any way distort the romantic intent of Leni Riefen stahl. However, ethical judgments concerning Leni Riefen stahl, the artist, are definitely operative in the cases of the political documentaries and Olympia, all of which were exploited supposedly contrary to her expressed motivations in making the films. Siegfried Kracauer, one of those critics who wrongly implicates Leni Riefenstahl at this stage of her career in a conscious promotion of fascistic ideas, nevertheless Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3T71 provides some perceptive analysis of the significant role played by Nature in The Blue Light; Beautiful outdoor shots stress the insoluble ticS between primitive people and their natural surround ings. The statues of saints are carved in a rock by the road; the mute Dolomites partake of the life in the village. Close-ups of genuine peasant faces thread through the whole of the film; these faces resemble landscapes molded by nature itself, and in rendering them, the camera achieves a fascinating study in facial folklore. While the peasants are merely related to the soil. Junta is a true incar nation of elemental powers, strikingly confirmed as such by the circumstances of her death. She dies when sober reasoning has explained, and thus de stroyed, the legend of the blue light. . . . This mountain girl conforms to a political regime which relies on intuition, worships nature and cultivates myths. To be sure, at the end the village rejoices in its fortune and the myth seems defeated, but this rational solution is treated in such a summary way that it enhances rather than reduces Junta's significance. What remains is nostalgia for her realm and sadness over a disenchanted world in which the miraculous becomes merchandise.^® Kracauer touches on a number of thought-provoking points in this statement, not the least of which is his comment: "this mountain girl conforms to a political regime which relies on intuition, worships nature and cultivates myths." Indeed, Junta is well portrayed by all the quali ties which Kracauer attributes to her in this statement and had the Nazi regime deemed it valuable to use this film in the advancement of its cause, these qualities in the char acter of Junta would certainly not have contradicted Nazi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3T81 philosophy. But as indicated previously. The Blue Light was probably considered too temperate and gentle a film to warrant special promotion. The observation which is impor tant to reiterate here is that some precepts of National Socialist philosophy overlapped ideals of German Romanti cism; therefore, at this stage in Leni Riefenstahl's career it is essential to determine which influence made the strongest impression on her. It is the contention of this author that until the completion of The Blue Light Leni Riefenstahl was more strongly affected by romantic fervor and that only after the release of this film was her purely artistic intuition somewhat influenced by a newly-acquired political persuasion— not a very difficult modification to effect considering the similarities between the two philos ophies . Political influence on Leni Riefenstahl and her work can be reasonably established after the completion of The Blue Light in 1932. Before this date, there is no specific indication in anything Leni Riefenstahl said or did to suggest that she was interested in anything beyond her own professional development as a romantic artist. However, after the completion of The Blue Light, several incidents occurred which lead one to believe that the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------------------------------------------- 3T9I influence of Adolf Hitler was initiated at this time rather than earlier. Leni Riefenstahl started to read Hitler's Mein Kampf shortly before the release of The Blue Light. And it was under the influence of this book that she grew deter mined to meet its author. A brief time later, before com mencing work on her last film for Dr. Fanck, S.O.S. Iceberg, Leni Riefenstahl met Adolf Hitler for the first time. Soon after this meeting, during her participation on S.O.S. Iceberg, fellow crew members began to notice her unusual preoccupation with the man, Adolf Hitler. In Kracauer's interpretation concerning the signifi cance of the peasants in The Blue Light, he is particularly discerning. Since the German Romantic revered peasants with such great enthusiasm and often promoted the kind of freedom and individuality "found in the proud but simple life of mountain dwellers,it is not surprising to find the romantic Leni Riefenstahl attracted to a story which encompasses these elements. One will also recall that the German Romantics hoped to discover their authentic Teutonic heritage through the tales of the Volk. The situation set up in The Blue Light falls nicely into this category since the bulk of the film involves the tale of Junta as recorded Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — — -------------------------------------------------------n q fer posterity by the peasants of Santa Maria. Even more important/ though, is the real-life origin of the peasants Leni Riefenstahl found in Sarentino and used in the film. She proudly relates: "We are told these farmers are the direct descendants of the West Gothic tribes.Since these peoples were considered to be the original Aryans, their participation became all the more valuable. Each one of these peasants is a visually unique and intriguing individual and, as Kracauer observed, "these faces resemble landscapes molded by nature itself." It is the photographic emphasis on the rugged features of these peasants that inextricably ties them to their mountain environment. Unlike the people in Fanck's films, these peasants do not fight the scenic backdrop of their story for the audience's attention; rather the more striking impression is their remarkable compatibility with their surroundings. This quality of the insoluble wedding of people to environment— or Volk to Nature— was commented on by a number of critics, exemplified in the following: . . . their [the peasants'] faces are a part of the landscape and are as important to this film as the face-scapes of THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC.'^^ The types picked . . . with their close resemblance to Rembrandt's old men and women and their odd, remote mannerisms, seem to spring from the very crags they tread. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 3 ^ The village appeared to blend with all aspects of the past and present; time itself seemed petrified as the mute figures carved from rock; the faces of peasants appeared out of archaic time, touched by a stoic dignity.43 It is even possible to go one step further and say that the physiognomy of the Sarentino villagers often appears to be carved out of stone itself rather than flesh, so craggy, gaunt, and crudely-etched are the features in their faces. Before leaving this initial discussion of the peas ants, it might be well to note that Leni Riefenstahl has always worked best and most compatibly with simple, unso phisticated people. Walter Traut, a long-time friend of hers and production manager on The Blue Light, had this to say; The inventor of nature-as-the-main-actor is Fanck. But Leni did it better. She integrated the story with the actors. She's not too good a director of real actors, but she found the best types [Traut*s emphasis] and could work with them. She didn't need good actors for the stories she told. I believe she couldn't have worked with good actors because they have ideas, too.44 Leni Riefenstahl's method of working with her crew on The Blue Light and with the Sarentino villagers is dis cussed in detail shortly, but for the moment it is essentia] to note that Leni Riefenstahl felt an obligation to partici pate and oversee every single aspect of the filmmaking Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 2 3 process on the projects she directed. Nothing was done without her request or approval. One of the reasons, as Traut suggests, that Riefenstahl had difficulty working with some trained actors is the clash of opinion that occa sionally occurred over an interpretation of a role or its implementation. On the other hand, the non-actor generally has no experience or opinions about his part in a film and consequently must rely almost totally on the judgment and instructions of the director. Leni Riefenstahl, not being an intellectual herself, relies heavily on her own intuition about people and situa tions. It makes good sense then that she would get along best with people who similarly live by instinct and feeling. In both of the dramatic films she completed, Leni Riefen stahl chose to work with the same South Tyrolean villagers, not only because they were an interesting people visually but because she found it uncomplicated working with them. They sensed quickly and easily what she wanted from them and tney unquestioningly did what she asked. One of Riefenstahl's set designers observed recently that Riefenstahl is most happy when working with intuitive and beautiful— that is, photographically intriguing— people;an observation which readily takes into account 45 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------- 3 ^ her preference for working with the Tyrolean peasants, as well as her fascination for the Olympic athletes. It also helps to clarify Riefenstahl’s current interest in the Nuba, a physically-handsome primitive African tribe, about whom she has recently published a book entitled The Last of the Nuba (Harper & Row, New York, 1974), and is currently com pleting a documentary film. In her portraits of all these simple people, Riefen stahl has been successful in bringing out their strength and dignity as human beings by reason of their closeness to the elements. Her own characterization of Junta is an attempt to reveal the noble qualities of this mountain girl whose reliance on nature not only satisfies her physical needs but emotional and psychological ones, too. Riefen stahl 's portrait of Junta even goes beyond the familiar depiction of the symbiotic relationship between peasant and nature. In Kracauer's words: While the peasants are merely related to the soil, Junta is a true incarnation of elemental powers, strikingly confirmed as such by the circumstances of her death. It would be difficult to refute this interpretation, but there is more to it than this statement suggests. There is no denying the importance of Junta’s unity with the forces of nature, but that unity is not supernatural Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ~3l^ in quality. Junta is not a witch with supernatural powers as the villagers believe. Their fear and brutal treatment of her stem from their own superstitious natures and their erroneous conclusions about what they considered to be her unnatural abilities. Riefenstahl was quite familiar with these kinds of belief among the mountain people and in at least one case displayed a touch of superstitiousness her self. One will recall that during the making of The Holy Mountain, when Riefenstahl was badly burned by a torch, she sought out an old peasant woman who was supposedly super- naturally endowed with the power to cure such wounds simply by blowing on them. To this day, Leni Riefenstahl gives credit to this old country woman for the remarkable recovery she made after submitting herself to her ritualistic treat ments . But the situation of Junta is different. Her rela tionship with nature is extraordinary, but she possesses no supernatural powers. Vfhat happens to her environment, whether as a result of man's greed or purely as natural phenomena, directly affects Junta's psychological state of mind and her outlook on life. But the salient feature, and the one which Riefenstahl herself sees as the main theme of the film, is the confrontation between poetic fantasy and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325 prosaic reality. It is a conflict between the naked world of reality in which Vigo and the peasants live and the world of dreams-within-reality where Junta exists. Riefenstahl could well have been saying that dull reality can be improved immeasurably by fantasy. Not a fantasy which relies on the supernatural, but one which is enriched by the imagination. Unfortunately Junta is not intelligent nor sophisti cated enough to interpret her fantasies for what they are, and it is this inability coupled with her failure to under stand the harshness of reality, that brings about her despondency and ultimately her death. The feeling one has at the end of the film is indeed "nostalgia for her realm and sadness over a disenchanted world in which the miraculous becomes merchandise," as Kracauer states. But Kracauer's interpretation of the final impression left by the film contains criticism based on the premise that the reasonable actions in the film, such as the mining of the crystal cave, have been merely passed over. On the contrary, there is more evidence to uphold the view that Riefenstahl, instead of trying singularly to denounce "profane, plain reason,was attempting to pro mote imagination as an added enriching element of life Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323 which can be destroyed by the leveling effect of reason alone. The peasants enriched themselves materially but, at the same time, it is obvious that they were impoverished spiritually by comparison to Junta. And they never cane to realize this fact. The semisuperstitious motivation that inspired them to enshrine Junta as a kind of patron saint in their village came not from belated, posthumous understanding of the mountain girl, but from a logical, one- tracked reasoning which can be witnessed in the film's epilogue. Here the audience, like the honeymooning couple, is given a chance to perceive one facet of the character of these villagers. In effect what they are admitting in the epilogue is: "We're sorry we treated Junta so badly because if it veren't for her we wouldn't be so prosperous today." On the other hand, though Junta herself was not materially wealthy, she did not abandon her difficult cir cumstances and give herself over completely to her fantasy world. In fact, she lived much of her life in a very real world. She tended her sheep, fed and clothed herself, and lived compatibly with another human being, the little shep herd boy. Despite her shyness, she made several efforts to communicate with the villagers, but tliese attempts were frustrated precisely because the peasants, not Junta, had Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------- TZl had relinquished their reason in favor of superstitious notions about the mountain girl and her activities. Junta, even more than the villagers, was forced to live an exist ence intimately tied up with survival. And survive she did, almost completely alone, through the harshest reality. Only when the one thing in her life was destroyed, which provided some inspiration beyond merest survival, did she feel the struggle to exist no longer worth the effort. It would have done Leni Riefenstahl little good to work exclusively in the realm of magic or the supernatural in The Blue Light- as some critics have claimed, because by so doing she would have divorced her film automatically from the real world. Instead, she used reality in order effectively to insert fantasy elements which appear at first mysterious and intriguing. Later on, however, these same fantasy elements are proven to be explainable by natural causes and become vital to the actual existence of the individuals concerned, since they elicit divers re sponses revealing each person's code of values. For instance, the grotto became a catalyst for the revelation of character in everyone who came in contact with it. Vigo's practical nature was exposed by his behavior follow ing his ascent to the crystal cave, just as the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 2 8 avariciousness of the peasants and the idealism of Junta were brought out by the same encounters. The initial impression of the "blue light" as an unexplainable, supernatural phenomenon Is dispelled by the film's end. Ultimately nothing relies for explanation on the supernatural. It is in this area that one can distin guish The Blue Light from the ordinary fairy tale or Marchen. This film has more of the qualities of the legend or Sage which emphasizes local customs and reality rather than the other-worldliness of magic forests, supernatural helpers, and "evil powers beyond the boundaries of man's universe. Most folklorists admit that the characteristics of the fairy tale and legend generally speaking "merge and blend into each other,but an important fundamental dis tinction still remains; "the magic tale expresses the escape from reality, and the legend faces the facts of reality. One hundred years before the intensification of German nationalism which spawned National Socialism, Jacob Grimm delineated the virtues of the legend from those of the fairy tale: The fairy tale (MSrchen) is with good reason dis tinguished from the legend, though by turns they play into one another. Looser, less fettered than legend, the fairy-tale lacks that local habitation. „50 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7Z9 which hampers the legend, but makes it the more homelike. The fairy-tale flies, the legend walks, knocks at your door; the one can draw freely out of the fullness of poetry, the other has almost the authority of history. As the fairy-tale stands re lated to the legend, so does the legend to his^çry, and [we may add] so does history to real life. It is apparent from a study of Leni Riefenstahl's background that she would not completely or consciously abandon the use of poetry in anything that she creates. Therefore, it makes sense that her selection of a story for The Blue Light would contain some fantasy elements which would allow her the opportunity of developing the poetic sensitivity and imagination of at least one of the charac ters— which in most of her films was the character she her self played. For example, in the two dramatic films which she completed she played the idealistic leading roles : Junta in The Blue Light and Marta in Tiefland. Even in a number of the unfinished projects, Riefenstahl had planned to act in the same kind of roles. She was to have played the spy in Mademoiselle Docteur, the Queen of the Amazons in Penthesilea, and the lead in Black Cargo, a film on modern-day slave trade. The sensitivity and imagination in Junta are made to appear even more desirable when they are seen in contrast to the superstitiousness of the vil lagers . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33Ô| The advantage of Riefenstahl's using the legend format should also be evident. Jacob Grimm defined only a few of the characteristics and benefits of the legend. The folklorist, Linda Degh, enumerates several other aspects which relate to important qualities found in Riefenstahl's The Blue Light; . . . one must agree with Leopold Schmidt who feels the legend has only content and no fixed form at all and depends on the nature of the message it communicates. The reason for telling a legend is basically not to entertain but to educate people, to inform them about an important fact, to arm them against danger within their own cultural en vironment. . . . Unlike the tale centering on a glorious hero who seeks adventures, the legend deals with experiences an ordinary man has to face passively. The tale-hero rises above the events he stimulates, the man in the legend remains help less before the events he encounters. The legend happening starts without warning in man's own famil iar environs and neither removes him from them nor changes his life conditions. The legend stops as abruptly as it begins. . . . The legend explains an extraordinary phenome non or a memorable event, it communicates tradi tional learning and knowledge to the young and the uninitiated, it advises people how to act in criti cal situations and warns them against doing the wrong thing. This educational essence is dramatized by an exan^le that is the narrative content of the legend.52 (Italics mine.) One will recall Riefenstahl's statement affirming that she did not envision The Blue Light "merely as enter tainment." She was trying rather to communicate an impres sion, to create audience sympathy for an experience Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3310 dramatized in the film. Exactly what that impression con sisted of has been examined previously, but it can be said that her intent was at least partially didactic. In light of what has already been said about The Blue Light, the underlined portions of the above quotation should be self-explanatory as they relate to this film both as a story which fits the definition of legend and as a vehicle which might appeal to the Nazis. The legend, even more than the tale, belongs to the "naive uncritical learn ing of the folk in relating an extraordinary experience or c q event believed to be true." There are other character istics of the legend present in The Blue Light, some of which might have had special appeal for the Nazis, but the most intriguing one is the generally violent attitude taken toward the foreigner.Such action, "characteristic of primitive tribalism and modern nationalism," is a result of an innate "fear of and hatred for the outsider. ,.55 The classic example of the "outsider" found in many tales is the stepmother, and as folklorist Louis Snyder's explana tion indicates, the stepmother's negative influence is Junta's too; The stepmother's real crime is disruption of the family, i.e., the alienation of the children . . . She is an alien in the home, an outsider, a for eigner in the state. She must be hated and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 eliminated because she will throw the accepted order into chaos with her new ideas and foreign attitudes and methods.56 We are now only one step away from the ultimate enemy, the Jew, who is always depicted as the villain in folk tales. The Jew is the epitome of the evil outsider whose influence is never positive. He is "a foreigner, the product of a strange and ancient civilization, who io uni versally d i s l i k e d . " 5 7 with hindsight, it is now possible to speculate that had Riefenstahl created Junta as a Jewess and made a few other minor alterations in the area of keep ing intact and separated from reality the fantasy elements and the initial suspicion of Junta's magical powers. The Blue Light would have been eminently more in line with the official Nazi restructuring of German folktales and likely would have been politically exploited in the classroom and commercial theaters. All of the foregoing account hopefully does not create the impression that Leni Riefenstahl was the only director using the folk tale as subject matter for her films, for this certainly was not the case. During the 1920's, the fantasy films and the "folktale spectacle” were extremely popular genres of filmmaking for which such eminent directors as Berger, Murnau, and Lang were Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------- 331 especially well known. It is interesting to note that not long after Hitler had taken power, Fritz Lang, by then one of the most renowned directors in Europe, especially well known for the above-mentioned types of film and for his obvious anti-Nazi attitudes, was summoned to Goebbels' office in the Ministry of Propaganda. He was told by Goebbels: "The Führer has seen your films and he has said, CO 'This is the man who will make us the Nazi film.'" From several other incidents which had happened to him earlier, it was apparent to Lang during this meeting that Hitler and Goebbels were trying to turn his opposition and talents around to serve their own purposes. That same night, Fritz Lang left Germany for Paris, not to return again until 1957.^^ It is quite possible that after meeting Leni Riefenstahl and seeing The Blue Light, Hitler decided that this young and extremely enthusiastic, if less experienced, director could substitute for the self-exiled Lang. In any event, Leni Riefenstahl eventually did make Triumph of the Will, which many consider to this day to be "the Nazi film.' Leni Riefenstahl's method of working as a director is indicative of the control that she felt it her duty to exert on all phases of the filmmaking process. The techniques and insights that she gained from participating Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 4 on the Fanck films served her well on her first directorial project, and the experience she acquired on The Blue Light, even though a dramatic film, served her equally well when she undertook the making of the political documentaries. Once she had read Crystal Mountain by Gustav Renker, Riefenstahl began to see the possibilities of its use as the basis for a mountain film of her own. By this time, making a film herself appeared to be the only way she could participate on a project which was to her liking. Riefen stahl 's claim is that she could not afford to hire an actress for the part of Junta so, for this reason, she decided to play the role herself. But there is more to it than this. If one looks back on the numerous instances in which Riefenstahl was required to perform personally unde sirable roles in the Fanck films, it becomes clear that she was growing more and more dissatisfied with her acting career as a whole. It therefore makes sense that she would adapt the Renker story in such a way as to assure herself a substantially more significant role than she had hereto fore been used to playing. Of course, this kind of self- serving modification of another work is not uncommon. Riefenstahl altered the Renker novel to provide herself with the leading part in The Blue Light in much the same Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3351 way that Luis Trenker turned the spotlight on himself when he modified The Black Cat script so that he could play the lead in The Doomed Battalion. Riefenstahl was understandably somewhat reluctant to undertake the entire responsibility for the making of a film since she had never been entrusted with such an as signment before. She was naturally afraid of failure. However, previously she had been encouraged by Pabst during her work on The Wliite Hell of Pits Palu to start thinking seriously about applying her talents in the area of film directing. Riefenstahl also claims that around this same time, Josef von Sternberg^^ and Carl Mayer^l had similarly encouraged her, and this must have given her a little more confidence than she otherwise might have had. However, there is little doubt that the major thrust for Riefenstahl to overcome her trepidation about producing, directing, and acting in a film of her own came from her conviction that she was stagnating as an actress under the tutelage of Dr. Fanck. This new undertaking of hers took a considerable amount of courage, but as is evident from similar incidents throughout Riefenstahl's life, once she made up her mind to do something, she single-mindedly attacked the project, leaving no room in her mind for fear of failure. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 336 The initial problem for Riefenstahl with The Blue Light project, once she had constructed the basic scenario for the film, was one of procuring financial backing. Acquiring even limited funds was a tedious and discouraging task. As previously indicated, Riefenstahl showed her manuscript to several film producers with no luck, their main complaints being that the idea was boring and the execution of it would be impossible: I showed by Blue Light to the whole industry, to every person. A hundred times I went to every com pany, from the biggest like Ufa to the smallest, to show and to speak about Blue Light. Everyone said, "It is not possible." I said, "Why, why?" They said, "No. It is nothing.” Underlying these rejections was the notion that even though Leni Riefenstahl was a fine athlete, she was really a rather minor acting talent, besides which she had had no previous experience in directing. Why should these produc ers take the risk of entrusting this inexperienced woman with a large sum of money on which they might not realize a return? Though Riefenstahl was discouraged by these reac tions, she did not give up the fight. In her words: It is tremendously hard in the movie industry to fight prejudices . . . But since I was so obsessed by my idea, I fought desperately for a whole year to realize it 63 Riefenstahl had saved some money of her own, but Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3371 according to her calculations it was not nearly enough to undertake the project. For economic, as much as for aes thetic, reasons she decided that the film should be shot whenever possible on location rather than in the studio. She would use a minimum crew of no more than eight members whose salaries, including her own, would be deferred until the film turned a profit. This, of course, meant that Riefenstahl would have to find people who were more excited about the project than the money they might eventually make. Therefore, quite logically, she turned to her friends. The major expenditures on the film would be for the raw stock and the development of the film, the food and lodging of the cast and crew during shooting, and the post production necessities of editing, orchestration of the musical score, and the cost of the release prints. In all, Riefenstahl figured that she would need some 50,000 marks over what she herself could contribute. She had obtained a loan of some 20,000 marks against her furniture and was able to add to that around 25,000 marks from her salary on The White Frenzy, the film in which she was contracted to perform during this time.The part in The White Frenzy was not to her liking but she endured the production with the idea that any money she made as an actress could be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2321 used to help finance her own film. In toto, Riefenstahl supplied about 50,000 marks of her own money for the making of The Blue Light. In May of 1931, after finishing the shooting in Arlberg on The White Frenzy, Riefenstahl returned to Berlin where she resumed the search for someone willing to invest in her own production. Ultimately she ended up by convinc ing Harry Sokal, her former fiancé who had just finished producing The White Frenzy, to take a chance on this film of hers. Considering Sokal's previous trust in Riefen stahl 's judgment, it is not very surprising that he was willing to subsidize this venture. He did specify, however, that he would like to see some footage before he made a final commitment and if he approved of what he saw, he would guarantee the rest of the money needed for completion of the film. Upon approval, the contract that would be drawn up between Sokal and Riefenstahl would comprise an agree ment that each would receive half of the returns on the film.65 Eventually, this proposed contract was legalized and Riefenstahl was soon provided with the funds needed to realize her project. This same contract, however, became the basis for some unpleasantness which was initiated after the release of The Blue Light and which has continued to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------ 3391 persist between Sokal and Riefenstahl to this day. While in Berlin, Riefenstahl formed a small inde pendent film production coirpany, the L. R. Studio-Film, and during the next month she finalized preparations for the shooting of The Blue Light. Part of these preparations, which she initiated while acting in The White Frenzy, included the formation of her crew. The first person she enlisted was one of Dr. Fanck's cameramen, Hans Schneeberger a man who also happened to be her fiancé at the time. Naturally, he agreed to help her on the film and to defer his salary to a later date. One of the next individuals she persuaded to par ticipate was the Hungarian film theorist and critic for Per Tag, B^la Balazs. Balazs was a Jewish Marxist who lived in Austria and Germany after the unsuccessful 1919 Communist revolution in Hungary. We was well kxiown as the librettist of Bela Bartok's only opera, Bluebeard's Castle, and just prior to working on Riefenstahl's The Blue Light he had collaborated with G. W. Pabst on the film. Three penny Opera (Dreigroschenoper, 1931). Only a year before working with Pabst, he had written a critique of Storms over Mont Blanc in which he defended Dr. Fanck against cur rent attacks on him and his style of filmmaking. As a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T îü result of this favorable review, Fanck sought to meet Balazs, the one intellectual who championed his cause. Eventually, through his acquaintance with Fanck and Pabst, Balazs was introduced to Riefenstahl who claims to have read his books— books which established "the first system- cn atic and formal theory of the cinema ever published." ' In his writings, Balazs promoted the "emotional powers of the close-up, camera angle and set-up, frame composition g Q and cross-cutting." These relatively new ideas fired Riefenstahl's imagination and she enthusiastically showed her scenario to Balazs in the hope that they could realize some of these ideas together in The Blue Light. Riefenstahl had revised her first scenario through three different treatments; Then after the third one, after I had perfected the story, I asked Balazs if he would help me. . . . He was very enthusiastic about the story and he said, "Yes." He came to Arlberg for four weeks while I was working on my ski film. Per Weisse Rausch. . . . He had some good ideas . . . and he wrote the dialogue. But Balazs was not the only one who helped with the script for this film. Another renowned film writer, who received no screen credit for his participation, collabor ated on the writing of The Blue Light. His name— Carl Mayer. This man, whom Riefenstahl counted among her many Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------------------------------------------------23g friends at the time, was one of the most important writers of silent films during the Golden Age in Germany. To his credit are such screen plays as The Cabinet of Dr. Cali- gari, Vanina, The Last Laugh, Berlin; A City Symphony, and Sunrise. Vihy Riefenstahl never gave Mayer screen credit is a mystery= She herself admits that he was of enormous assistance even to the point of visiting her frequently in her cutting room, offering suggestions while she was editing The Blue Light. The whole working relationship of these three strong-willed individuals, Riefenstahl, Balazs, and Mayer, is an enigma. Exactly how much each contributed to the final script may never be known, but an idea of Riefen stahl 's dominant role, once the film got into production, is apparent in the following comments by Henry von Jaworsky a member of The Blue Light crew. He is talking about the collaboration between Riefenstahl and Balazs: He had pretty much influence, but she overcame it. He was more or less the intellectual which she was not. She just picked his brain and used what she could . . . I remember once when we were shooting in a very remote area in the mountains. It was two hours walk from the nearest station and I was delegated to pick him up. On the long walk back, he asked me what we had already shot. He laughed at the way we were working and he said, "Well, we will put some sense into this now." But he didn't because she prevailed. She called the shots. She picked what she wanted.Iltalics Jaworsky's.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 4 3 Riefenstahl's method of working was indeed free wheeling in comparison with most studio-financed operations, but that was how she wanted it. She felt it was important not to be pressured into rigorous deadlines at the expense of quality in the production. The relaxed atmosphere encouraged greater camaraderie among the crew members and more responsibility toward the final overall outcome of their individual efforts. Balazs' contribution to The Blue Light did not stop with the script. As Jaworsky relates, he was on location for part of the shooting, and Riefenstahl admits that he was of great assistance to her in one particular capacity: "I was very lucky that he could take off three or four weeks to be present and in control for the most important scenes in which I acted. In spite of Jaworsky's comments, Riefenstahl con sidered Balazs' script writing, co-directing, and other participation important enough to give him equal acknow ledgment for the final result of the film. His name appears alongside her own and that of her outstanding cameraman. The credits do not distinguish a director, script writer, and director of photography. Instead they simply read, "A mountain legend of the Dolomites transformed into pictures Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 4 3 by Leni Riefenstahl, Bela Balazs, Hans Schneeberger." Riefenstahl's recruitment of a crew continued, most of the members coming from the regulars of the Fanck film team. The comic Mutt and Jeff skiing duo in The White Frenzy, Walter Riml and Guzzi Lantschner, were enlisted by Riefenstahl as still photographer and grip, respectively; while one of the other skiers in the same film, Rudi Matt, was signed up to handle the reflectors. Walter Traut, who had worked with Riefenstahl on all the Fanck films and would eventually supervise the production activities of all future films directed by Riefenstahl except the Nuba docu mentary that has not been completed, took over the responsi bility of production manager on The Blue Light. His special concern was the budget. He prudently watched over it, administering cash only when absolutely necessary. These men, along with Schneeberger, formed the nucleus of Riefen stahl 's crew. All five of them knew Riefenstahl well and had worked with her for several years while she was still an actress. The one noteworthy exception was a young man, already quoted above in connection with Bela Balazs. His name is Henry von Jaworsky (Anglicized slightly from Heinz von Javorsky when he moved to the United States after World War II). The way he became involved on The Blue Light Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 733 reveals Riefenstahl's strong reliance on her instincts about people, even in the area of hiring the members of her crew. Jaworsky got into the film industry in much the same way that Riefenstahl did— through his child-like fascina tion with movies. As he puts it, he was "film crazy. He had seen The White Hell of Pitz Palu, and thereupon decided that "this was the kind of work I would like to do 75 in the future." He was only eighteen at the time, very idealistic and full of energy, if not experience. During his summer vacation, he rode his bicycle from Berlin to the Alps where he finally located Dr. Fanck and his crew who were then working on Storms over Mont Blanc. Fanck hired him as a porter and he spent the rest of the summer carry ing the cameramen's heavy equipment from location to loca tion. Jaworsky admits that he was not even very good at doing this nonfilmic task because he was a city boy and had ihad no previous experience in mountain climbing or skiing. Back in Berlin where he had to return to finish his last year in high school, Jaworsky "wrote a little book, describing my adventures of the summer on the road, climax ing with my first film experience.In the spring of 1931, he sent a copy of the finished manuscript to Riefenstahl. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----------------------------------------jrg "within twenty-four hours I had a telephone call from Leni Riefenstahl."^^ She had just put together her owri produc tion company and was in the process of acquiring a hard working and devoted staff. Riefenstahl was obviously aware of Jaworsky's unskillfulness on location during Storms over Mont Blanc, but having read his spirited description of the experience, she recognized qualities in him that she had felt all along to be of vital importance— an enthusiasm and devotion to the production and to the other associates who were working to accomplish a common goal. Already in 1928 Riefenstahl had written: We should not make star-films, but only ensemble- films, in which all participants together believe in their work, because only then is it possible for film to become a spiritual entity.^8 The shoestring budget for The Blue Light fed Riefen stahl 's romantic notions about everyone voluntarily sacri ficing for the good of one another and for the final out come of their collective labors. Jaworsky, who was assignee as camera assistant to Schneeberger and also doubled as Riefenstahl's personal secretary, wrote up some of the pro duction reports for a Berlin film magazine. He lauds the kind of atmosphere that prevailed among the crew members on The Blue Light, even though positions were not as lucrative Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------------------------------------------------------------- as they might otherwise have been: Salary was rock-bottom minimum— low budget produc tion and no unions involved!— but everyone in the company was in the same situation. We all just loved what we did.?^ In an earlier interview, Jaworsky claimed that while he was working on The Blue Light, he made only ten dollars Q a month plus living expenses and from all indications, none of the others associated on the same film received any more remuneration than Jaworsky. The spartan life style which this salary necessitated was inevitable if all funds were to be made available for the filmmaking itself. And as Riefenstahl later wrote: "Only on this basis— of pure idealism— was it possible to lay the foundations for a work 81 without any concessions whatsoever." In another place, Riefenstahl wrote: In the selection [of a staff] I always had to have the feeling that we would find each other sympa thetic so that we would be able to go through thick and thin together. Throughout the whole three months of shooting, there were never any bad moods, nagging or even dissatisfaction. It was really ideal togetherness. We were just like a family of eight. Everything was paid out of a common pot. Everyone tried to spend as little as possible to keep the pot alive as long as possible. If anyone had torn shoes, or needed anything urgently, it was paid from that pot. I myself abstained from any personal purchases for fourteen months . 82 When asked whether or not she, as a woman, had had any difficulty getting the men to take directions from her. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Riefenstahl replied: . . . the only trouble was with the love affairs. . . . It was sometimes very difficult because we scayed in the mountains for many months and I was the only woman. . . . But there were no difficulties with the work. The people around me, all of them, liked me. It was very easy. I had very good social and professional relations with all of them. I did not even have one notion that it might be difficult for me as a woman. In my art, in my temperament, in my personality, I was very much a woman. I was not even a little bit masculine. But I was mascu line in my head, in my thinking and in my determina tion. I was always very strong-willed . . . I had only normal intelligence, but I inherited from my father . . a talent for organization. Without this, I couldn't have formed my company. 83 Nor could she have succeeded as a director without these qualities which she has accurately enumerated about herself. There is no doubt that Riefenstahl had many volatile per sonal relationships. Many who knew her at this time would agree with Jaworsky when he said: "She was a very attractive 84 woman. . . . Definitely a sexy woman, no doubt about it." But her former fiancé and business associate, Harry Sokal, adds that she had a very special quality which influenced all her personal relationships. This attribute explains the amiability of her professional relationships with these same people: Leni Riefenstahl knew any number of men that you can imagine. But, one thing I must say, however short the relationship with a particular man had been, she always stayed friends— with a few excep tions. . . . I mention this particular fact because Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 4 8 that is very characteristic . . . She always stayed friends.85 Sokal's observation has been corroborated by a num ber of men who worked with her throughout her career. Their general feeling about her, no matter whether or not they knew her on an intimate basis, is summed up succinctly in this comment by Jaworsky: "I liked her as a person. I 86 respected her as a movie-maker." By the end of June, 1931, Riefenstahl had taken care of most of the preproduction problems, with the excep tion of determining specific locations for the shooting and finding the right peasants to play the parts of the impor tant villagers of Santa Maria. She and Schneeberger spent the better part of a month travelling through Tessin in Switzerland and the Dolomites in Tyrol. They were in and out of numerous hamlets of all sizes in practically every valley, even the most remote. But the selection of loca tions was not so much a problem as the search for the right peasants. The major disappointment with the farmers that they encountered in these areas was their faces. By 87 Riefenstahl's standards, "They were not unique enough." Finally she and Floh ("flea" from Schneefloh or "snowflea," a nickname given to Schneeberger because of his diminutive size) happened upon the Sarn Valley just north of Bolzano, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 349 Italy. There, in the village of Sarentino, Riefenstahl found the peasants she had been looking for. They were assembled in the church square after Sunday morning serv ices. There they were, the farmers, just as I had envi sioned them. . . . We discovered faces like those painted by Durer. . . . Stern figures, dressed in black, with haggard faces, and proud, unapproachable expressions which deter anyone from coming near them. 88 Nevertheless, Riefenstahl tried to engage a few of them in conversation, but to no avail. They simply scowled at her brashness and turned their backs on her, eventually leaving their gathering place altogether. In the meantime, Riefenstahl, who is not easily discouraged, was concocting a plan. She snapped a few still pictures of the peasants without their noticing and then she decided to remain in the village for a short time. During the next few days, while the pictures were being developed, Riefenstahl greeted everyone she passed in the streets, especially the women and children who were somewhat more open to her. Finally, she presented some of the peasants with the photographs she had taken of them and their friends. They had never seen such "magic" before! Most of them had never even been outside of the Sarn Valley and were fascinated with the gift of this dynamic visitor Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35Ô{ of theirs. Shortly thereafter, Riefenstahl offered a glass of wine to one of the peasants she encountered in the vil lage pub. He accepted and soon a change in attitude toward oq her was discernable among all the peasants. Riefenstahl had finally won over the confidence of these normally dis tant and reserved people. They became good friends of hers and not only performed in The Blue Light but, almost a decade later, again acted in her only other dramatic fea ture , Tiefland. Finally in July all was ready for the beginning of the actual production work. By this time Riefenstahl was confidently anxious to get the shooting underway. The atmosphere on the set was obviously an exhilarating one, full of the excitement of discovery. The schedule was flexible enough to allow for experimentation as the shoot ing progressed. Here is Riefenstahl's description of her first experience as a film director: Calmly, without any haste, we are able to work. Nobody looks over our shoulders to urge us on. No studio has assigned a supervisor. We are our own bosses. Often we are able to shoot for only a few minutes each day since we need to wait for a cer tain angle of the sun's rays in order to get just the right effect of the light breaking through the mist of the waterfall. After each session we develop short test strips of film to ascertain whether or not we have caught the right mood. Each member of our staff has a script, and every evening we sit at the fireplace to discuss the next day's scenes. Each Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 3 5 Î] of us voices his opinion. None of us has a separ ate area of responsibility to himself. All work as a whole.90 Leni Riefenstahl, as she hints in the above state ment, was ultrameticulous in her decisions as a director and also in the recording of such decisions. She had a special system of markings which she made in her working script. For instance, she had a symbol which clearly indi cated which shots and scenes had already been completed. Next to each scene in the script, such as the one of Junta by the waterfall at the opening of The Blue Light, Riefen stahl wrote the type of film used, that the shot was started at 7:10 a.m. and must be completed by 8:00 a.m., the angle and location of the camera in relation to the sun and the subject, the type of lens and filter used; then, in addi tion to all this information, Riefenstahl often attached next to the corresponding scene a frame of the motion pic ture workprint just to remind her and her cameraman how they had conceived the shot when it was originally taken. Walter Traut observed that "even after two years she could Q2 continue a scene," if it became necessary. But he also admitted that Riefenstahl's records were often too detailed for most situations. Sometimes in addition to the frame of film, Riefenstahl would draw a sketch of the set-up in 91 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 3 in order to clarify what she considered crucial positions of camera and personnel not obvious from the actual foot age 93 One of the reasons that subsequent Riefenstahl films cost such enormous sums of money is apparent already in an embryo stage on The Blue Light. For Riefenstahl absolutely nothing could be a compromise. She detested the interference of anyone she considered inartistic and, of course, in this category were placed most businessmen who financed her films. She admits that she has no business sense and it is partly her lack of regard for monetary problems that kept her from weighing artistic considera tions against the existing budget. Frederick A. Mainz, the former director of the studio Tobis which distributed her Olympic films, made this observation about Riefenstahl's complete obliviousness to budgetary concerns : She spent millions and millions for nothing on a film. She made pictures no one could calculate [ahead of time] because she would get a new idea or she would wait for weeks for the light to be exactly right on the mountains. It was terrible. (Italics Mainz's.) Riefenstahl herself admits that even on The Blue Light "sometimes I worked only ten minutes out of the whole day because the sun had to be in the right spot. ..95 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 353 Because of the idealism pervasive among the crew working on The Blue Light, perfection in details of this sort did not push the budget beyond limits in the same way that it did on later films. The small The Blue Light crew were hand picked and so long as they could survive, money was of secondary concern to their enthusiasm for their association on the film. In her later films, the longer Riefenstahl's uncompromising nature caused a production to be drawn out, the more expensive that production became with the paying out of many salaries taking up a good por tion of the budget. It must, of course, be understood that all of the films Riefenstahl completed after The Blue Light dealt with subjects which required filmmaking on a much larger scale. Expenses were expanded in all areas, equip ment and studio rentals, size of staff, construction of sets and apparatus for support of cameras, and so on. Therefore, any extension of shooting time on these subse quent films raised the costs astronomically— a situation which did not prevail on the simpler The Blue Light project Another of Riefenstahl's procedures initiated on this first film of hers developed into an essential modus operandi on later films; she found it especially useful on the political documentaries. Riefenstahl and her closest Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 354 associates including her cameraman, Schneeberger, would review the previous day's rushes regularly even though this procedure was quite inconvenient considering the remoteness and primitiveness of their mountain locations and the rela tive inaccessibility of a professional laboratory. After the day's shooting, my camera assistant went down to the village with the exposed film to develop and print it. The next morning at 5:00 a.m., two or three hours before sunrise, even though I was very tired, I saw the rushes from the day before. Everyday then it was possible to make the film bet- ter . . ,9« This practice of viewing dailies is in no way unu sual except in the context of Riefenstahl's remote location. Actually this recent statement of Riefenstahl's is somewhat in conflict with what she had written earlier: "For four weeks we shot almost every day, and then we sent the first three thousand meters of film to Berlin for developing. We waited, full of suspense, for the results.The implica tion here is that none of the film was developed for a whole month, which would have meant that the crew was shoot ing blind for the first several weeks of production— an implausible circumstance to find on a Riefenstahl film. It is particularly unlikely on this first film of Riefenstahl's because her concern was great that the footage turn out well. After all, final approval of her financial agreement Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 353 with Sokal rested on his judgment of this footage. In all probability what happened was that Riefen stahl sent Riml and Jaworsky back daily to the village where the camera crew had Rube Goldberged a lab simply to develop test strips of film in order to give Schneeberger and Riefenstahl an idea of what they were actually captur ing on film. Then after completing their shooting in Tessin, they sent all the exposed negative to the Geyer film laboratory in Berlin for professional bulk developing of the material. The results they were anxiously awaiting, as Riefenstahl wrote, not only included a confirmation of what they expected from viewing the test film, but also an approval of their work from Dr. Fanck and Harry Sokal, their most important critic at this time. After leaving Switzer land, it became easier for the camera crew to send the exposed footage regularly to Geyer. This facilitated view ing of all the rushes on a daily basis. The critical judgment of the first month's shooting is another of those circumstances involving an event which is remembered in contradictory terms by several of the individuals concerned. Riefenstahl writes: Dr. Fanck himself sent the reply by telegram: "Con gratulations on the photography. It is indescrib ably beautiful— never before seen images. ..98 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------— 339 Sokal's version differs drastically; I made The Blue Light with Leni Riefenstahl as a co-production. When I agreed to that, Fanck thought I was mad. When we saw the first rushes, I was enthused about them. He thought they were terrible — and he was convinced the picture would be a flop. In spite of what Fanck said, I sent her a telegram to encourage her, saying that she was on the right track and that I liked the rushes very much. Fanck's version coincides more with Sokal's impres sion of the event than it does with Riefenstahl's: When she made her first film, she sent me the rushes. I was in Berlin while it was being shot. I saw the rushes at Geyer and sent regular comments to Leni Riefenstahl. If I did not like a shot, I would tell her what she had done wrong, if the camera had been placed at a wrong angle, if the lighting was wrong. . . . I was constantly in volved in the making of the film.^OO One has to keep in mind that at this time Dr. Fanck was not very happy about his protégé striking out on her own. And Riefenstahl, when she wrote her version in the above statement, was trying to smooth over the animosity and jealousy which had sprung up between the two of them around this time— feelings which have continued to persist on and off for some forty years now. Riefenstahl was not usually very diplomatic when it came to the question of aesthetic values and it was in the area of Fanck's artistic decisions that Riefenstahl's sensibilities were most of fended. "I often saw things differently than Fanck . . . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35^ When what he did didn't agree with what I felt, my personal sense of art seemed violated . . ."^01 The sentiment ex pressed in this statement cannot be argued with, but Riefen stahl frequently struck out at those with whom she disagreed in such a way as to alienate them permanently. Fanck was indeed an egotistical man, but his self-image and sense of importance was certainly not resilient enough to withstand attack from a former pupil of his. Lest one think that Riefenstahl reserved this attitude of hers exclusively for Dr. Fanck, it is important to mention that her vocal dis approbation on artistic matters bridged over into many of her professional relationships on succeeding films. She possessed an unfortunate quality which alienated many offi cials and indispensable acquaintances in both the film industry and the Nazi government. Often she would try to patch up these situations later, as she did in the above case when she tried to smooth over the touchy predicament with Fanck by claiming in her book that it was he who had sent the congratulatory telegram, and not Sokal. It is interesting to note that Riefenstahl was often able to handle her complicated personal relationships more effica ciously than her professional associations. Jaworsky describes the trait in Riefenstahl which, when coupled with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 5 8 her outspokenness, often got her into these predicaments: She was the kind of person who as soon as she saw something, she knew it better right from the begin ning. Sometimes she was right, sometimes she was not. But she was the kind of person that anything she saw, after a while she thought she knew b e t t e r . ^02 This negative quality of Riefenstahl's unfortunately stems almost inseparably from other positive attributes like her ability to organize, her energy and her determination to work.^®^ She was simply impatient with anything that did not fit her standards of perfection. And, right or wrong, she would let the offending individual know, in no uncer tain terms, that he was wrong. Until his death. Dr. Fanck continued to be envious of the attention paid to Riefenstahl, negative though most of that recognition was. He begrudged her the success she had during the thirties and felt that his own accomplish ments and influence on her had been overshadowed by her notoriety as Hitler's filmmaker. I was the one who brought her into film and every thing she learned there, she got from me. Without me, there would never have been a well-known Riefen stahl, and taking this into account she behaved quite ungratefully towards me . . .104 Fanck argued also that because, for the most part, Riefenstahl used cameramen who had been trained on his films, the photography of her productions was excellent. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 359 One cannot deny this contention. Huwcvéz, had Riefenstahl made only the documentaries, Fanck's argument would hold more weight since in this style of filmmaking the director must rely much more heavily on the independent judgment of the cameramen. But Riefenstahl did not make only documen taries. And though these are indisputably her best films, they remain so mainly because of the skill with which they were edited and only to a lesser extent because of the camera work. One must also bear in mind that Riefenstahl did demonstrate considerable knowledge in the area of photography on all her films, including the documentaries but more especially on the dramatic films where she could exert more control. Undeniably Riefenstahl owes Dr. Fanck a debt of gratitude for her initial involvement in motion pictures, but there comes a time when the pupil must leave to strike out on his own. Riefenstahl took with her a fundamental knowledge acquired from her experience on Fanck's films, but she had to stand on her own merit as a filmmaker once she left. Her own talents and special feel ings for the film medium gradually emerged as she gained more confidence in her abilities. Initially she relied on what she learned from Fanck. That was all she knew. But this knowledge would not have been enough for her to have Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35C acquired the recognition she eventually won, notwithstand ing her infamous association with the Third Reich. She had to build on her experience and perfect a style of her own, and it was her eventual commissions from Hitler which liter ally compelled her into a situation which forced the devel opment of her unique abilities. Unbeknownst to her at the time. The Blue Light was providing Leni Riefenstahl with just the opportunity she needed to build self-confidence in her ability as a direc tor. It prepared her technically for the important assign ments which would soon follow. Her close relationship with Hans Schneeberger cannot be overlooked. Their mutual respect for one another encouraged an atmosphere in which they were not afraid to take chances that they might not have taken ordinarily for fear of failure. This is not to suggest that all went along one hundred per cent smoothly all of the time. To be sure, there were arguments over certain points but, as Jaworsky has avowed previously, "she prevailed." A good example of a significant technical argument won by Riefenstahl which affected the look of most fantasy sequences in the film concerns the use of a new emulsion in the experimental stage of development by Agfa. This new emulsion was probably a high-speed Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. : - 36U panchromatic negative material partially sensitive in the infra-red zone. It was being produced on a limited basis only. Riefenstahl was very enthusiastic about it at the time, so Agfa made special batches of it for her. She was one of the first [commercial] users of it. Before this, i t was used only by s c i e n t i s t s . The idea for using this emulsion could have come from several sources, the most likely being Schneeberger, Fanck, or Balazs. Schneeberger kept up with all the inno vations in the film industry and, like most cameramen, was usually anxious to try out anything new which could con ceivably fit in with the photographic style of the project he was working on. So it is quite reasonable to assume that Schneeberger was aware of Agfa's experimental film. On the other hand. Dr. Fanck claimed that it was he who gave the idea of using this new emulsion, which when coupled with a red filter, would produce a somewhat "magica] effect" like moonlight.It is possible that Fanck made this suggestion, but considering how he felt about Riefen stahl at this time, it is not probable. However, Riefen stahl was still relying on advice from Fanck and she was still hoping for encouragement from him. Here is Riefen stahl 's version. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3621 Before I made this film, I wasn't sure if it was possible because I had had no experience. So I gave Dr. Fanck the script to read. "Is it possible to make the photography unrealistic?" And he told me, "It is one hundred per cent not possible. . . . You can't make a film like this without a studio, a lot of money and without using arc lights outside." In order to stylize nature, as in "The Niebe- lungen" forest [of Fritz Lang], I would have had to have thousands of marks more. I said, "No, I don't have a lot of money, but if I use a special film and special filters, I think I can find in nature what I envision." I will never forget how Fanck laughed like a devil at me 107 There is some credence to Riefenstahl's recollec tion, but at the script stage she could not have known about the "special filters" she mentions in the above statement because the idea for this came to her in a flash while working on location. More about this shortly but, for the moment, let us consider the influence that Bal/zs might have had in this area. In his 1924 volume on the theory of film, Balazs 10ft mentions the "chilly draft from doomsday" atmosphere found in Murnau's Nosferatu, the first Dracula film. To create this impression, Murnau's cameraman, Fritz Arno Wagner shot the Carpathian forest so that the negative image, rather than the positive, could be used in the final print. The effect was "a maze of ghostlike trees set against a black sky."^^^ Balazs was obviously aware of how Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 363 this result was achieved. Therefore, it is not unreason able to suspect that he mentioned this technique to Riefen stahl when she explained the kind of unreal atmosphere she wanted to create in certain nature sequences. She was now only one step away from Schneeberger's information on Agfa's new negative material. This reference to the Murnau film is not an isolated case of similarity. The opening stagecoach sequence of The Blue Light is unmistakably "reminiscent of the mysterious beginnings of horror filmslike Nosferatu. It is almost certain that inspirations such as these were suggested to Riefenstahl by Balazs who, because of his acute awareness of the historical development of motion pictures, was able to call upon and adapt successful ideas from previous films for use in The Blue Light. Riefenstahl's perception of what was happening in the contemporary film world was limited almost exclusively to her own direct experiences, but she called upon those experiences frequently when she became a director. For instance, of all the films in which she performed for Fanck, The White Hell of Pitz Palu is her favorite. This is a believable statement, not only because she has said oo many occasions, but also because from time to time she Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - — — -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- borrowed ideas from it. The opening of The Blue Light is a case in point. One will recall that the whole premise for the development of plot in Pitz Palii is contained in an entry found in a log by several characters who are seeking shelter in a cabin at the foot of the fateful mountain. Riefenstahl opens The Blue Light in much the same way with the honeymooning couple discovering the story of Junta in a book they find in their rented room— a room which looks out on a view of the Mount Cristallo which determined the moun tain girl's fate. Riefenstahl has always been partial to this kind of device. Every one of the feature-length films she completed opens with a prologue of some sort, and in several of her unfinished projects, most notably Penthesilea she was planning to begin with the same overall design including a prologue. Riefenstahl relied heavily on her own intuition, but she was often stimulated by a suggestion of a member of her crew. This is no doubt one of the reasons why she encouraged the active participation of her whole staff in matters even beyond their major responsibilities. Of course, it was her prerogative to throw out an idea which she did not like, but by picking the brains of her collabo rators she was often inspired to an idea of her own. Fre- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — -----------------------------------------------153 guently the stimulation of a suggestion was all Riefenstahl needed to convince her of the approach she wanted to take. This is the exact situation surrounding the decision to use the little-tested high-speed film. One must not forget Jaworsky's comments about the working conditions on The Blue Light: "The most important factor was the 'spirit.' Experimenting, trying out new techniques at all cost, never being easily satisfied, always waiting for the ideal condi tions ..." Having heard about Agfa's emulsion, Riefenstahl and Schneeberger were eager to try out the new film. When this high-speed panchromatic negative was used in combination with a red filter, the result was the "moonlight" effect referred to earlier by Jaworsky. Jaworsky claims that the Agfa film was an infra-red emulsion; Riefenstahl claims that the emulsion was not as harsh and contrasty as infra-red This leads one to the conclusion that the film must have been the new high-speed panchromatic negative which both Agfa and Eastman Kodak were experimenting with in 1931. "An entirely new series of sensitizers" were being produced which enabled "high sensitivity to be obtained in definite regions throughout the whole visible spectrum and far into the infra-red.Since the red filter cut out most of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36q the blue wave lengths, it rendered the sky black and, if at the same time, the film were underexposed, a bright, sunny day could be made to appear as if it were a bright, moonlit night. However, this effect was not exactly right for Riefenstahl to achieve the kind of illusion that she had projected in her own mind. It was the Nosferatu "maze of ghost-like trees set against a black sky" that she was looking for. But projecting a negative image, as Murnau had done, would not do, nor would rigidly following the Agfa instructions requiring the use of a red filter with the new emulsion because in both cases the flesh tones of the actors would also be altered and they would appear as unnatural as the scenic backgrounds— a situation which would enhance the atmosphere of a horror film, but greatly detract from the visionary quality of a fantasy film like The Blue Light. In addition, the red filter used with the Agfa film passed through it only a narrow band of green wave lengths. Therefore, in the developed print, the appearance of the trees would be relatively normal. Foremost in Riefenstahl's mind was the attainment of this magical special-effects quality in the outdoors. At the same time, it was equally important to her to be Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 6 7 able to produce this effect with the new high-speed pan chromatic film because if the experiment worked, Riefen stahl and her cameraman would then have had the added glory of being the first to introduce successfully a new photo graphic effect into commercial filmmaking. But there was not complete agreement between Schneeberger and Riefenstahl regarding the use of the Agfa film. Schneeberger's assist ant, Jaworsky, vividly explains how the disagreement came about and how the difference of opinion was resolved: . . . one day while we were shooting with this stuff high up in the mountains, Leni Riefenstahl said to the director of photography, Hans Schneeberger . . . "Hans, put in the green filter together with the red filter." And Hans Schneeberger said, "Leni, you're crazy. If you put the green filter and the red filter together, under the laws of physics, you'll get absolutely nothing on film . . . You can't do that, it doesn't work. Here are the facts, here are the instructions." She said, "Never mind the instructions, it's my production." He said, "You'll ruin your film." She said, "Is it your film? It's my film. I pay for the film. Put it in." I was the assistant standing there with the filter. Finally Hans said, "... Damn it! Okay, you're the boss, put the filter in there." We shot it and she was right. It came out and had a new unexpected effect. The green leaves came out like white. And the scientists later explained how it worked . . . The day-for-night effect which was new in 1931 was greatly enhanced by the use of the green filter for several reasons which Riefenstahl scientifically knew nothing about at the time. The red filter which, in combination with a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. _ 368 light green filter, produced the desired effect for Riefen stahl has a fairly broad range of transmittance starting in the visible green wave length and continuing on up through the visible red end. This red filter was supposed to cut off most of the green and blue, but as with the majority of filters, there is some leakage in the supposedly cut-off areas. Therefore, what the green filter did was to plug up the holes in the red filter, making the red func tion more efficiently. At the same time, the green filter enhanced the ghost-like effect of the green foliage by accentuating the green light leak of the standard red fil ter. The total effect was a blackened sky, white leaves, and near normal flesh tones. By underexposing this red/ green-filtered high-speed panchromatic film, the shadows were minimized and a soft night effect was produced. In addition, this particular use of high-speed film in day light allowed the camera operator to stop the lens way down producing another desired effect— that of great depth-of- field for the scenic shots. Schneeberger's reluctance to use the green filter on top of the red is understandable and stemmed from his more complete knowledge of their individual uses. If a too-heavy red and green filter combination had been used. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 6 9 Schneeberger's prediction of zero exposure would have proved correct because as the filter gets heavier, it cuts out more and more of the light until no visible wave lengths get through at all. It was just a lucky guess on Riefen stahl 's part and an accident that the right density of filters was used for the experiment. Riefenstahl knew superficially what each filter alone was supposed to do, so why not put both of them together? She didn't know enough about the technicalities for it to hamper her experimenting with things which later on appeared to be knowledgeably creative on her part. Riefenstahl's enthusiasm for trying new techniques never once waivered throughout her filmmaking career. It reached its peak when she was working on the documentary films precisely because under Hitler's aegis she was not hampered by the same time-and-money limitations she knew while working without the Führer's patronage. Besides, it was not usually she who had to implement her own ideas. In the case of The Blue Light, it was not she who would have to focus and frame the action of an already-dim image, now to be made fainter, possibly non-existent, by the addition of not only one, but two, filters! Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T 7 Ü The fact that this experiment worked as did many other of her experiments which took place under similar circumstances attests to Riefenstahl's intuitive nature and elucidates her style of directing. She did not work so much from extensive information as she did from superficial knowledge and instinct. Jaworsky put it well when he said, "Somehow, she just had a sixth sense for it."^^^ Today Eastman Kodak manufactures a day-for-night filter which consists of a red/green combination (Kodak filter 23A56). It is used in black and white photography to attain the exact effect which Riefenstahl's insistence in 1931 had produced for her film. The Blue Light, and which she again used on only one other occasion— while working on her other dramatic feature Tiefland. There were many other photographic effects used by Schneeberger and Riefenstahl in The Blue Light which almost unanimously garnered praise for both of them even if there were other qualities, namely the story itself, which eli cited generally unfavorable comments from the critics out side of Germany. Several representative examples follow: The story is a slim one, slow in its deliberate narration. . . . None of this seems very important compared to the sheer beauty of those mountain scenes . . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3TH The Blue Light is so lovely to look at that we get our money's worth in sheer contemplation. . . . it's the cameraman's film and therefore not a film at all. Still, the photography really is lovely . . . you should see this film, if only for the lovely images that pass before your eyes. But don't let them bamboozle you. . 118 La plus grande beautise du cin^tia.^^^ (This state ment made by Walter Ruttmann is a pun on the French words la beaut/ and la betise meaning beauty and nonsense.) It is one of those all too simple tales, of course, but that is nothing against it. Murnau's Sunrise was even more tenuous in content. But this Fraulein Riefenstahl . . . is no Murnau . . . The damaging fact is that, in harking back to a showing of The Blue Light from whatever distance, you remember the travelogue business first and fore most and recall as an afterthought that the girl and the blue light also ran. To continue the contrast, . . . Sunrise also made tremendous play with purely visual elements in using the mists of the swamps for the background of its abecedarian story. But it was always a background, and the prime function of the screen, which is to narrate cunningly, remained victoriously at the head of the procession. The photographer worked overtime and turned in surpass ingly fine stuff— but he was not the chief asset of the production [as Schneeberger was to The Blue Light].^20 . . . again and again camera patterns appear like delicate paintings. If form and content are indivisible in graphic arts, it may be demonstrated that they are totally separable in motion pictures. The content of The BLUE LIGHT, intellectually speaking, is somewhat less indeed than that of Hans Christian Anderson. But for visual poetry and the romanticist's feeling for nature, the picture is loaded— as loaded with stunning images as we have come to expect, with out disappointment, every one of Riefenstahl's films Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 373 to be.122 The last two statements quoted above draw on an interesting comparison between the "graphic arts" and the art of the motion picture. Earlier in this work, a strong correlation was made between many of the German filmmakers of the twenties and their backgrounds as painters. This was true not only of Grune, Wiene, Murnau, and Lang, among others, but it was also true of Leni Riefenstahl who had devoted at least a few years of her youth to the study of the fine arts. In fact, during the twenties and thirties in Germany, a number of films were made using a painter as one of the main characters. The most famous of these films is Genuine, which was written by one of Riefenstahl's collaborators on The Blue Light, Carl Mayer. Keeping this background in mind, it makes sense that Riefenstahl, who changed some of the other story points in the novel, Berg- kristall, retained Renker's male protagonist, a painter whom she simply renamed for the film. The importance of the training of these German directors as graphic artists is clearly evident in their films which display "an amazing skill in lighting" and "brilliantly composed scenes.Bardeche and Brasillach go on to describe the German filmmakers in this way: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 373 Passionately fond of objects, they were to make of each object a little still life, bathed in light and shade, with the result that before long German photography and lighting became paramount. (Italics mine.) Riefenstahl's contribution, building on her exper ience with Dr. Fanck, came not so much with the artistic use of lighting in controlled interior settings, but rather with the exploration of the aesthetic possibilities avail able under specific exterior lighting conditions. This is why it was so important for Riefenstahl to wait for the right time of day to shoot particular sequences in any of the films where she could exert this kind of control. The great majority of the photography in Riefenstahl's films, both dramatic and documentary, occurs in exterior settings. Witness the thematic background of harmony and conflict between man and nature in both of her dramatic features. The Blue Light and Tiefland, which intrinsically demands a predominance of exterior photography. Even Triumph of the Will consists of an overwhelming percentage of exterior shots because most of the mass assemblies occurred in the open air. In this film her greatest control in lighting came in the night rallies because in the daytime she simply had to shoot whenever an event was scheduled to take place. She had a little more control, although by no means complete Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T R with the selection of the time of day for shooting in Olympia, which is virtually all shot in the out-of-doors. During production on Olympia, Riefenstahl was able to photograph practice sessions as well as the actual competi tion and it was easier for her to restage certain parts of specific events, thus giving her more artistic leeway in the choice of lighting conditions and composition of the images than she had while working on Triumph of the Will. A prime example of this practical manipulation of events for artistic purposes is the diving sequence from Olympia. Its back lighting and unusual camera angles, in conjunction with the masterful editing, combine to make this sequence one of the most outstanding in documentary film history. To be sure, there are some interior scenes in Riefenstahl's films, but their aesthetic importance is relatively minor by comparison to the nature and predomi nance of the exterior mise en scène found in these same films. This is not to say that when she was confronted with interior lighting situations Riefenstahl was uncon cerned about the atmospheric, psychological, and artistic effects. That would be totally against her nature. From the very beginning of her directing career, Riefenstahl dis played an attitude of perfection toward everything involved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 7 9 on a film. To her, if something was worth doing at all, it was imperative that it be done as impeccably as possible under the circumstances. There is one particular interior scene in The Blue Light located in the Castle Runkelstein which unduly worried Riefenstahl before it was shot for two reasons. First, she had to extract believable performances from the uninitiated peasants of the region who she was not even sure were going to show up for their first scheduled shooting. Second, because Riefenstahl's crew was in such a remote location, the technical complications of lighting the interior of this castle were considerably increased. Riefenstahl hired a lighting truck which arrived from Vienna, but since neither Schneeberger nor anyone else on the crew had ever worked under these adverse conditions, apprehension ran high that these particular interior scenes might fail technically. Actually, up until this time, Schneeberger had had little experience with interior photography even under optimum conditions. In fact, the first time a cameraman on a Fanck film was given the oppor tunity to control and really to paint with light in an interior scene was on The White Hell of Pitz Palu. The cameraman was Sepp Allgeier and he was photographing these scenes under the direction of Pabst. Schneeberger, who did Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 76 most of the exterior photography with Angst, was undoubtedly present some of the time while Pabst was directing, but before The Blue Light he had been on hand only as an ob server in these circumstances. Luckily the lighting truck from Vienna was manned by an experienced, hard-working and outgoing gentleman affectionately known to the Blue Light crew as "Papa John" (who was not listed in the credits of The Blue Light and does not appear to be mentioned in any other reference except Leni Riefenstahl's book, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, where she refers to him only by the nickname). He helped the crew carry the heavy cables and lights up over the boulders and into the castle— and he was generously avail able with technical suggestions on how to accomplish the striking chiaroscuro lighting effects that Riefenstahl desired for the celebration which takes place in the castle after the villagers have looted the crystal cave. Equally outstanding in this scene are Schneeberger's close-up shots of the peasants' faces. His photography brought out all the detail of their features and emphasized the pictorial similarities between their rugged physiognomy and the craggy natural terrain of their surroundings. Later on in his career at Ufa, Schneeberger came to be known for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ — ----------------------T U his flattering portrait photography of women. There was not an actress in Germany who did not approve of the selec tion of Schneeberger as the cameraman on any of their films. A hint of his exceptional ability in this area is already apparent in The Blue Light. His close-up shots of Leni Riefenstahl transform her into the mysteriously lovely creature that Junta is supposed to be even more effectively than Riefenstahl's portrayal of the character does. The working relationship between Riefenstahl and Schneeberger was generally a compatible one. Schneeberger understood that Riefenstahl's demands stemmed from an en thusiasm and eagerness to succeed on her own, so rather than oppose requests which, from anyone else, would have orovoked resistance on his part, Schneeberger did in most cases what Riefenstahl asked. He even allowed her to com pose the shots and plan the camera moves, a control which Riefenstahl continued to practice from then on. I didn't only tell the cameraman what I wanted. I did it with the camera myself, then I gave it to him and he only shot it. Every shot that you have seen in my film [The Blue Light], I framed for the cameraman. Even though he was very good, I did t h i s . 125 (Italics Riefenstahl's.) One could suspect that today Riefenstahl might tend to make such a statement only to exaggerate the role she played as a director in the past, but several other people Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tm have corroborated her claim, among them Harry Sokal, who volunteered the following: She has a photographic eye. As a matter of fact, in Blue Light, although Schneeberger was an excel lent cameraman, I know that she found many, many of the beautiful angles and composed them herself. I am sure of that.^ ^ Besides this testimony, Albert Benitz's photography for Tiefland, the other film on which Riefenstahl had com plete control over the cameraman, looks so much like Schnee berger 's work on The Blue Light that Riefenstahl's story becomes entirely credible. Even on the documentary films, several of her numerous cameramen attest to the fact that she tried to compose the images for them whenever she could, but since it was physically impossible for her to be at every location simultaneously, she had to rely more heavily on the aesthetic sensitivity of each of these cameramen. Nonetheless, on Olympia she often drew sketches to give the cameramen an idea of the kind of images she expected them to get. Once Riefenstahl was enmeshed in a project, if pressed with a difficult problem, she usually found the quest for a solution a rewarding challenge and a stimula tion to her creativity. The use of the Agfa film was the outcome of one such situation, but there were several Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 379 others all related to the same photographic problem on The Blue Light— how to make the natural settings appear ether eal. Time lapse photography was used to create an acceler ation of the formation and movement of clouds and their shadows across the face of the sheer rock walls of Mt. Crozzon. Schneeberger also relied heavily on the use of filters for many of the unusual black and white effects. However, on occasion these filter effects created a confus ing time distortion. One is not always sure whether the accelerated cloud sequences are supposed to be day or night. But on the positive side, this disorientation, though unintentional on the part of Riefenstahl, "does 127 heighten the effect of passion and mystery" in the film. Of course, diffusion effects of all kinds, natural and created, were used throughout the film. Sunlight sift ing through the mist of the waterfall or radiating warmth in the dense brooding forest, telephoto lenses putting the background gently out of focus in the close-ups, all kinds of artificial diffusers in front of the lens making the images soft and luminescent. Junta's last climb up the treacherous mountain was shot through a heavy artificial fog which ebbs and flows around the young woman as she continues her fatal ascent. This atmospheric effect. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38C created by ümoke machines and captured through a contrasting filter, projected Junta's impending disaster to the audi ence who, being aware of her earlier prowess as a mountain climber, has no indication other than this that something unfortuitous is about to happen to her. Here the visual quality of the scene, in conjunction with the selection of shots and their rhythmic organization in the edited se quence, added to the effective build up of emotional and dramatic tension. There is one more important photographic illusion ir The Blue Light which was not, however, the contribution of either Hans Schneeberger or Leni Riefenstahl. Since the moon plays such a dominant role in The Blue Light, it was crucial that the photography convey its weird, powerful influence over all the characters in the film. The man directly responsible for the creation of those images of the moon was Richard Angst who was in Berlin during the shooting of The Blue Light. "I got a letter from B^la Bal^zs saying, 'I need close-ups of the moon.' But it was not possible to take pictures of the moon because there was not enough light. . . Angst had Hans Schneeberger send him some footage from the film in which the moon was supposed to appear— a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T O gnarled tree, the roofs of some houses, mountain peaks; And from these pictures I had a jeweler make a vignette to fit in my camera. Then I went to the top of the Funk Turro [radio tower] with a 1000mm lens and I shot the sun setting— not normally, but backwards so the sun looked like it was rising. You can't shoot the sun * s rays in the morning be cause the light from the sun is too bright and it makes little circles [reflections] in the lens. In the evening, when the sun sets, the light is soft because it is red- In reverse, it looked like the moon was rising. Now the two pieces of film, the ones I shot of the moon with the vignettes and the ones Schneeberger sent me, were put together in the laboratory on an optical printing machine. But when I saw the first rushes, the moon was jiggling all over the screen. . . . What happened was that the Funk Turm, with or without a storm, was swaying and with a 1000mm lens, if you move just 5cm, it's magnified tremendously. So I went into a big fac tory building and I shot these wonderful scenes from t h e r e . 129 Unlike most of the other Fanck cameramen, this was the one and only film directed by Leni Riefenstahl on which Richard Angst ever did any photography. The Blue Light was not only the first film over which Leni Riefenstahl had directorial control, it was also the first film on which she had a chance physically to manipulate the film and learn the craft of editing. Prior to this, she had only observed Dr. Fanck put together the films in which she had acted. There was one exception to this, but it could not really have been much of an editing experience: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. The first time that I cut a picture alone was on Fanck's The White Hell of Pitz Palu. When the producer, Sokal, sold this film to France, he told Fanck that he must take out 1250 feet because the film was too long. Fanck said, "No." So he [Sokal] asked me if I wanted to do this. And I said, "Yes." . . . He didn't give me any money for this work, he only sent me to Paris and rented a cutting room for me. I finished it in one week. This was for the French version. It was my first cutting jobî^^® The Blue Light really does not anticipate the level of artistry that Riefenstahl would eventually attain the the editing of her documentary films which followed shortly thereafter. This is in no small part due to the fact that The Blue Light is a feature film whose rhythm was deter miner sentially at the script stage. It is true that The Blue Light was also her first film and that she was inexperienced in the field of editing; however this has less to do with the admittedly competent but not particularly outstanding editing job on this feature than the prearranged nature of The Blue Light as a dramatic film. After all, Tiefland was her last film and it reveals as little of Riefenstahl's by-then acquired expertise as an editor as The Blue Light does. Riefenstahl was best at finding a rhythm in already- photographed images. She could see and feel relationships in material which already existed. That is why the docu- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 8 3 mentary films suited her talent so well. In this kind of production, there was very little she could do before the images were recorded to determine the eventual organization and pacing of the finished film. She coula request certain angles and types of shots by locating her cameras in spe cific areas. She could even predict some kinds of composi tion by choice of lenses and diagrammatic drawings. But, in all, she was very much at the mercy of the talent of her camera operators and the unpredictability of the events themselves. When Riefenstahl was given the freedom in her dramatic films to organize the plot development expressly and to create the visual rhythm before the images were photographed, her talent proved rather ordinary. She still had a brilliant visual instinct, so the shots were always beautifully composed and illuminated, but her choice of stories and the structure and pacing of the narrative never attained the same level as her visual sense. Consider also that the subjects for Riefenstahl's documentaries are his torically- important matters, if only because they become part of Hitler's notorious propaganda machine. If this were not so, and Riefenstahl had chosen the subjects for her documentaries under a less historically-significant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38: government, is it not just possible that Leni Riefenstahl today might very well be only another name in the lengthy list of excellent, but not particularly singular, documen tary filmmakers? This writer cannot agree with James Card's statement that form and content can be separated in motion pictures. What makes any filmmaker great is not only his talent as a craftsman, but his ability to choose and commu nicate meaningful subject matter. There is one other incident which allegedly took place on The Blue Light that would have had much to do with Riefenstahl's problems in completing the final edited ver sion of the film. When all the shooting had been finished, three months to the day after it had begun, Leni Riefen stahl returned to Berlin to start work on the editing. She was obviously looking forward to this phase of the produc tion for, in her book, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, she de scribes it as "the most beautiful task. . . . I didn't want to leave the editing room; I even wanted to sleep there. But this is essentially the extent of what Riefenstahl had to say about the editing of The Blue Light in a chapter which is otherwise full of detail on most aspects of the production. This could be because of the distressing situa tion, again involving Dr. Arnold Fanck, which subsequently Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 383 occurred. The story that follows was related by Dr. Fanck to this writer on several occasions. When Leni Riefenstahl had finished putting the film together, it was shown to a man by the name of Levi who was the director of Aafa-Film, the company contracted by Sokal to handle the distribution. According to Fanck, Levi 132 rejected the film "as being totally incomprehensible." Levi, who had previously distributed some of Fanck's films, "asked me to try to see if the film could be saved by re cutting.Riefenstahl agreed to review the film with Fanck, but before she arrived at the basement cutting room in his Berlin villa, Fanck had already disassembled the whole film and had all six hundred or so shots hanging with their respective trims on the clips of his light box. When Riefenstahl arrived and saw what he had done, she became hysterical and ran into the next room, "screaming that I had destroyed her Gestaltungl F a n c k claimed that the only way he could calm her down was to go into the kitchen, 135 fill a bucket with water, and pour it over her. After she had quieted down, "I then proceeded to totally re-cut this f i l m . "136 with Riefenstahl looking on, he explained . . . the principle behind every splice I made. And when we were finished with the first reel, we went into the projection room. . . . She looked at Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38Q the film in astonishment. Suddenly everything was movingi^37 According to Fanck, the main problem with Riefen stahl 's version was that it was too static. She had not yet learned "the first principle of editing— cutting on movement."1^8 panck claimed that he finished the film with Riefenstahl at his side. "It was accepted [by Aafa]. How ever my name . . . was never mentioned in the credits. For his effort, Riefenstahl supposedly offered him a share in the profits of the film, which never materialized because The Blue Light was not a financial success in Germany. Though most of this story is probably accurate be cause it was independently corroborated by Leni Riefenstahl, there is some doubt as to the veracity of all the details. Two of the men who were involved only in the location work on The Blue Light, Henry von Jaworsky and Walter Traut, claim not to have heard at all about this episode between Fanck and Riefenstahl. Harry Sokal, who admits that he was not present during the editing, acknowledges that he, Fanck, and Riefenstahl . . . all came together very often. There was constant contact between us. But what Fanck consid ers today, or what he considered at that time, as collaboration, is relative. In any case, I don't think Fanck's help could have been too i m p o r t a n t . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 8 7 And here is Riefenstahl's version of the incident: When I had edited ray first film. Blue Light, I didn't like it at all. So I took the rough cut to Arnold Fanck for advice. He promised to help and told me to come back the next day. When I returned, he had taken ray whole film apart overnight and had undone all the splices in his own cutting room, without ever asking me. I had only wanted to change a few things, not scrap three months of edit ing work. I literally threw a screaming fit. Fanck then offered to edit it for me, but I wanted to do it on my own. . . . . . That same night I phoned Guzzi Lantschner. He was not yet a cameraman, only a friend of mine. He came from Innsbruck because I thought I was going to die . . . I took a big clothesbasket and put all ray material in it and took it home. For five days I was sick and then I started the work all over again. Later on, Fanck sometimes told me, "I cut your film. I saved it." Why? Because he took it all apart? 142 Guzzi Lantschner and his brother Otto were Austrian ski champions who worked on some of the Fanck films; eventually they both ended up as cameramen on Riefenstahl*s documen tary, Olympia. Two years after she made the above statement to this author, Riefenstahl waxed philosophic over the same incident to L. Andrew Mannheim: This experience made me so critical toward ray own work, that I ruthlessly left out everything that produced only length or monotony, however much I liked the shot itself. It was a valuable l e s s o n . 1 ^ 3 However, even if Fanck did not do all of the edit ing on The Blue Light, one would still not necessarily Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 8 9 detect in the film Leni Riefenstahl's future qualities as an exceptional editor, her above statement notwithstanding. An editor is more restricted in the use of his talents on a dramatic film because dialogue generally imposes certain patterns and other limitations on an editor that the purely visual material of a documentary does not. For Riefenstahl, Tiefland was even more of a problem in this respect than The Blue Light. Actually, Leni Riefenstahl never liked to use the spoken word unless she felt it was absolutely neces s a r y . 1^4 That is one of the reasons why The Blue Light has so little dialogue and why she always delayed the introduc tion of the spoken word in her films until she had first set the mood in a fairly extensive, solely visual prologue. Much has been made of Riefenstahl's decision to speak Italian in The Blue Light and have the villagers do likewise, because the dialogue is quite poorly enunciated by everyone. Some have suspected that Riefenstahl decided to use this language because the villagers spoke Italian and she might have found it easier to work with these inex perienced people in their native language. In reality, however, the peasants spoke only a dialect of German. So the decision to speak bad Italian must lie somewhere else. Riefenstahl makes it clear that one of the themes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. of The Blue Light is the inability of Vigo and Junta to communicate with one another; . . . the drama or the tragedy of this film wouldn't have happened if Junta would have understood Vigo. Vigo can't understand her language and he can't understand her inside either. Both. That is the artistic form. . . . When Vigo says to her, "Junta, I am going to tell the villagers about the crystal grotto," if Junta and the boy understood him, then they would have known everything and the tragedy wouldn't have happened. . 141 It is their inability to communicate and Vigo's insensitivity to the psychological importance Junta places on the inaccessible cave that brings on her unfortunate end. By having Junta and Vigo speak separate languages, Riefen- stahl hoped metaphorically to emphasize the differences between this simple child of nature and the disastrously practical, if well-meaning, concerns of the city dweller. It is true that the Italian spoken in this film is decidedly bad, but there are only eleven short dialogue sequences, several of which are in German between Vigo and the innkeeper. It is therefore unwise to place too much negative emphasis on these short Italian dialogue passages when so much of the import of the film is communicated visually. It also seems in retrospect that Riefenstahl*s attempt to provide her film with an authentic background and the metaphorical meaning attached to the use of the two Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39C languages do much to ameliorate one's initial criticism of the few poorly enunciated lines of Italian. There is one additional well-taken point which the film historian, Lotte Eisner, makes about the problems that the spoken word engenders which the written word in the silent film did not: . . . dialogue shows up more clearly than titles the discordances inherent in the conjunction of natural images and melodramatic plots, whicn is what we get in most of the mountain films, even when the author is of the quality of B^la Balazs, the scenar ist of Das Blaue Licht. In this film, . . . the sound often seems superimposed on the very fine shots . . . and the bleating goats and sheep weaken the force of the i m a g e . ^46 If the sound effects and the dialogue tended to distract from the imagery, the music which accompanies the entire film did not. The composer, Giuseppe Becce, an Italian born in Padua, had moved to Berlin when he was twenty years old and shortly thereafter, in 1913, started working in the motion picture industry as an accompanist for silent films. This led to the publication of his Handbook of Film Music (Handbuch der Filmmusik) which con sisted of "a potpourri of musical fragments, classified according to mood and playing time for the convenience of the pianist of the silent film theater.He eventually wrote a number of scores for German films, but he became Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 393 most famous for the work he did on the films of Luis Tren- ker. The White Hell of Pitz Palu for Arnold Fanck, and the excellent score he composed for F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh. Becce wrote the music for both of Riefenstahl's dramatic features. He was an excellent choice on her part because his highly romantic musical style perfectly comple mented her photographic style and actually heightened the emotional appeal of the two melodramatic stories. For The Blue Light, Becce used primarily Italian folk songs which he wove into an ultramelodic score. His music communicates that same "longing for something nonexistent" that Riefen stahl and Schneeberger so successfully captured in the photography. In fact, Becce's job was far easier than theirs had been because this kind of feeling can be more readily transmitted through music, partly because of the intangible nature of the material with which the composer works, namely abstract sounds. Becce's evocative orchestral effects, the lushness of tone, and the dramatic execution of certain passages in his score for The Blue Light are more reminiscent of Roman tic program music than they are of absolute music. This is equally apparent in the music's lack of rigid formal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------- 392 structure even though it adheres appropriately to the film's visual structure. Still the main appeal of Becce's score is through his masterful handling of the rhapsodic melodies which carry the listener to an emotional plane where he can accept more easily the romanticized images and dreamlike atmosphere otherwise difficult to present effectively along side the more believable scenes of harsh reality. One should not underestimate the vital role that music plays in Riefenstahl's films, particularly the music composed by Herbert Windt for her documentaries. As in The Blue Light, the music in all her films prepares the audience to accept events not only as rational occurrences, but it also helps emotionally to involve them in the action. In many cases, the affective experience was so overpowering that critical analysis of the film's content was completely bypassed. Again, this was truer of the documentary films, mainly because this kind of response was also encouraged by the political atmosphere in which the documentaries were shown. But the same basic technique is discernable in both The Blue Light and Tiefland. Unfortunately for Riefenstahl, The Blue Light was neither a commercial nor a critical success in Germany. Worst of all, she was convinced that the responsibility for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 393 the failure of her film lay directly with the Jewish assessment of her work. This, coupled with the other inci dent described below, was enough to swing Riefenstahl naively in the political direction of the burgeoning Nazi party. Harry Sokal observed the events that led to the formation of Riefenstahl's attitude at this time. During the production of The Blue Light, Leni Riefenstahl and I had two apartments in the same building and on the same floor. One day she came to my apartment with a book and she said, "Harry, you must read this 1 This man is a coming person." And she accompanied this by the famous Riefenstahl words, "I must meet this man!" The book was Mein Kampf. A short time later, she had met him! And she learned from him that he liked oi^ pictures a lot— the ones she and Fanck and I had done. Well, a great friendship started between Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl. . . . I laughed about the Hitler business like all the other people did. We couldn't believe that anybody who had written such a bad book could make it. At that time, I still thought that he had no future. As a matter of fact, when the next elec tions came, there was a falling off. Then Blue Light came out [premiere was in March, 1932] in the biggest theater in Berlin— the Ufa Palast . . . They [Aafa] expected it to be a big success like all my other mountain pictures. But this is what happened. The theater was put at the disposal of the distributor and The Blue Light got bad critical reviews in Berlin, especially from the so-called "democratic" papers. These papers, like the Berliner Tagblatt, were considered to be Jewish because either the principal owner was Jewish or the critics were Jewish. The essence of the reviews was that the romanticism in the picture was phony. Then when it was distributed throughout Germany, the more to the politically right the papers were, the better the reviews were. It was a very strange thing . . . [It may not have been so strange considering the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----------------------------------------------------------------- similarities between Romanticism and the folk tale, and the ideology of Nazism.] When the first bad reviews appeared, I was as mad about them as Leni Riefenstahl was because I loved the picture and I still do. Leni came to me extremely upset and said, "What do these Jewish critics understand about our mentality? They have no right to criticize our work." Of course, she was forgetting entirely that there were several Jewish people involved in the making of that picture, like Bela Balazs . . . .nd Carl Mayer. And, in a modest way, ^ had some i..fluence on that picture. She for got how many Jews she was working with [laughs]. Leni was convinced that the failure of Blue Light in Germany was because of the bad reviews. . . . She told me, "After we come to power, the Jewish news papermen will not be allowed to print anything in German. They will have to write in Hebrew because we don't want too many people to understand what they write. ..." Then, during the Nazi period, she re-released the picture [in 1937], and it was even a bigger flop. . . . Leni was interested in herself. She was inter ested in making pictures. She was naïve about poli tics. She liked important people and she was fas cinated by Hitler's personality— there is no doubt about it. And the fact that Blue Light got bad reviews from Jewish critics influenced her so much that she went entirely over into the Nazi camp— as I told you— not considering the fact that she had Jewish collaborators on that p i c t u r e . (Italics Sokal's.) The Blue Light was also a commercial failure in Austria and Switzerland, two other countries where the mountain films usually did very well. Curiously enough. The Blue Light was a big success in France and England. It was also a success when it premiered in New York City at The Little Picture House in May, 1934. Riefenstahl received Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 22g congratulatory telegrams at that occasion from many Ameri- 149 cans, including Charlie Chaplin and Doublas Fairbanks. In Paris the film ran fourteen months and fifteen months at the Rialto in London.Its success in France is not really accountable, but the British have always loved the mountains and mountain stories, so its success in London is less of a mystery. Even though most of the reviewers in England were critical of its plot, the British audiences loved the film. Harry Sokal was amused by this success and recalled; . . . v/hen I went to London, three or four years later, wherever I went, if there was talk about pic tures, Blue Light was mentioned. Without knowing I was involved, people would mention it to me, espec ially women. In fact, only women. I had to laugh because I experienced this at least tei. times. Women would tell me, "Oh, I've seen that picture five times, seven times." It was crazy how these English people loved that p i c t u r e . (Italics Sokal's.) Right after the initial run of The Blue Light in Berlin, Leni Riefenstahl's problems with Harry Sokal began. She had given him the distribution rights but, under their contract, both of them were to share the profits equally. According to Riefenstahl, Sokal reneged on their agreement and gave her very little of the returns on the film. There was really no way that Riefenstahl could check up on Sokal. Since he was a Jew, Sokal decided to leave Germany in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 396 spring of 1933 shortly after Hitler assumed power. He even tually ended up in Hollywood, where he stayed for the dura tion of the war. Riefenstahl knew that the film was doing well in Paris, London, and New York, so she contacted Sokal who was in London at that time hoping to be able to strai^teri out their financial arrangement as she saw fit. Riefenstahl also wanted to retrieve her negative, but Sokal explained that it no longer existed. Apparently when he was making plans to leave Germany in 1933, Sokal did not want it to appear to the authorities that he was leaving Germany per manently, so rather than send the negative to Paris or Lon don, an act that would have given his plans away, he sent the negative to Prague for a theatrical engagement. Once he was safely out of Germany, he intended to have friends send the negative to him. However, according to Sokal, the negative was burned in Prague in 1937. Naturally Riefen stahl was distraught at this news and angered by Sokal's refusal to give her any more than the eleven thousand dol lars he had already sent her. Sokal claimed that he had been cheated in New York, that his original print had been ruined in projection, and that he was then left with noth ing. So in 1937, Riefenstahl professes she signed a new contract with Sokal which gave her total control over the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 9 7 1 5 2 film. It was in this year that Riefenstahl re-released The Blue Light in Germany using a lavender copy of the film which she had in her possession to make new dupe negatives. Sokal denies that he ever signed such an agreement. Accord ing to him, he and Riefenstahl still own the film joint l y . ^^3 Whether or not all of these allegations are true, Sokal still made a few more financial transactions with The Blue Light. During the 1940’s, without Riefenstahl knowing it, he claimed himself as sole owner and sold the United States distribution rights and the "original" negative of The Blue Light to a man now living in Los Angeles by the name of George Rony.Rony says that he never exploited the film in America because he found out that Sokal had sold the same package not long after to another individual in G e r m a n y .155 in any event, the financial difficulties between Riefenstahl and Sokal have been a sore spot which has put their personal relationship on tenuous ground ever since the completion of the film. Despite its cool reception in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, The Blue Light garnered several awards for Leni Riefenstahl outside of these countries. In 1932, it was given a silver medal at the Venice Biennale; in 1937, a gold medal at the World's Fair in Paris; and in 1959, a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ----------------------------------------------- 399 gold medal for Classic Films, again at the Biennale in V e n i c e . 1 5 6 The Blue Light is a film for which Riefenstahl has always had a special affection. In fact, in her troubled years following the end of World War II when the opportunity for her to work again arose, she reverted several times to the story of The Blue Light with the encouragement of her backers. It was almost as if they were drawn to it because this was the one film which was not tainted by Riefenstahl's association with Hitler's Germany. Of course, there were other new projects on which Riefenstahl wanted to work, none of which for various reasons was ever completed. But Riefenstahl was successful in one of the two attempts to remake The Blue Light in which she was involved after the war. She also supervised an effort to turn the story of this film into a ballet. Unfortunately this project, too, was ultimately abandoned by the backers. Riefenstahl's first and only completed remake of The Blue Light came in 1951. One year before, the Ameri cans had returned to Riefenstahl all of the Blue Light negatives which they had confiscated in 1945. The American officers found these negatives in her home in Kitzbuhel, Austria, at the end of the war. The material returned by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -------- jgg the Americans consisted of all the out-takes, approximately 4,500 feet, which Riefenstahl had not used on the 1932 ver sion of The Blue Light. With this material I cut a shorter and better version and through the financial help of an Italian producer I was able to make a very good new sound [track] in Rom [ s i c ] . 1 5 7 Riefenstahl's dubbing negative for this film, along with most of her Tiefland material, were in Paris in the hands of the French authorities— and Riefenstahl's dealings with the French were always stormy affairs fraught with difficulties. She eventually rescued enough of her Tieflanc footage to complete that film, but it was the Americans who provided her with the raw material to remake The Blue Light. . . . I had taken every shot two or three times, and that was the material confiscated by the Americans. . . . The Germans, as well as the Italians, were interested in re-releasing this film so I re-cut the out-takes using an old copy of the film as a model. It was a little bit different, but basical ly the same. The beginning and end framework was left out and I made a new sound track. Only part of the 1951 version was done in Italy. Before starting work on this film, Riefenstahl again formed her own company in Munich with the money an Austrian dis tributing agency. National Film, advanced to her on the returns the firm anticipated receiving on the release of the new version. Riefenstahl cut the out-takes together in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 ô q Austria and recorded the German dialogue there. Then she formed another company. Iris Film, in Italy with the finan cial aid of an Italian businessman. It was in Rome that the entirely new sound track was put together. This time the Italian dialogue was spoken by Italians, Matthias Wiemann recreated the dialogue for Vigo as Riefenstahl did for Junta, and Giuseppe Becce was rehired to create a new musical score which Riefenstahl considers to be better than the original one he composed. This new version was made possible by a coproduction arrangement between the two com panies formed by Riefenstahl— one Italian and the other Ger man with Austrian financing. Iris Film was a very short-lived company . . . because the man who financed it had no idea about film. He was a businessman. And he had the right to sell the film in Italy. I had the right to sell it here [Germany]. The Italian premiere took place in Rome toward the end of 1951;--~ several months later in 1952, the film was released in Austria and Germany.According to Riefen stahl, the reason for the film's commercial failure in Italy was a direct result of her Italian partner's mishan dling of the distribution. She claims he was asking too much money for the film. In Austria, where National Film Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - - ............................................ îüH released it under the title. The Witch from Santa Maria, and in Germany, the film did fairly well for a short time until the newspapers started the kind of political attack on Riefenstahl which has by now become a familiar scene wherever her films are shown commercially. On October 27, 1958, Riefenstahl signed a new con tract giving the Marquis de Cuevas the right to produce a ballet based on her film. The Blue Light. The ballet was to be premiered in Paris and then tour Europe with the Marquis' Monaco-based dance company. Rosella Hightower was chosen for the role of Junta and Erik Bruhn was to dance the part of Vigo. The costumes and sets were to have been designed jointly by Leni Riefenstahl and Alwyn Gamble, the choreographer and representative sent to Riefenstahl in Munich by the Marquis de Cuevas.Then on the day that Riefenstahl was supposed to leave for Paris to see the pro duction, one month prior to the Munich engagement of the company, she received a telegram from Gamble requesting her not to make the trip. "I tried to phone this man in Paris. I got no answer. I tried other people I knew. They were no longer dm Paris. . . . It was f i n i s h e d ."1^4 ^o this day, Riefenstahl does not know for sure why the ballet was so abruptly cancelled. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ^ Her final attempt to recreate The Blue Light came in 1960. Philip Hudsmith, a thirty-five-year-old London producer, with the backing of a wealthy American by the name of Ron Hubbard, offered Riefenstahl the opportunity to make her 1932 film over again in England. Adventure Films, another new company with Riefenstahl as one of the part ners, was foinned by Hudsmith. Riefenstahl was excited about the project because Hudsmith's ideas for the film were intriguing to her. He told her he wanted the film to be "much more fairytale-like than even the original. In dance. Like a ballet. Like The Red Shoes. And in col or. Riefenstahl, of course, was contracted to direct the new version, but the part of Junta was to be played by Pier Angeli and Matthias Wiemann's original role of Vigo was to be recreated by Lawrence H a r v e y . Unfortunately, all of these negotiations were taking place under the spectre of an incident which had received a great deal of publicity in London only a few months before. The British Film Institute was forced to cancel an invitation it had extended to Leni Riefenstahl to speak at the National Film Theatre on her life in film. The cancellation came only after the BFI was reluctantly compelled to make its deci sion as the result of a series of vigorous newspaper Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Tôl attacks led by the Daily Express. One month after the can cellation, Riefenstahl came quietly to London to begin making plans with Hudsmith,but as soon as the Associa tion of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians heard about the impending project, they immediately ex pressed their opposition by strongly recommending that the Ministry of Labor not grant Leni Riefenstahl a permit to work in Britain.And the tale of political attacks against Leni Riefenstahl continued to mount, partially pre venting her from ever again completing another film. Once, in an interview, Riefenstahl rather pathetically reflected on the story of The Blue Light. Her comments stand today as a clue to the special fondness she holds for this film; . . . in making this very romantic film by instinct, without knowing exactly where I wanted to go, I also found myself charting the path I would follow later. For, in a certain fashion, it was my own destiny of which I had had a presentiment and to which I had given form. However, in the chronology of events leading up to the important political documentary. Triumph of the Will, which she was soon to start for Hitler, "The Blue Light vas truly a rehearsal— an elaborate preparation for a master piece to come. *170 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. ^Interview with Frederick A. Mainz, Locarno, Swit zerland, 29 July 1971. ^Leni Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis (Leipzig: Hesse und Becker, 1933). ^Interview with Walter Frentz, Überlingen, Germany, 3 August 1971. ^Interview with Harry Sokal, Munich, Germany, 13 August 1971. ®Ibid. ^Riefenstahl, "Ein Deutscher Film— Welterfolg Entstand," ca. 1960, Deutsches Institut für Filmkunde, Wiesbaden. Gibid. ^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 11 August 1971. Robert Aickman, The Attempted Rescue (London; Gollancz, 1966), p. 180. ^^Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947), p. 259. ^^Louis L. Snyder, "Nationalistic Aspects of the Grimm Brothers' Fairytales," The Journal of Social Psychol ogy 33 (1951): 219. 404 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ------------------------------------------------îüg 13 Richard M. Dorson, "Forward," in Folktales of Germany, ed. Kurt Ranke (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. v, ^^Snyder, Social Psychology, p. 212. l^ibid. ^^Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (Berkeley : Uni versity of California Press, 1961), p. 138. l^ibid. l^Ibid. l*Ibid., p. 147. ^^Hans Kohn, The Mind of Germany: The Education of a Nation (New York; Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960), p. 57. 21. Snyder, Social Psychology, pp. 219, 221. 'Ulrich Gregor, "A Comeb Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 25. ^^Ulrich Gregor, "A Comeback for Leni Riefenstahl?" ^^Leni Riefenstahl to Kevin Brownlow, 1967. A. Willoughby, "The Romantic Background of Hit lerism," Contemporary Review 144 (December 1933): 682. Z^ibid. 26 Snyder, Social Psychology, p. 213. 2 7 Willoughby, Contemporary Review, p. 682. 28 Kohn, The Mind of Germany, p. 56. Z^lbid. ^°Ibid., p. 57. 31lbid., p. 49. ^^Ibid. 33lbid., p. 51. ^^Snyder, Social Psychology, p. 212. ^^Kohn, The Mind of Germany, p. 50. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^^Kohn, The Mind of Germany, p. 50. 3?ibid. ^^Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 259. ^^Kohn, The Mind of Germany, p. 63. ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 70. The Blue Light," 8mm Magazine, December 1962, p. 33. ^^Marguerite Tazelaar, "The Blue Light," New York Herald Tribune, 9 May 1934. ^^Arnold Berson, "The Truth about Leni," Films and Filming, April 1965, p. 16. ^^Interview with Walter Traut, Munich, Germany, 10 August 1971. ^^Interview with Isabel Schlichting, Alicante, Spain, 2 July 1971. 4Glbid. ^^Gregor, Film Comment, p. 25. A O Dorson, ed.. Folklore and Folklife: An Introduc tion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 63. ^^Linda Degh, "Oral Folklore: Folk Narrative," in Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, ed. Richard M. Dorson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 59. SOibid. ^^Ibid., p. 72. S^lbid., pp. 73-4 ^^Ibid., p. 73. Ranke, Folktales of Germany, p. xviii. ^^Snyder, Social Psychology, p. 219. S^ibid., p. 220 ^^Ibid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ~ÎF71 ^®KCET, Los Angeles, 11 October 1971, "Interview with Fritz Lang," Charles Chanelin and Philip Chamberlain. S^Ibid. ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. ^^Leni Riefenstahl to Kevin Brownlow, 1967. ^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 11 August 1971. ®^Riefenstahl, "Ein Deutscher Film. " ^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^Ibid., 4 August 1971. ^^Interview with Arnold Fanck, Freiburg, Germany, 23 July 1971. ®^B^la Balazs, Theory of the Film; Character and Growth of a New Art (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1970), p. 3. GBibid. ^^Interview with Walter Frentz, Überlingen, Germany 3 August 1971. ^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^Riefenstahl to Brcv.-ilow. Interview with Henry v. Jaworsky, New York, 10 September 1972. ^^Herman Weigel, "Interview with Leni Riefenstahl," Filmkritik, August 1972, p. 398. 74 Henry v. Jaworsky to author, 30 July 1972. 75ibid. " ^ ^ I b i d , 77lbid. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4og ^®Leni Riefenstahl, "Leni Riefenstahl," in Wir uber uns selbst, ed. Hermann Treuner (Berlin: Sibyllen Verlag, 1928). n rs Jaworsky to author. • ’9- G^Gordon Hitchens, Kirk Bond, and John Hanhardt, "Interview with Henry Jaworsky by Gordon Hitchens, Kirk Bond and John Hanhardt," Film Culture 56-57 (Spring 1973): 126-34. ^^Riefenstahl, "Ein Deutscher Film." ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 69. ^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ®^Hitchens, et al.. Film Culture, p. 136. ^^Interview with Sokal. ^^Hitchens, et al.. Film Culture, p. 136. ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 70. BSibid., pp. 70-1. p. 71. 9°Ibid., p. 73. ^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. Interview with Traut. ^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 8 August 1971. Interview with Mainz. ^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^Ibid,; 8 August 1971. ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 70. ^®Ibid., pp. 73-4. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 Interview with Sokal. ^^^Interview with Fanck. ^^^Michel Delahaye, "Leni and the Wolf," Cahiers du cinéma in English 5 (1966) : 49. 102 Interview with Jaworsky. ^Interview with Traut. 104 Arnold Fanck to author, 27 April 1971. ^Interview with Jaworsky. 106 Fanck to author. ^^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^^Bela Balazs, Der Sichtbare Mensch; Eine Film- Dramaturgie (Wien; Deutsch-Osterreichischer Verlag, ÏT24), p. 108. 109 Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, p. 78. ^^^Cameron Macauley, "The Blue Light," Cineclub Scrapbook, 26 February 1952, p. 1. Jaworsky to author. 112 Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^^"Report of the Progress Committee, October 1931— May 1932," Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engi neers 19 (August 1932): 122. 114 Hitchens, et al.. Film Culture, p. 131. ^^^Ibid. ^^^"The Blue Light, A Dolomite Legend, Rich in Pic torial Beauty," New York Sun, 9 May 1934. ^^^"The Blue Light," The London Times, 30 October 1932. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 410 118 Basil Wright, "The Blue Light," Cinema Quarterly 1 (Winter 1932): 114. 119 Gideon Bachmann, ed., "Six Talks with G. W. Pabst: The Man— The Director— The Artist," Cinemages 3 (New York: The Group for Film Study, Inc., 1955), p. 47. 120 "The Blue Light," New York Post, 7 October 1934. 121 Tazelaar, New York Herald Tribune. 122 James Card, "The Blue Light" (speech given as part of the series entitled: "The Film in Germany 1908- 1958"), The George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, 11-12 January 1965. Maurice Bardeche and Robert Brasillach, The History of Motion Pictures (New York: W. W. Norton and Com pany, 1938), p. 195. ^ 24 "Ibid., p. 194. 125 Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. Interview with Sokal. 127 Macauley, Cineclub Scrapbook, p. 2. 128 Interview with Richard Angst, Berlin, Germany, 10 July 1971. ^^^Ibid. Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 78. 132 133 Fanck to author. Ibid. 134 Interview with Fanck. l^^ibid. ^^^Fanck to author. 137 Interview with Fanck. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ? n i 138 Interview with Fanck. ' 139 Fanck to Author. 140 Interview with Sokal. 141 L. Andrew Mannheim, "Leni: Photo Genius of the Nazis?" Modern Photography, February 1974, p. 117. 142 Interview with Riefenstahl, 8 August 1971. 143 Mannheim, Modern Photography, p. 117. 144 Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^^Ibid. 146 Lotte H. Eisner, The Haunted Screen: Expression- ism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1969), pp. 312- 313. 147 Macauley, Cineclub Scrapbook, p. 2. 148 Interview with Sokal. 149 Riefenstahl to Brownlow. ^^^Leni Riefenstahl, "Resume of Life," Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin GmbH, Berlin. ^^^Interview with Sokal. 152 Riefenstahl to Brownlow. 153 Interview with Sokal. 154 Interview with George Rony, Los Angeles, Califor nia, 2 February 1971. ^^^Ibid. ^^^Leni Riefenstahl, "Artistic Life History of Leni Riefenstahl" (an autobiography written in English and given to the author by Leni Riefenstahl), August 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. T n 1 5 7 Riefenstahl to Brownlow. ^^^Weigel, Filmkritik, p. 398. 159 ^Ibid. Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. 160. ^^^"Biography of Leni Riefenstahl," Interpress Archiv, 10 August 1962. ^^^ciLeni Riefenstahl," New York Herald Examiner, 20 May 1952. 163 Inge Brandler to author, 6 October 1972. ^^^Interview with Riefenstahl, 6 August 1971. ^^^Ibid. ^^^Bild Zeitung (clipping) Axel Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 15 March 1960. ^^^"No Hand-Shake," Daily Herald (London), 14 December 1960. "British Fix Techs Switch Off Light on Hitler's Leni," Variety (Hollywood), 28 July 1960. ^^^Delahaye, Cahiers du Cinema in English, p. 49. ^^^"Das Blaue Licht" (Program Notes), 11-12 Janu ary 1965, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. C H APTE R X I S.O.S. ICEBERG Immediately following the original release of The Blue Light, Leni Riefenstahl found herself in the most crucial period of decision-making she would have to face for the rest of her life. At the time, of course, she was unaware of the critical nature of these decisions, but Leni Riefenstahl was soon fated to choose a path which would lead to her ultimate achievements as a filmmaker and which, at the same time, would eventually condemn her to a life marked by scorn, hatred, and artistic oblivion in her own country and in much of the rest of the world, too. It was in 1932 that Riefenstahl became aware of the existence of Adolf Hitler both through reading his book. Mein Kampf, and by attending some of his speeches. It was in that same year that Leni Riefenstahl was personally introduced to this leader of the increasingly important National Socialist party. Recalling what Harry Sokal had to say about Riefen stahl ’s initial reaction to Mein Kampf, her obsession with _____________________________àl2____________________________ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the book and the personality of the author, it is under standable that she was finally compelled to seek Hitler’s acquaintance. But before the idea of this meeting formu lated in her mind, Riefenstahl tried to convince several friends of the book’s value. Jaworsky was one of those friends. After the completion of The Blue Light, Jaworsky went to Switzerland to work with Schneeberger and Angst on Adventure in the Engadin (Abenteuer im Engadin, 1932). Though Riefenstahl was not involved in this film, she came to visit Schneeberger and to take a well-earned vacation after the gruelling promotional tour she had just completed with The Blue Light in Germany. Jaworsky was still serving as secretary to her company at this time. They met occa sionally on the Engadin set, and then: . . . we travelled back to Berlin together in the spring of 1932 . . . She had read Mein Kampf and was fascinated by it. During this train ride, she tried to convince me that it was a beautiful book. I laughed and we got in an argument. Then she said, "You'll see. You'll see. They are right. I'll work for them." And it really happened!^ In 1938, Riefenstahl was quoted as saying this about the experience of reading Mein Kampf: I read it in the train, on the set, by the mountain streams and forest. It made a tremendous impres sion on me. I became a National Socialist after reading the first page.^ Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — — ------------------------------------------------îig One has to interpret this last comment carefully for Riefenstahl was likely to switch allegiance erratically depending upon which side seemed to offer the most advan tages for her career. There is no doubt that Riefenstahl agreed with much of what Hitler had written, but she also opposed many of the ideas. In fact, this is one of the reasons why she says she refused to join the Nazi Party— even at the personal request of Hitler himself. Neverthe less, because Riefenstahl had read and admired Mein Kampf before the Nazis had taken power, she cannot claim, even though she was never active in politics, that she was igno rant of Hitler's ideas and plans for Germany. In the meantime, Bela Balazs, an ardent Communist and well-known as such throughout Germany, had received a telegreim from the Soviet authorities requesting that he come to Moscow. He was offered a position which would allow him more opportunities as a director to try out his film theo ries. Balazs cabled back an acceptance with the stipula tion that he would come only if Leni Riefenstahl could accompany him. After Balazs assured the sceptical Soviets of her loyalty, they agreed to have her come along. No doubt Balazs saw this, as did many others in his position, as a good occasion to leave Germany. Though it appeared Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------îxg inevitable that the German people, whose political and economic situation was steadily degenerating, would soon be forced to choose between one of the two political extremi ties, National Socialism or Marxism, Balazs probably found the firm Soviet offer more appealing than the unstable conditions in Germany— and indubitably presumed that Riefenstahl would feel the same way. However, at the time he notified the Soviet authorities, Balazs could not have known that Riefenstahl had already confessed "all her left ist ideas were completely changed by reading Mein Kampf, * ' ^ and how very different her expectations for the future were now, a thought she is supposed to have told to Austrian actress Dolly Haas. She turned down Balazs' offer and shortly thereafter he left for Moscow alone.^ Considering the frame of mind Riefenstahl was in at this time and her determination to meet Adolf Hitler, it is no surprise that she opted to stay in Germany, just as it was not unforeseen that Riefenstahl would again refuse Russian offers to her following World War II. Her reply in the latter case clarifies her earlier decision as well: Yes . . . I was asked to go and work in the USSR. Over there, they liked what I did very much. Only I did not feel really capable of expressing myself except in my own country. I didn’t imagine work ing anywhere else. I had to live in my country. That's all.5 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — H tI It is interesting to speculate what Riefenstahl ttiight have accomplished had she gone to Moscow. It is ironic to realize what her loyalty to post-War Germany has meant to her once-luminous career. The immediate impetus for Riefenstahl to try to make personal contact with Hitler was probably one of his campaign speeches attended by her in the Berliner Sport- palast.G She was obviously impressed by what she heard as her description of the event testifies: "I had the vision of a tremendous column of water rising from the ocean into the clouds, making the horizon tremble."^ This state ment is as much a characterization of her feelings about Hitler as it is Riefenstahl's impression of his effect on the masses of people gathered together to hear him speak. She immediately wrote a letter to Hitler requesting an in terview and to her surprise within three days she received a telephone call from Brueckner, one of Hitler's adjutants, who had been instructed to set the date for a meeting. In the meantime, Riefenstahl had signed a contract with Universal to act in what was to be her last film for Dr. Fanck, S.O.S. Iceberg. The film was to be shot on location in Greenland and the departure of the cast and crew by ship from Hamburg had been set for several days Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4ÏË before Leni Riefenstahl was to have had her much-sought- after interview. A couple of days before they were to sail, Riefenstahl asked for a postponement of the trip until the following week, a request which Universal reluctantly granted, but only after careful consideration of the prob lems they would have had replacing Leni at such a late date, for again the S.O.S. part required more athletic vir tuosity than acting talent from the female lead. So Riefen stahl won out and by the time she arrived to set sail, she had "made her mark" with the future dictator of Nazi Ger many. From one point of view, S.O.S. Iceberg (S.O.S. Eisberg, 1933) is an anomaly, or at the very least, a curi osity in the career of Leni Riefenstahl. One might logical ly question why she would even consider participating in this film, not so much because of the type of film S.O.S. is, but because of the stage to which her own filmic talents had advanced by the time Dr. Fanck pushed off from Hamburg for Greenland with his cast and crew. Essentially S.O.S. is just another typically melo dramatic, beautifully-photographed mountain film. The major difference between it and all the previous Fanck films is the fact that this time the backgrounds are not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41S the snow-covered precipices of Switzerland, Austria, and Germany but instead are the constantly-changing, ever-mov ing, spectacular ice "mountains" formed by the sheering off of the rapidly progressing glaciers in Greenland. For instance, the Rink Glacier was photographed for this film at the moment of a "calving," the action which produces the numerous icebergs of Greenland. This breaking-away action happens as dramatically and frequently as it does because the glaciers in Greenland move at incredible speeds— some Q up to one hundred feet per day. So S.O.S. was not a very different film from the others that Riefenstahl had acted in for Dr. Fanck, but by the time it was being planned Leni Riefenstahl had already successfully completed her own first feature film. She obviously relished the independence and almost total con trol she had in all areas while making The Blue Light. At the same time, her relationship with Fanck had noticeably deteriorated during the making of this film. And besides, the part she would play in S.O.S. was essentially the same as the other uninspired roles she had come to detest. She was again to be the only love interest in an all-male action film. It certainly was not a part in which she could hope to extend her talents as an actress. In fact, it was just Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42q the kind of film which absolutely obscured the creative talents of everyone involved except the cameramen— and God! So what was it that made Riefenstahl decide to do this film: First of all. The Blue Light was not initially a success in German-speaking Europe. Therefore, Riefenstahl was not likely to secure financial support from the studios for any new film project of her own. She was aware that Fanck was in Hollywood negotiating a contract with Carl Laemmle for a film to be made in Greenland, but at that time she was probably not aware that Dr. Fanck was ardently trying to convince the Universal people in Hollywood not to hire Riefenstahl for this film— in fact, if possible, not to hire any woman for S.O.S. Iceberg : I told them that there had never been a woman on an arctic expedition. But that didn't carry any weight with them. They said that very soon women would be flying to the Arctic . . . I could not argue with that. "But at least you have to consent to my want ing to take the best female pilot in Germany, Elly Beinhorn." No, very definitely they want to have Leni Riefenstahl; she had been very popular with American audiences in Pitz Palu [the other Fanck film financed by Universal]. I objected, saying that everyone in Germany knew that Leni Riefenstahl was not a flier and that the film would suffer be cause of this fact.9 At the time of contract negotiations, it seems that Fanck was intending to make a very realistic film out of S.O.S., almost documentary in style. His argument— that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------C T the introduction of a female flier into this realistic set ting, especially a flier played by a woman who everyone knew could not actually fly, would destroy the illusion of reality— fell on deaf ears in Hollywood. Laemmle saw the inclusion of a "romantic interest" in S.O.S. essential to the box office appeal of the project and since Pitz Palu had proved popular, why tamper with success by eliminating the female role or by hiring a different female star? Indeed, it was precisely because Pitz Palu had been a suc cess that Fanck was invited to Hollywood— and Carl Laemmle was not at all predisposed to change a formula which he con sidered a "money-maker" just to comply with the idealistic visions of some relatively insignificant German director. Nonetheless, Fanck— like so many other directors in his situation before and since— did sincerely but naively try to persuade the Universal people to do the project his way. However, by the time the contract was signed, Fanck had compromised on a number of issues, including the hiring of Leni Riefenstahl. His own salary was set at $20,000,a sum that Joseph von Sternberg later on told Fanck he con sidered a victimizing pittance from the shrewd Hollywood financiers with whom he had been bargaining. Sternberg felt that Fanck should not have agreed to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 2 do S.O.S. Iceberg for any less than $100,000.But because Fanck was a newcomer to Hollywood and because his career in Germany did not command the same kind of respect as a Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch, or others of their repute, Fanck probably could not have realistically de manded the sum suggested by Sternberg. Still, Sternberg's implication is valid— there is no question but that Fanck was underpaid for the work he was to do on this film. So, on Fanck's return to Germany, he had resigned himself to the hiring of Riefenstahl for one of the parts in his film. It is interesting to note that despite Fanck's growing jealousy and animosity toward Riefenstahl as a colleague and fellow professional filmmaker, he still had some feeling for her on a personal level, a situation which undoubtedly made her engagement on this film somewhat of a mixed blessing for both of them. Riefenstahl was not sure how the Hollywood dealings tiad gone, so as soon as Fanck arrived in Berlin, she was there to plead inclusion in the project. Fanck did very Little discussing of the film with her, but produced the 12 contract which would pay $10,000 for her participation. Then he informed her that their tramp steamer. The "Boro- îino," was set to sail from Hamburg five days hence. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------- — 4 ^ Because of the salary, Riefenstahl was quite anxious to work on S.O.S. And since she eventually acted in the American, as well as the German, version of the film, it proved quite a lucrative project for her. But there were other reasons for her wanting to do the film: I was trying to start a new film of my own when they [Universal] sent me a cable offering me a lot of money. . . . And then another thing: I was in terested in seeing Greenland. Very few people had ever been to the location where we were to shoot the film. So I thought, "Good, I will go on this expedition. It's a very unusual project. I will make a lot of money which I can then use for my next film. And besides, all my friends will be with me. So, I will do it." It was my last film with Fanck.13 The fact that most of Riefenstahl's friends were participating on this project should not be overlooked as an important factor in her decision to go along on the film. It is also fascinating to note that many of these same friends would soon be working for her on the upcoming polit ical documentaries and Olympia. Hans Schneeberger and Richard Angst were the camera men and Leni Riefenstahl's old friend and future production manager, Walter Traut, was one of the assistant camera operators along with Luggi Foeger. S.O.S. also provided the first film experience for a young man named Hans Ertl. He was everything from keeper of the polar bears to iceberg/ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 2 4 Alpine specialist on this film, but he did not operate a camera until Leni Riefenstahl hired him for her film on the German Wehrmacht, Day of Freedom (Tag der Freiheit— Unsere Wehrmacht, 1935). He eventually became the cameraman that 14 Riefenstahl now considers to have been her best. Besides these people, one of Leni Riefenstahl's discoveries, Sepp Rist, the former policeman who played the lead in Storms over Mont Blanc, had a starring role in S.O.S. as did the stunt flier, Ernst üdet, another person whom Leni Riefenstahl had brought to Fanck and who eventu ally achieved a certain degree of fame through his films. There were two other colleages of Riefenstahl who were also going on the S.O.S. expedition: Walter Riml and Gunther Lantschner, the comic skiing duo with whom Riefen stahl had worked on previous Fanck films. Both of these meiji were soon to comprise two of the most trusted members of Riefenstahl's own crew on her political documentaries and Guzzi, along with his brother Otto, would also work as cameramen on Olympia. Walter Riml's part in S.O.S. was a departure of sorts for him. It was not a comedy role, but a dramatic one. Guzzi Lantschner, on the other hand, was not slated to perform in S.O.S. at all. Instead, he was to perform in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■ 42g another film entirely which would be shot concurrently with Fanck's film. The arrangements for the Greenland expedition were not only costly, but were somewhat complex from both the administrative and financial angles. Deutsche Universal Film À.G. was financing simultaneously both the making of S.O.S. Iceberg and a scientific expedition headed by the famous Arctic explorer, Knud Rasmussen, who was in turn accompanied by Dr. Fritz Loewe and Dr. Ernst Sorge. All three scientists served as advisers to Dr. Fanck, but from the point of view of Universal, the main reason for their inclusion on the filmic expedition was the fact that en trance visas to Greenland for motion picture crews and tourists of any kind were extremely difficult to obtain. The Danish government, in a well-founded effort to protect the native Eskimos from the possibility of extinction through contracting diseases indigenous to the white man, usually granted visas only to scientific expeditions. It was only through diplomatic negotiations by Carl Laemmle in the United States and Knud Rasmussen, under whose guardian ship the whole undertaking was placed, that the Danish administration agreed to the film project. Actually, with out the help of Rasmussen, Greenland's native son, not only Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42e would the project never have gone beyond the idea stage but, once in Greenland, the cooperation of the Eskimos would have been in doubt as well. But these two enterprises were not the only projects underway on this expedition. There was still another. A comedy film. Northpole, Ahoy I, produced by Joseph Paster nak, was to be shot simultaneously with S.O.S. Iceberg. The idea behind this venture was to share both equipment and some personnel from the S.O.S. film whenever possible thus coming away from the expensive trip with more product for the theaters. Guzzi Lantschner, though he did not act in S.O.S., had one of the starring roles in Northpole, Ahoy!, along with Walter Riml and another actor from the S.O.S. film, Gibson Gowland, a British character actor whose most impor tant role to date was McTeague, the lead in Erich von Stroheim's 1923 film entitled Greed. The director of this comedy was Andrew Marton, an Hungarian who came to Holly wood in the 1920's. At that time he was best known as Ernst Lubitsch's editor. During this period in Hollywood, Marton continued to direct films in Europe, but by the 1950's he had become one of the most respected second-unit directors in the American film industry. In directing Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ~42l NorthpolSf Ahoy!/ Marton was extremely well organized, con fident in himself, and sure of exactly what he wanted to get on film. By the time he arrived in Greenland, he had a detailed script from which he worked systematically. Marton's method was entirely in contrast to Fanck's approach. Though Fanck had a script which the Universal people had approved, he was not one to follow the written word religiously. And : .nee his initial idea was more alone the lines of a documentary, once he was in the Greenland atmosphere, his instinct was a little like Flaherty's. He preferred to spend some time getting to know the natives and acquiring a feeling for the location before launching into the filming. As a consequence, Fanck took six months to shoot his film in Greenland— and he ended up with an enormous amount of footage, so much so that the bulk of it almost paralyzed the Universal people. Laemmle assigned Paul Kohner as his representative in Germany. Today Paul Kohnar is one of Hollywood's biggest agents dealing mostly with foreign talent and his agency currently represents Andrew Marton. It was to be Kohner's responsibility to produce a version of S.O.S. Iceberg from Fanck's footage and any additional scenes Kohner deemed necessary, which would make back the already considerable outlay of money. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The obvious implication was that Fanck's version, which his contract assured him, would not do well in the United States, and probably would not break even in Germany either Marton, who had finished shooting Northpole, Ahoy! long before Fanck was ready to leave Greenland, was hired by Kohner to edit the "American" version. The fact that another individual, Tay Garnett, was called in to direct this version did little else but set Fanck at odds with his American "backers." Even in Greenland, a certain amount of antagonism was evident— and inevitable— given the situation of two directors working on separate projects but sharing the same equipment and personnel. Marton's perception of the situation gives some idea of the tension which existed between the two directors while they were both shooting in Greenland. Two days fol lowing Pasternak's offer to make a film at the "North Pole," Marton found himself on the "Borodino" heading for Umanak: I had no story. . . . I had no equipment. Pasternak said, "You borrow what you can from S.O.S. Eisberg. . . . All I had were two characters I could use . . . a tall guy and a short guy . . . And we were off. Now immediately friction set in because I had had Hollywood experience before. I had a script which I had kept in my Wellington boots . . . Every set-up was sketched in. And when it was shot, it was crossed off. Everybody around me watched progress being made on the picture. Whereas Dr. Fanck was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — --------------------------------------------- Î75 a thinker. He spent the first three or four months getting in the mood. Nothing was happening with his film while I was shooting- So. naturally, a certain friction came about— especially when we came back and found out the S.O.S. Eisberg could not be put together with the footage he shot in Greenland. In a way, Fanck unpremeditatively got back at Uni versal for not allowing him to do the story he initially wanted to shoot in Greenland. By overshooting scenic mater ial without also covering enough connective, fictionalized narrative, he ended up with the raw material for a docu mentary film rather than the makings for a dramatic feature film in the Universal studio mold. Fanck's cerebral manner as a director, his preoccu pation with detail and his need to wait for inspiration should not have come as a surprise to Universal. His approach to filmmaking was the same on The White Hell of Pitz Palu, but on that film Universal had also wisely engaged G. W. Pabst to direct the dramatic dialogue se quences. Even so, there was some argument between Fanck and the studio over motivation in the Pitz Palu script, the major conflict centering on Fanck’s refusal to supply a dramatic reason for the characters to be impelled into climbing the mountain. Why Universal did not anticipate the same kind of difficulties with Fanck on S.O.S. Iceberg is unexplainable. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------ 22Q Eventually a second location in Switzerland had to be found to shoot the dialogue sequences for both the Amer ican and German versions of S.O.S. As mentioned earlier. Universal called in Tay Garnett to direct this dramatic material for the American version, but Dr. Fanck also found it necessary to shoot additional footage in Switzerland to complete his version of the film. Therefore, 1,-. the Amer ican and German crews found themselves somewhat ..ncomfort- ably working together, again sharing equipment and some personnel, in the region of the Bernina Hospiz near St. Moritz. Garnett's story of how he was hired to complete the American version of S.O.S. Iceberg explains the situation from Universal Studio's point of view; I had just finished a picture for Universal called Destination Unknown when Uncle Carl Laemmle called me in the office and said, "I've got a big problem." I was producing and directing then— and I'd been a contract writer for seven years. . . . So he said, "I've got a big problem 'cause I need someone who can write/produce/direct. We’ve got a company over in Germany and we sent them on an expedition to Greenland under Arnold Fanck. They've come back with thousands of miles of exposed film, and Fanck has refused to give us any sign of a story to con nect the film. We have $285,000 invested." Well, at that time, that was better than a mil lion and a half today. So Laemmle said, "Fanck now has us hooked. We're into it and we don't know what to do, but it's very obvious that if we hope to bail any of our money out, we've got to send someone from here who will pull it together and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 3 ] give it some semblance of continuity. We will be very happy if we can just break even on it. I don’t know whether the German version's going to do any thing or not, but I can't touch that." [Because their contract made it impossible for him to take that version away from Dr. Fanck.] Fanck had told them that it was going to cost about $85,000, and already it cost two hundred eighty-five. So, by that time, they had allowed themselves to get too deeply into it . . . So the old man said, "If you are willing to undertake it, I would like you to go to Germany. . . . When you get there, you'll have to look at all the film they've shot. It's a prodigious amount'. So you look at all the film and see what kind of an idea you can get to act as glue and puli it togeth er. And then you tak^ it from there. Paul Kohner is over there as the producer and he's got his hands full with Fanck, so ^ will expect you to do a lot of what would normally be his work on your version. In other words, you're on your own!" So I went over to Berlin and spent three weeks, ten hours a day, in the freezing living room of Dr. Fanck's home in mid-winter with ice and snow all over the place. We'd go out into the blizzard to get warm after we'd been in that house. . . . I had icebergs coming out of my ears. It was just awful. Understandably, Fanck was not overcome with good will toward this American director who, he felt, was in truding on his territory. Garnett very simply stated their relationship with, "Well, he and I never got along. We never jelled at all."^^ And on top of this, by the time Garnett had arrived in Berlin, Andrew Marton had already revealed himself to Fanck as anything but a close associ ate. So when Fanck discovered that Marton was going to be working with Garnett, he must have really felt betrayed by Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 432 Universal and unjustly challenged by the two "Hollywood" men. According to Henry v. Jaworsky, who did not make the trip to Greenland but who did work as an assistant camera man for both Garnett and Fanck in Switzerland: "It was a 18 running battle the whole time between the two teams." After Garnett had screened all the Greenland foot age with Fanck, he got together with Marton who had con sented "to help them out as an editor and to help out with the sequences which needed what we call 'punching up' with a few close-ups.So Marton functioned as a second unit director as well as an editor on the American version of S.O.S., but he agreed to do so only after he was through with the editing on Northpole, Ahoy! He completed work on his comedy in Switzerland and, to add more fuel to the already blazing antagonisms, he projected the finished film for both of the S.O.S. crews. Marton obviously relished the superior position, in terms of craftsmanship and speed, that this performance put him in in relationship to Fanck, as his comment about the effect of the screening indicates: And that was when the thing hit the fan because suddenly people saw that this was a very funny com edy which was completed, whereas they were still struggling. They weren't even out of the woods yet!" G a r n e tt'S ap p ro ach to s o lv in g th e s to r y p ro b le m on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 433 S.O.S. is an interesting study in the contrast between methods employed by a studio director— albeit, in this case, under not very favorable circumstances— and those of an independent director like Fanck, with whose working style we are already familiar. Garnett gave Marton an idea of the kind of scenic shots he wanted to include in his film and then: I said, "Bun(^ [Andrew Marten's nickname], you're gonna have to use your own judgment and pick a lot of colorful shots." (There were some spectacular shots of icebergs.) I said, "I don't know what the hell you can do with this. You can't really put a story in it." But some of the most spectacular shots were of Udet flying around among the icebergs. And another group of shots was of an iceberg with a high sugarloaf kind of peak and a flat shelf at the bottom where there was a cave. And I said, "I think that's the key ro the whole thing." Because there were several shots of this thing floating around with a man, Gibson Gowland, on it. And so I said, "You take care of that and pull out as much stuff as you think we can use and kind of filter it down until we get something that won't choke us to death every time we want to look at it."^^ When Marton had accomplished that, Garnett and his assistant. Bob Fellows, in conference with Paul Kohner came up with the plot for S.O.S. Iceberg: . . . we kicked it around. And I said, "The only way I can see that we can do this thing is to make a pseudo-documentary out of it— I mean, a semi documentary." So I said, "Maybe we can get a story out a bunch of scientists that go up there and their ship is lost and they take refuge on an ice berg. And Udet, who was not on board the ship because he was flying at the time, sets out to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 3 4 look for these guys on the ice." So that was sub stantially all the story we had.22 The opening scene with the scientists at a dinner/ board meeting discussing the details of the expedition, according to Garnett, was included "just to sort of give the film a dullness that you get out of real documentary 23 Stuff!" Is it any wonder that there was hostility over the film between Fanck and Garnett? The most extensive of the dialogue sequences which were shot in Switzerland involved the iceberg with the natural cave. It was on this 'berg that several of the characters in the film were supposed to be stranded and awaiting rescue. What now took place in Switzerland was a situation which must have appeared to Riefenstahl, on this her last film with Fanck, something like a replay of Pitz Palü and her first filmic experience on The Holy Mountain. An iceberg, like the one photographed in Greenland, was re constructed, down to the last detail, near St. Moritz! The whole thing was built out of bamboo and burlap on a high icy promontory. The location was picked with an eye to achieving a variety of camera angles without necessitating unwanted and anachronistic backgrounds. In expert fashion, as they had done several times in the past, the Fanck crew wet down the burlap in the late afternoon so that it would Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -----------------------------------------------------------æg freeze overnight. They repeated the process urtil they had a real iceberg in the middle of the Alps! It was inside the cave of that iceberg that Leni Riefenstahl and Rod LaRocgue, the only new member of the cast, played their scenes together. The reason LaRocgue was added to the Gar nett version makes a great deal of Hollywood sense: "Why Rod was i. it was that I found out he was in Europe. And I said, 'Jesus, we'll get one other guy in here who can speak English.'"24 (Gibson Gowland was the only other English-speaking player.) Except for LaRocgue, all the actors were working for both directors, so the shooting arrangements for Gar nett and Fanck were a little bit unusual. Here is how Garnett described the situation: I'd shoot until I'd finished a seguence. Then I'd go down to St. Moritz and live it up until I got word that Fanck was finished. Then I'd dash back up and he'd get down before my bar seat got cool.2^ Garnett shot most of the dialogue without sound because so many of his actors had unintelligible German accents. All the dialogue was mouthed in English and taken down in shorthand by Garnett's script clerk. Then when it came time to edit these dialogue seguences, the real diffi culty began: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43Q This was a very big chore getting this thing stuck together. We had to put most of it together si lent because several of these Germans were mouth ing words and didn ‘ t even know what tliey were say ing! . . . Leni's English was coming along then, but she had no vocabulary and she had a very thick accent.26 After putting the silent visuals together in Berlin, Garnett took the picture to Universal’s studio in London where he held voice auditions. So each of the German actors who had dialogue to speak were doubled by British actors : You can imagine how long it took to dub all this stuff. It wasn't looping in the general sense because there was no sound track. I just had the shorthand notes— and that's all I had! Then these actors had to learn the lines and watch the lip actions [without ary aural cues]. You know, they didn't know much aoout looping then . . . It is well to remember that all this patching up of the S.O.S. plot with dialogue sequences was taking place in 1933, not long after the introduction of sound to motion pictures. Therefore, any specialized problems, like the ones Garnett was dealing with, were pioneering efforts in a new technical field. This predicament made Garnett's problems more acute and his solutions more cumbersome and time-consuming than they might have been several years hence. Leni Riefenstahl's interest in the work Garnett was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ doing became quite apparent to him: I Lùiiik somebody had given her an awfully good sell ing job on me. I'm sure of that because she just latched on to every word I said. She always had someone standing by to interpret— usually it was Schneeberger or Kohner if he was there. . . . Everything that went on she saw. She didn't miss anything.28 Riefenstahl's intense participation and interest on Garnett's version of S.O.S. followed a pattern of behavior which she had displayed earlier on the Fanck films. She wanted to learn as much as possible about all aspects of filmmaking, and was never satisfied doing only the thing for which she was hired. It is important to remember that Riefenstahl had worked almost exclusively with Dr. Fanck as director. The only exceptions were the Hapsburg film that she did under Rolf Raffe and the Pitz Palu sequences under G. W. Pabst. Performing for Tay Garnett was a different experience for her and it afforded her the opportunity of observing at close hand another director at work. On top of all this, Tay Garnett had not only been sent by one of the major Hollywood-based studios, but he was a writer and a producer, as well as a director, who had been trained entirely in Hollywood, the film capital of the world, where some of the most technically-proficient motion pic tures were produced. Put all this together with the fact Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 3 Î that the introduction of sound to film was still a rela tively recent innovation and Riefenstahl was planning in the near future to direct a new sound film of her own— then her vivid curiosity about everything going on on the Gar nett set becomes transparently obvious. Outside of the time she spent in Switzerland, Riefenstahl's experience on S.O.S. did little in the way of advancing her knowledge of filmmaking. The four months she spent in Greenland provided her only with variations on the theme of physical hardship, to which she had already become so accustomed on the Fanck films, and the correspond ing opportunities to prove herself an admirable and unusual female for overcoming these harsh environmental obstacles "like a man." As far as the role she was playing in S.O.S., she might as well have participated in Andrew Marten's trivial, inane Northpole, Ahoy1 for all the creative possi bilities the "more serious" film allowed her (for a plot summary of Northpole, Ahoy !, see Appendix C). Both Yarmila Marton, Bundy's wife, who played the female lead in the comedy film, and Riefenstahl in S.O.S. were victims of the cardboard characters they were portraying— in a more funda mental way than their male counterparts whose roles, at least, occasionally afforded some surprises in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Trg characterization. For instance, Riefenstahl plays Ellen Lawrence, a famous female flier who, on hearing of the ill fate of her husband. Dr. Carl Lawrence, flies to Greenland to rescue him and the other surviving meniers of his expedition only to end up crashing into the iceberg on which the men are stranded, causing her plane to go up in flames. Admittedly this bumbling accident provided the cameras with some spectacular photography of fire and ice, but ultimately Ellen Lawrence did no one any good and she merely added herself to the crew of starving stranded men on the iceberg all of whom are eventually rescued through the efforts of the indomitable flying Udet. As one critic observed: Leni Riefenstahl . . . bears the same relationship to the story as the heroine in a standard Western. She supplies the alleged love interest while other wise serving only to impede the story.^9 Had S.O.S. Iceberg been made into a documentary about Greenland, the outcome of the film would probably have been more satisfying because it is the magnificence of the photography in reproducing the splendors of Nature which initially captures the emotions and imagination of the audience. The ill-conceived and poorly developed story fails to add anything to the more spectacular appeal of the drama of Nature from which the story attempts to draw Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44q significance. What really happens is that the ineffective ness and naïveté of the plot is not only made more apparent by contrast with the forces and beauty of Nature, but even tually it robs the realistic background itself of its credibility so that toward the end of the film something as striking and dangerous as the survivors struggling for theii lives on an iceberg which is splitting in two and turning turtle on them does little more than produce a raised eye brow in the onlooker. Briefly told, the plot of S.O.S. Iceberg centers around Dr. Carl Lawrence's quest for the missing records of Alfred Wegener, the Greenland explorer whose expedition had recently come to a calamitous end. The film opens with a group of five men— Dr. Lawrence (Rod La Rocque), the expedition leader; Dr. Johannes Brand (Sepp Rist); Dr. Jan Matushek (Dr. Max Holsboer); John Dragan (Gibson Gowland), the financial backer of the venture; and a young man, Fritz Kuemmel (Walter Riml)— discussing the plans for their sci entific/search mission. They soon embark for the northwest coast of Greenland, but because of their failure to keep on schedule, they arrive just as the warm weather begins to break up the ice in the fjords. That night, Lawrence explains that since the floes Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. are breaking up, and under such conditions the icebergs frequently split and turn over, they now must face dangers which are almost beyond their ability to oversome. Dr. Brand immediately questions Lawrence's courage in the face of such a statement. To prove himself, that same night Lawrence secretly leaves his companions behind and strikes out alone. Four days later, an Eskimo returns with a broker portion of a ski which contains the words: "Lawrence Expe dition." Against the wishes of John Dragan, the only non- outdoorsman and the most apprehensive member of the group, the four remaining men set out to rescue their leader. The Eskimos refuse to act as their guides because of the treacherous conditions in the fjords. On their search, several accidents befall them and they lose practically all their equipment and food. Still they continue to push ahead, eventually reaching the Rink glacier where some of the most spectacular "calvings" pro duce the innumerable icebergs afloat in the fjords and along the coasts of Greenland. While on the Rink, they spot a small cabin through their binoculars. When they get inside they discover a marker for the Wegener expedition and a note inside a tin can: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------ 4 4 2 WEGENER'S HUT May 25 FOOD GONE— FOUND INVALUABLE WEGENER DATA. PLAN RISK CROSSING FJORD TO ESKIMO VILLAGE. LAWRENCE They/ too, decide to cross the fjord on a broken floe of ice. After Dr. Brand saves their one remaining dog from the clutches of a polar bear, the four discover Dr. Lawrence, who has taken refuge in a cave on an iceberg. The reunited group soon finishes off what remains of their supplies and then they decide to send an SOS on their radio. The battery goes dead shortly after the mes sage is transmitted and they are left to starve in one another's company with only the slimmest hope that someone has heard their call for help. John Dragan is eventually driven mad by the circum stances and, in the course of things, he kills the young Fritz Kuemmel, leaving only four survivors. Meanwhile, Ellen Lawrence flies to the rescue, crash lands, and ends up marooned with the men on the dangerous iceberg which is inexorably drifting toward the open sea. Realizing that they are closer to land than they will ever oe. Dr. Brand dives into the icy water and swims for shore, loping to enlist rescue aid from the Eskimos. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In the interim. Dr. and Mrs. Lawrence bundle them selves up against the cold inside the cave while John Dragar roams around half-crazed on the ice. He spots two polar bears fighting over a seal. Overcome by hunger, Dragan spears one of the bears only wounding him. Shortly there after, Dr. Matushek loses his footing on the ice and falls into the water where he becomes prey for the provoked ani mals. By now, Ernst Udet is searching for the lost expedi tion among the icebergs. He spots Brand swimming amidst the ice floes and immediately heads for land with his plane where he organizes a rescue party of Eskimos who set out for the survivors in a fleet of kayaks. However, before they get to the stranded group, the iceberg splits and rolls over on itself. John Dragan falls from the top of the 'berg to his death below; and Lawrence and his wife are jettisoned into the water where they are soon fished out by the Eskimos and rowed to shore. The only adventurers who remain to make the long sea voyage home are Dr. and Ellen Lawrence and Dr. Johannes Brand, who was also found by the Eskimos and conducted by kayak to safety. As the survivors lean over the deck gazing at the landscape, their ship pulls away from tlie coast. The final Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — — -------------------------------------------------- 373 shot in the film— a vision of the three dead men marching toward the heavens— is superimposed over Greenland's moun tains of ice and snow. Most assuredly, the outstanding attributes of S.O.S. Iceberg revolve around the photography. As with the ava lanche footage from The White Hell of Pitz Palü, several photographically outstanding sequences have been lifted out of S.O.S. Iceberg for use in other films— to name just a couple. The 49th Parallel and Alaskan Adventure. Fanck was so fascinated with the infinite varia tions of light playing on the icebergs that he was moved to shoot far too much of this type of footage. His preoccupa tion with this subject is not at all surprising when one looks back at the body of work which Fanck had completed before undertaking S.O.S. Particularly revealing was the most successful of his previous films. The White Hell of Pitz Palu, in which he and his cameramen went to great pains to obtain the striking lighting effects for the res cue scene in the glacier crevasse. Schneeberger and Angst, two of the cameramen from Pitz Palü, were working with Fanck in Greenland on S.O.S., so the combination of talent and visual sensibilities were fundamentally the same on both films. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 4 3 Since icebergs are themselves a constantly changing phenomenon as they melt and turn over on their way out to sea, they provided "a wealth of diversity and variety to the picturestaken for S.O.S. Iceberg, Understandably, the magical quality of the contrast between a darkened sky and the glittering illumination of the transparent ice created as "the low-hung sun peeped over the black walls of the mountains and softly shimmered upon the icebergs and 'round 32 the edges of the floes," while everything was gradually •5 * 5 being enveloped in "a veil of delicate blue fog," was something wonderful to behold and a compelling inspiration to both Fanck and his cameramen. However, lest one assume that these kinds of conditions prevailed throughout the whole time that the S.O.S. crew was in Greenland, the fol lowing comment by Dr. Sorge should clarify the situation: On the whole this summer turned out a bad one. We had but a few days of sunshine and clear sky. Each one of these, however, was utilised to the utmost, until we were all absolutely done up, to get as many pictures taken as could possibly be made. Again, on stormy days, film work on the icebergs out at sea was an impossibility. The motor-boat ran some risk from the violence of the waves, and even if this had not been so, filming from her deck was unsatisfactory owing to the wild see-saw.34 One of the most impressive sequences in this film is the climactic rescue scene. The magnificence of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- kayak fleet skimming in silhouette across the scintillat- ingly back-lit water on its way to the lost expedition was compared by one critic to the excitement of the final gathering of the Clansmen in Birth of a Nation and the chariot sequence in The Ten Commandments.^^ The effect of the masses is indeed quite overwhelming in all these films, and Dr. Fanck has Knud Rasmussen to thank for this final spectacle in S.O.S. because without his assistance Fanck would never have been able to get enough Eskimos together to make the scene as dramatic as it eventually turned out. It would have been a fairly hard task to whip up enough of these kayaks from all the scattered settlements along the west coast. For in summer the natives make fairly extensive trips through out these fiords, and are difficult to locate. Nor are they any too ready to abandon seal hunting, which is all-important for them, merely to lend a hand with the making of an Arctic picture. It was here that a man of such national repute as Knud Rasmussen came in exactly right. . . . When the natives heard that Knud Rasmussen had to do with the expedition, they joined us from far and wide with great alacrity, and thus it was the big kayak scenes were rendered feasible. But it was not only numbers that created the spec tacular effect. It was also a combination of the lighting conditions and the positioning of the cameras. Fanck again chose his favorite time of day for this sequence. The sun was low in the sky and Schneeberger's camera, high on a cliff, was facing right into it. Riefenstahl's predilection Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4471 for backlighting has to have been conditioned by the elo quent use Fanck made of this effect in all the films she worked on with him. For this moment the bay shimmered with the evening tide and in the wake of the hundreds of tiny black kayaks visible only in the reflection of light from the water. The contrast in lighting, in addition to the discrepancy in size between the enormous silhouetted ice bergs and the miniscule flotilla, added immeasurably to the overall effect. Richard Angst went along with one of the boats to photograph the close ups while Ernst Udet captured all the action from the air. Udet's situation in Greenland posed some hitherto unexperienced problems for him as a member of a film crew. First of all, the expedition was located at three geograph ically different sites. The main camp was at Umanak, but most of Fanck's crew was housed in tents at Nuliarfik on Karat Island just at the mouth of the Kangerdluk Fjord leading to the Rink's glacier, and Udet along with another pilot and the mechanic, Franz Schriek and Erich Baier, set up their headquarters at Igdlorsuit on another island fifty kilometers south of the Fanck camp (see maps). Udet was not happy being so far away from the film crew but he could not find any other place with an area large enough to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MAP GREENLAND 448 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MAP 2 SHOOTING LOCATIONS OF S.O.S. ICEBERG 450 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4ANAK X % i e Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ----- æ serve as a landing strip for his three airplanes. Two of these machines were water planes which required a location where the pilot had a better than even chance that the sea would be free of impacted ice floes. The third plane, which Baier wanted in the vicinity of the other two to facilitate repairs, was a standard single-propellor machine which needed solid ground for take-offs and landings. In the course of the shooting, all three planes were used extensively. In the beginning, Udet's duties consisted of scouting likely locations where Fanck and crew could shoot the scripted scenes, but as time went on both Udet and Schriek became more actively involved in the filming itself. Much of Udet's incredibly dangerous flight amidst the ice bergs while searching for the lost expedition was dramatic ally photographed by Schneeberger from Schriek's plane. Could Udet's work on Fanck's films be the inspiration for the opening sequence of Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will in which Hitler's plane, at first photographed from above the clouds, impressively makes its descent on Nuremberg for the Party Rally? Keeping in mind that Leni Riefenstahl, as a result of her role in S.O.S. Iceberg, was actively in volved in this aerial photography, the connection to Triumph of the Will seems a logical one. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ^ Ernst Udet's work in Greenland was more dangerous than usual: His own life depended wholly upon his iron nerve and the faultless running of his machine. A single graze from one of these 'bergs, an emergency land ing amid this wild tumult of towering ice, and the fate of both man and 'plane would be s e a l e d .3? But the work of the others was equally as hazardous and the performances demanded of them in this hostile environment often brought out qualities in these Germans which presaged their future susceptibility to Hitler. Some who witnessed their behavior and were aware of their attitudes were will ing to label it fanaticism. In the following passage, note the choice of words used by Dr. Ernst Sorge to describe Sepp Rist's performance in S.O.S. Iceberg. He is not discussing Sepp Rist as Dr. Johannes Brand, but Sepp Rist as himself: . . . Sepp Rist, confident of his strength and in defiance of death, flung himself into the fiord in an attempt to swim across. It was amazing to see how, weary to the point of collapse from superhuman exertions, he hung on to the icebergs for a moment's respite ; how his powers gave out as he attempted to scale their steep and slippery sides; how he paused, sheltering by some point of rock, pouring with water out of the icy turmoil, and then struck out again, and at last, exhausted, how he reached the land! None but a Sepp Rist was equal to such a pro gramme. I marvel to-day that a man could stand the icy water for so long, and, what was far more severe, that he could emerge from it so often and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ climb these jagged 'bergs with bare hands.39 The "superhuman" Rist, who had to dive into the water twenty-six times, not only emerges a hero in the film, but he is also a hero in life. Luggi Foeger's recollection of this part of the shooting also casts an interesting light on Dr. Fanck's sensibilities : I'll never forget how he [Fanck] had his hero swim through the ice . . . and then let the Eskimos find him. Very dramatic . . . He lets them get to the shore. They are safe and then he [Fanck] has him [Rist] get up on a rock and make a speech to the Eskimos! I said, "My God, this is exactly the way Hitler must have started— and Mussolini." To give a big speech after coming out of nowhere— it ruined the whole thing. If he had just had him touch shore and paat» out (like a normal man) . . . the shot would have been ten times better. He just killed me. And I had plenty of arguments with him about it.^O During the shooting of S.O.S. Iceberg, Leni Riefen stahl 's behavior also began to attract attention. It started with her delaying of the June departure date of the S.O.S. crew by several days because of her meeting with Hitler. Then to top it off, "she arrived in Hamburg aboard a private airplane of the Nazi party. . . . At this time (1932), the Nazis were branching out and the industrials were giving them planes. Partly because of her tardiness, and the reasons for it, were so obvious and because the political future of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. . — ----------------------------------------------------------^ Germany was such a volatile issue at the time, Riefenstahl's conduct during her association on this film was under closer scrutiny by her associates than ever before. Though Riefenstahl, like some of the other crew members, thought the work in Greenland would be interesting for a time, they expected \ ^ stark landscape eventually to prove monotonous, so they brought materials with them that would help to wile away the hours. Riefenstahl took a number of books to read, conspicuous among them Mein Kampf, and several on the South Seas,^^ a location where she was hoping to do a film in the near future. However, Greenland proved so fascinating that Riefenstahl, until she became ill and incapable of further work on S.O.S., spent very little time with her books. Mein Kampf was not the only reminder of her inter view with Hitler that Leni Riefenstahl brought along to Greenland. She had with her several large photographs of Hit ler— some 8 X 10 and some two feet by three feet big. She spent all her spare moments, when she wasn't shooting, re-photographing these photo graphs of Hitler against the icebergs, against the fjords, surrounded by the Greenlanders and against a whale that was being dissected in the back ground . . . . She guarded these negatives and took them back. They were very important to her. . . . Now one must ask what is the logic behind such a thing? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ni The incident of the dissection of the whale provides an interesting observation into the lives of the Eskimos. Not long after the Fanck crew had arrived in Umanak, the Greenlanders harpooned a whale which was dragged up to the land by one of the Danish government steamers. Whale, its meat, oil, and other by-products, is a real luxury for the Eskimos, so the whole village came alive with activity as soon as the monstrous creature was discovered at their shore. The dissection of the whale and the primitive man ner in which the Eskimos and their dogs gorged themselves on the meat provided no end of fascination for many members of the Fanck expedition.^4 As for Marton's question about the logic of Leni Riefenstahl's photography, he obviously failed to see the real import of her behavior. There was no logic in volved in her conduct. There was emotion— an almost child like infatuation with Hitler which impelled her to see meaning in her actions because it helped to keep alive the spirit of her recent encounter with Hitler. Significantly, from this time forward until the end of the war, Riefen stahl "always kept on her nightstand in her room wherever she went a large photograph of Hitler with an autographed dedication to h e r . "45 what is equally interesting, and yet Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45' at the same time puzzling, is the fact that Riefenstahl spent fully half of her 1933 book, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, describing the Greenland adventure and her personal ob servations, but never once mentioned Hitler. Leni Riefenstahl’s astonishing dedication to her work again became apparent to her co-workers when the requirements of her role caused a very painful recurrence of the bladder infection she had contracted earlier on The White Hell of Pitz Palü. Her desire to prove that she was up to any of the demands made of the men in the film caused her to overreact and injudiciously undertake to perform feats which she should have known would bring about a relapse of her condition- Perhaps comments like the fol lowing one of Dr. Ernst Sorge made her suffering a bit more endurable ; Our darling Leni had no mind to lag behind the men, and anyone had only to remark, "I fancy that the water hereabouts is too cold to bathe," for her to spring in courageously next moment, although the film did not exact it of her.^G Riefenstahl, of course, was not the only one who showed some sense of misplaced heroism on this film. Udet barely escaped death through his daredevil antics too many times to enumerate and Sepp Rist, as a result of his "superhuman" plunges into the icy water, came away from Greenland with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------------Î5Î rheumatism and a permanently crippled rigid hand.^^ Riefenstahl's most important scenes had not yet been shot when she became so ill and feverish that she had to be taken back to the hospital in Umanak. There the doc tor informed her that he could do nothing for her condition and suggested that she return to Europe as soon as possible; however, Riefenstahl's only means of returning to Germany was a Danish ship which was not scheduled to arrive in northwest Greenland for another two weeks. A few days later. Dr. Fanck, who assumed Riefen stahl had recovered, sent Udet to pick her up and fly her back to work. Being aware of the essential nature of the scenes which still needed to be done with her. Riefenstahl decided to spend the next two weeks filming with Fanck even though she still had a fever and was frequently in such 48 pain that she could not sleep at night. Leni Riefenstahl returned to Berlin toward the end of September, 1932, after having spent four months in Greenland.The Fanck crew returned one month later. And by January, the decision to do additional shooting had already been made and the two crews were again dispatched, this time to film at their ..aw Swiss location. The amount of time they spent in the Alps was almost equal to their Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ sojourn in Greenland, for the shooting in Switzerland was not completed until mid-May, 1933.^1 During this period, there were frequent occasions when one of the crews was idle while dialogue shooting was going on with the other version of the film. Riefenstahl, who had recuperated sufficiently to make the trip, occupied herself during her free time in Switzerland with several activities, one of which graphically illustrates Riefen stahl 's total dedication to her selected objectives. This trait made it possible for her eventually to overcome the almost insurmountable obstacles which soon faced her on the documentary films she did for Hitler. If one keeps in mind the obvious bias that Andrew Marton has against Leni Riefen stahl, then the following observation of his concerning her single-minded resolve to succeed, even in her leisure activities, becomes an interesting comment on Riefenstahl's style and personality: Devotion! She is a fanatic! Whatever she did she did with a fanaticism that was not pleasant to behold. I think I mentioned to you that incident [when] we were snowed in in the Berliner pass mak ing a picture called S.O.S. Iceberg . . . One of the mountaineers we used was the Swiss table tennis champion. And Leni challenged this man to a game six weeks hence. And then she spent six weeks— day and night— whenever she wasn't working, train ing and training. Style went out the window; sportsmanship went out the window. It was a deter mined, fanatic devotion to win. And she did beat Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 460 the man. But I think the man realized half-way through that this . . . was not a sport any more, that it was a triumph of her will. Which it was. This particular devotion of hers to one short-termed object was what made her a producer. She was cut out to be a producer.52 While the two S.O.S. crews were shooting in Switzerland, several important political events had taken place back in Germany. Adolf Hitler had officially become the Chancellor of the Geirman Reich on January 30, a small contingent of the storm troopers had burned down the Reichstag on Febru ary 27, the first public book burning had taken place on May 10, and so far as the film industry was concerned, the imminent take-over by Dr. Joseph Goebbels and his Ministry of Propaganda was so apparent that already underway was the exodus, which became one of the contributing factors to the overall deterioration of creativity in the German film industry. Deutsche Universal A.G. was closed down, as were many other German subsidiaries of foreign film companies. Along with this shut down came the cancellation of innumer able contracts with German film technicians and artists. But for Leni Riefenstahl, the worst aspect of all this turmoil was the fact that by the time she returned to her plush living quarters in Berlin, Harry Sokal had already vanished from Germany with the negative of The Blue Light; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 6 ] the most positive aspect was the fact that Hitler was in power as he had predicted. Consequently her career as an independent filmmaker at last seemed within her reach. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ^Interview with Henry v. Jaworsky, New York, 10 September 1972. 2john B Referee (London), 4 December 1938. ^John Beevers, "The Girl Hitler Likes," Sunday ^Budd Schulberg, "Nazi Pin-Up Girl," The Saturday Evening Post, 30 March 1946, p. 41. ^Angus Quell, "The Film Actress Behind Hitler: Amazing Career of Leni Riefenstahl," British Film Institute, London, England, ca. 1934. ^Michel Delahaye, "Leni and the Wolf," Cahiers du Cinema in English 5 (1966) : 52. ^"Leni Riefenstahl Glorified in Bremen," Die Zeit (Berlin), 24 July 1964; Hans Machner, "Leni Riefenstahl," Neue Rhein-Zeitung, 12 March 1960; Curt Riess, Das gab's nur einmal (Hamburg: Verlag der Sternbucher, GmbH, 1956), p. 467. 7 Riess, Das gab's nur einmal, p. 467. ®Mogens Block Poulsen, "Greenland's 'Place by t Icebergs,'" National Geographic, December 1973, p. 860. ^Arnold Fanck, Regie mit Gletschern, Sturmen un Lawinen (München: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung GmbH., 1973), p. 253. l°Ibid., p. 254. Interview with Arnold Fanck, Freiburg, Germany, 23 July 1971. 1 9 Fanck, Regie mit Gletschern, p. 254. 462 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------3 ^ ^^Interview with Leni Riefenstahl, Munich, Germany, 6 August 1971. ^^Ibid., 7 August 1971. ^^Interview with Andrew Marton, Los Angeles, Cali fornia, 14 December 1970. ^^Interview with Tay Garnett, Los Angeles, Cali fornia, 26 April 1971. l^Ibid. 1 8 Interview with Jaworsky. 1 O Interview with Marton. 2°Ibid. o 1 ^■*-Jnterview with Garnett. 22ibid. 23lbid. Z^lbid. Z^ibid. 26ibid. 2?ibid. 28ibid. 29"S0S Iceberg," Variety (Hollywood) 1933. ^^Arnold Berson, "The Truth about Leni," Films and Filming, April 1965, p. 17. ^^Ernst Sorge, With 'Plane, Boat, and Camera in Greenland: An Account of the Universal Dr. Fanck Greenland Expedition (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc., 1936), p. 62. 32ibid., p. 76. Leni Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis (Leip zig: Hesse und Becker, 1933), p. 91. ^^Sorge, With 'Plane, p. 150. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 35"sos Iceberg," Variety. ^^Sorge, With 'Plane, pp. 84-85. 37lbid., pp. 58-59. 38lbid., p. 58 ^^Ibid., p. 77 ^^Interview with Luggi Foeger, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, 9 May 1971. ^ ^ In te r v ie w w it h M a rte n . ^^'Sorge, With 'Plane, p. 203. ^^ In te r v ie w w ith M a rto n . ^^Sorge, With 'Plane, pp. 42-43. w. Hewlett, Eva Braun; 11 Mio Diario (Roma: Editrice Fare, 1948), p. 15. ^^Sorge, With *Plane, pp. 77-78. ^^Ibid., p. 216. ^^Riefenstahl, Kampf in Schnee und Eis, p. 107. ^ ^ In te r v ie w w it h R ic h a rd A n g s t, B e r lin , Germany, 7 July 1971. ^^Sorge, With 'Plane, p. 221. Gordon Hitchens, Kirk Bond, and John Hanhardt, "Interview with Henry Jaworsky by Gordon Hitchens, Kirk Bond and John Hanhardt," Film Culture 56-57 (Spring 1973): 145. 52 Interview with Marton. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER X I I SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS An i n i t i a l g la n c e a t th e c a r e e r o f L e n i R ie fe n s ta h l up to th e tim e o f h e r f i r s t f i l m com m ission by A d o lf H i t l e r does l i t t l e to r e v e a l th e in te rc o n n e c te d n e s s betw een h e r f i c t i o n a l m o u n tain p ic t u r e s and th e p o l i t i c a l d o c u m e n ta rie s w h ich w ere soon to f o llo w . B u t on c lo s e e x a m in a tio n , one fin d s many s i m i l a r i t i e s in te c h n iq u e , s t y le o f p h o to g ra p h y , and w o rk in g m ethods. The p re v io u s c h a p te rs o f t h i s d is s e r t a t i o n c o n ta in th e d e t a i l s o f R ie f e n s t a h l' s g ro w th as an a r t i s t and more s p e c i f i c a l l y h e r d e v e lo p m e n t as a film m a k e r T h ere fo llo w s in t h is c h a p te r a s y n o p s is o f th e im p o rta n t d is c o v e r ie s R ie fe n s ta h l made d u rin g t h i s e a r ly p e r io d w h ich r e l a t e d i r e c t l y to h e r l a t e r f i l m w o rk . Summary and C o n c lu s io n s Much o f L e n i R ie f e n s t a h l' s s e n s i t i v i t y as a f i l m m aker stems fro m h e r f i r s t in v o lv e m e n t in m odern d a n c e , and t h is a t an age when many o f h e r id e a s a b o u t a r t w ere o n ly on th e v e rg e o f h e r own r e c o g n it io n . P erh aps th e m ost 465 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------------------- ÎF5! outstanding quality which surfaced during Riefenstahl's dance career was her ability to dramatize individual ele ments in the dance more effectively by her use of contrast. Much of Riefenstahl's conviction in this area must be rele gated to the public success of her dance programs, but more especially to the theories of her teacher, Mary Wigitian. For Wigman, the greatest power of expression lay between the extremes of tension and relaxation, a principle which Riefenstahl wholeheartedly espoused at the time and even after she had abandoned her dance career and began to direct motion pictures, this quality of contrast continued to manifest itself in several ways. The most obvious connection between Riefenstahl's dance experience and her film work is the way she uses movement both from image to image and within the frame it self. No movement is entirely predictable in Riefenstahl's films. As soon as she sets up what one assumes to be a pattern, just that quickly she throws in a shot which denies that predictability. The diving sequence from Olympia is a good example of this Riefenstahl technique. Just when one becomes comfortable with the tension that Riefenstahl cre ates by not allowing her swimmers to finish their dives, she completes tl.eir unified performance by an initially Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. disorienting, reverse motion shot of a diver coming out of the water flying headlong into the sky. By the time one has "read” the shot and kinesthetically felt its impact, it is over and one is left open-mouthed in amazement at the power of its unpredictability. Anyone who has experienced this segment of Olympia with an audience and has heard the audible response knows that this statement is no exaggera tion of Riefenstahl's uncanny ability to catch her audience off guard. Another quality Riefenstahl explored as a dancer which is apparent in her films is her leaning toward a smooth, flowing, almost sensuous kind of movement within the frame. One might not suspect that Riefenstahl had much to say about this aspect of the photography since her best- known films are documentaries which were shot by a number of cameramen working simultaneously. This, however, was not the case, for Riefenstahl supervised practically every detail of the visual style of her films from the selection of camera locations to type of lens used to content and movement within shots. During the actual production shoot ing, Riefenstahl was seen tirelessly rushing from one camera vantage point to another, checking up on the work of her cameramen and making further suggestions to them as she Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------î ï ï g saw the actual events unfolding before the lens. Because of the unexpected nature of documentary filmmaking, Riefen stahl, of course, had to leave some of the composition and selection of visual subject matter up to the discretion of her camera operators, but there is, in toto, no doubt as to the guiding spirit behind the unified vision apparent in each of her films. In some cases, certain individual shots markedly bear Riefenstahl's directorial hand. One example that immediately comes to mind is a shot in her 1935 Nazi Party Rally film. Day of Freedom. At one moment in the midst of the army maneuvers an empty shell is ejected from an antiaircraft gun and passed along a line of several soldiers before it is disposed of. The entire sequence as it appears in the film happens in one intricately compli cated camera move. It is almost as if the maneuver was choreographed for Riefenstahl's cameras. It is executed so smoothly that the precise coordination between camera and subject appears to be effortlessly accomplished. Another example of influence from Riefenstahl's dance background is obvious in her expert use of opposing movement to create a kind of visual excitement. Frequently in her documentaries, one finds movement in one direction diametrically opposed in the following shot. At the end Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Tel of the prologue section of Day of Freedom, soldiers are riding their horses across a wooden bridge, first in one direction, then in the opposite, and all this is happening in a kind of pseudological continuity, but with the added kinesthetic tension created by the discontinuity of the opposing movement. This is Riefenstahl's effective lead-in to the bulk of the film which consists of army maneuvers in the open-air stadium. It is interesting to note that there is really very little indication of Riefenstahl's exceptional ability as an editor until her last political documentary. Day of Freedom. Up until then, her creativity manifested itself more in the visual atmosphere, the photographic style of her films. Even The Blue Light, her first directorial project, reveals very little of her extraordinary talent as an editor, though by that time she had had some meager experience editing the French version of The White Hell of Pitz Palü before starting The Blue Light. The main reason for this delay in the manifestation of Riefenstahl as an outstanding editor has to do with the kind of motion pic tures in which she was involved. The dramatic nature of the films she made before her association with Hitler left her very little room for experimentation in the area of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. editing; whereas the documentaries requested of her by Hitler actually forced her to take advantage of her intui tive, dance-related ability to put images together in strik ing rhythmic patterns. Riefenstahl had essentially the same problem that Fanck did with dramatic material. Plot and character devel opment were not the strengths of either filmmaker. Both felt more comfortable with free-form movement unencumbered by story— Fanck with the skiing sequences in his mountain films and Riefenstahl with the purely visual elements of her documentaries. In these films, Riefenstahl was dealing more with preplanned ritual and patterns of movement than with conventional fiction or drama. The plots of her docu mentaries, if one can even say that these films have plot, emerge more from the natural movement and the import of the historical moment than from any preconceived "story" put together by Riefenstahl before the actual events themselves. She had discovered her own natural abilities in the lyrical-romantic documentary almost totally by chance— that is, by her special association with Adolf Hitler. Had that personal-professional relationship not been established, Riefenstahl might have gone on making mountain films of Dnly passing interest— and most of us would probably never Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 4 7 : have heard of her. There is, of course, a difference between the moun tain films of Dr. Fanck in which Nature played the leading role, and the films of this type that Leni Riefenstahl directed. Even her two dramatic features. The Blue Light and Lowland, emphasize a more real struggle of the charac ters, either within themselves as with Junta who tried un successfully to preserve the spiritual ideal of her youth or, as in the story of Lowland, a conflict of the upper class against the poor for access to a vitally-needed water supply. There is an obvious concern for people in the films of Leni Riefenstahl and her documentaries bear out this observation as well. The whole of Olympia is a visual por trait of man struggling to go beyond his own physical limits. And many sections of Triumph of the Will attest to Riefenstahl's fascination, albeit distorted, with Adolf Hitler, the man, and not just Adolf Hitler, the Führer. And scenes like the one of the morning-rising ritual of the young men who were encamped in a city of tents on the out skirts of Nuremberg is another striking example of Riefen stahl 's penchant for training her cameras and her vision on the people behind the events. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. _ 473 Arnold Fanck, though he was important to Riefen stahl 's development as a filmmaker, was not the only direc tor who had some influence on her method of working. In this respect, her contact with G. W. Pabst was of enormous significance. Riefenstahl, just like Pabst, and Fanck in the early days of his career, always encouraged suggestions from her crew. As much as possible, Riefenstahl tried to create a comfortable, pressure-free atmosphere among the members of her film team— or film "family" as she liked to refer to her production unit. So far as she was concerned, she wanted each person working on a film to feel an impor tant, integral part of the shaping of that work. Only when each individual experienced himself as a part of the en semble and believed strongly in the worth of the project could Riefenstahl expect to produce the kind of results for which she always hoped at the beginning of a new film. She was always open to suggestions from anyone on her crew and often found her own creativity stimulated by a chance remark of someone working ^ith her. That kind of situation could happen only when everyone was concerned about the outcome of the film and was not just an employee putting in time for a fee. In all of Riefenstahl’s films, an important part of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 473 the overall aesthetic impression is created by the contrast between light and dark in the photographic image enhanced by a preference for backlighting. A prime example in her early career is the photographic style of The Blue Light, but another later film comes immediately to mind. In the entire opening sequence of Day of Freedom^ Riefenstahl introduces her audience to the army maneuvers at the Nazi Party Rally by a kind of visual prologue consisting of another early morning rising ritual of the young soldiers in their field camp followed by a hauntingly beautiful backlit procession on horseback to the stadium for the military display. One is struck by the incongruous nature of the highly-romanticized visual imagery and the actual content of the film itself— war games performed for specta tors. Many of the lyrical-romantic cinematic techniques which Riefenstahl learned and used in the mountain films are incorporated in her political films without consideration for the change in subject matter. Essentially her style of filmmaking had been molded by her experience with Dr. Arnold Fanck. She grew and developed out of that school, but she did not significantly alter her approach with the content of each new film she made. Since the days of her dance career, Riefenstahl was motivated by a desire to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 474 depict everything as beautiful. Ironically, it is just this very uncalculated adherence to what Riefenstahl considered universally aesthetic that helps to make her Nazi docu mentaries the notorious masterpieces that they are. One is astounded by the romantic atmosphere pervading what otherwise might have been dry, perfunctory political vehi cles for Goebbels' propaganda machine. And when one com pares Riefenstahl's Nazi opus to other films of a similar nature made at the same time, one is struck even more by the effectiveness of Riefenstahl's unexpected lyricism. As she commented recently: When I accepted Hitler's order to make Triumph of the Will, I started with no philosophical ideas. The problem I saw was how to make the spectacle of marching men interesting.1 As the only techniques she knew were the ones she had inher ited from working on tlie films of Dr. Fanck, therefore, those were the techniques on which she relied to capture the events both in Nuremberg and at the Olympic Games. Part of tlie reason that this unaltered transference of technique from the mountain films of Fanck to the docu mentaries of Riefenstahl occurred is a result of the make-up of the camera crews on Riefenstahl's films. Most of the important camera operators on her films as well as several other key crew members got their motion picture experience Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^ by working on Fanck's films: men like Sepp Allgeier, Hans Schneeberger, Guzzi and Otto Lantschner, Albert Benitz, Walter Traut, and Giuseppe Becce. Richard Angst was one of the few outstanding Fanck cameramen who did not make the transition to Riefenstahl's films, but many of the qualities Angst displayed while photographing the mountain films in which she acted are apparent in those cameramen who did work for her when she became a director. If any one word can describe the qual ity common to all these men, "inventive" is the best choice, for none of Riefenstahl's cameramen were ever satisfied with relying on only what they already knew— and if any one of them had this tendency, Riefenstahl's fascination with atmospheric, visual effects forced her camera operators to discover new ways to capture photographically what Riefen stahl had in mind. In The White Frenzy, the building of a carousel as Richard Angst's solution to getting close-up reaction shots of Riefenstahl while she was skiing and later on Riefenstahl's insistence that Schneeberger find a means to create the eerie, other-worldly atmosphere that she felt was essential to The Blue Light are only two examples of this pervasive sense of experimentation common to the films of both Dr. Fanck and Leni Riefenstahl. Later Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------Î75 on, when Riefenstahl came up against formidable obstacles on her documentaries, the same kind of dedication to find ing the ideal image manifested itself again. For instance, she had special automatic cameras and supports built in order to follow the track events for Olympia; she mounted cameras in horses' saddlebags; she had cameras enclosed in waterproof housings to be able to get underwater shots of divers, and so on. And there were equally as many differ ent camera vantage points and other extraordinary means discovered to facilitate capturing commonplace events dur ing the Party Rallies in unusual, often spectacular ways. A special camera elevator was built for Triumph of the Will, fire engine ladders served as primitive, make-shift camera booms, some of her operators wore roller skates to smooth out travelling shots, and so on. It is revealing to note, however, that Riefenstahl's films, like Dr. Fanck's, include very little studio work. Most of the photography is accomplished out-of-doors where there appears to be less control over lighting situations— except, of course, for night photography which does appear in both Fanck's and Riefenstahl's films. As previously mentioned, backlighting and silhouetted figures were favor ite photographic techniques of Riefenstahl— no doubt a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. taste Ghe acquired from observing Fanck's use of these devices in the many skiing sequences in his films. Along with these visual effects can be included soft focus and diffusion of light by other means. These devices are per haps most apparent in The Blue Light and the prologue to Part II of Olympia. It is these photographic techniques, more than any others, which help to create the "romantic" atmosphere that distinguishes Riefens ahl's filmic style from that of other directors, particularly in the field of the documentary film. Along with the "romantic" atmosphere, there is also a pervasive quality of the mystical in Riefenstahl*s films. Some of this could have come from her enchantment with partsj of The Holy Mountain and The White Hell of Pitz Palu. In both of these films there were particularly impressive torch-light sequences which heightened their mysterious, other-worldly aspects. Riefenstahl herself used the night rallies in Triumph of the Will for much the same effect— even to the point of having these meetings lighted by mag nesium torches, the same kind used by Fanck on his mountain films. The heavy smoky quality of this light source added further to the mystical impression. Helmeted soldiers are silhouetted against a diffusely-lighted background Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------ jyg reminiscent of the mist and fog effects employed by Riefen stahl as early as The Blue Light. The first time we are introduced to Junta she is picking crystals on a mountain side. The sunlight is sifting through the mist of a water fall, giving this young woman an ethereal quality which sets the tone for the rest of the film. The last time we see Junta climbing this mountain to her grotto/retreat, it is through a heavy, artificial fog created by smoke ma chines. The effect was especially designed by Riefenstahl to forebode the imminent death of her mystic heroine. There is one other atmospheric device— the use of intriguing cloud formations as a backdrop to significant action— that was well liked by both Fanck and Riefenstahl. In fact, Riefenstahl probably incorporated this effect in her films out of an unconscious preference which she devel oped while working with Dr. Fanck. Fanck accidentally fell onto the use of cloud backgrounds as a result of the moun tain locations where most of his films were photographed. They became even more of a regular feature in his films when Ernst Udet became a regular member of his cast of characters. Simply by employing Udet as a rescue flyer ensured some of the magnificent photography found in the Fanck films. Riefenstahl, on the other hand, frequently set Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 479 up specific times of day for shooting particular sequences in order to use a cloud-filled sky as the background. There are a number of examples in her films, but two out standing ones come immediately to mind: the eerie night effect of the moon shining through the clouds when the vil lagers attempt to keep their children from leaving home to follow the blue light emanating from Mount Cristallo and, of course, the powerful effect created by the mottled cloud-filled sky in the diving sequence from Olympia. One other important cloud sequence which is fre quently cited from Riefenstahl's films is the one at the opening of Triumph of the Will. In this sequence. Hitler's airplane is seen flying above and through the clouds as he descends from the sky and approaches Nuremberg to greet his people. Riefenstahl denies ever intending the interpreta tion frequently given to this sequence: that of Hitler view54-as a god coming out of the heavens to save the Ger man people and preserve the purity of their race. So far as she is concerned, the inspiration for that opening sequence came simply from the fact that that was how Hitler arrived in Nuremberg for that Party rally. If one looks closely and impartially at this sequence, studying the kind of shots used and the juxtaposition of them, one can Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. --------------------------- — . 239 definitely see a similarity to those flying sequences shot by Schneeberger and Udet for the Fanck films in which Riefenstahl acted. From this vantage point, Riefenstahl's statement denying the "god-descending-from-heaven" inter pretation has more credence than it otherwise might. Perhaps the most outstanding quality about Leni Riefenstahl as artist and film director is her single-mind edness toward a project she had decided to undertake. It is almost as if she came alive under the most exasperating of circumstances. The fact that The Blue Light was made at all attests to her ability to turn even the most unlikely of situations to her own advantage. Part of this ability stems from her own self-confidence. She believed in her self and she believed that if she wanted to do something badly enough, then that something had to be possible to do. No one could have guessed that she would become a dancer of note, especially since she started at such a late age. But Leni Riefenstahl believed she could do it, so she set her mind to becoming one of the finest dancers of her time— and she would have made it had it not been for her knee injury and her subsequent fascination with motion pictures. She was a perfectionist to the point of practically driving mad the people with whom she worked. But it was Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■ T O ] just this uncompromising spirit which was to distinguish her from most of the other directors working during the Third Reich. Leni Riefenstahl had a vision for each film she made— and no one, not even Hitler, could sway her from the conception she had. Not even Hitler could coerce her into including in Triumph of che Will more footage of the Wehrmacht maneuvers, footage which Riefenstahl considered unworthy of her film because of the quality of the photog raphy. Taken on an overcast day, it was not up to the standards of the rest of the film. So, even against vocif erous protestations from the Army dignitaries and pressure from Hitler, that footage was not included. Instead, she agreed to make a separate film. Day of Freedom, devoted entirely to the Wehrmacht, which she would shoot during the Party rally the following year. Implications There is much yet to be said about this unique film director, Leni Riefenstahl. In this dissertation, however, the attempt has been to analyze the growth of Riefenstahl as an artist— from her career as a dancer through her pro fessional life as an actress with Dr. Arnold Fanck up to the beginning of her work as a director under Adolf Hitler. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — The purpose has been to reveal the style and techniques to which Riefenstahl was exposed before the start of her own directing career as a documentary filmmaker in order to make it clear how her ideas, method of working, approach to subject matter, and relationships with people developed. With this background information, a detailed study should now be done on her political films, Olympia and Lowland, to relate how this development affected the rest of her film career. In this final chapter, the writer has attempted, in summary form, to indicate some of the innumerable con nections between these two important periods in the com pleted opus of Leni Riefenstahl. If one merely deals with her films from the first documentary. Victory of Faith, through the completion of the dramatic feature. Lowland, one runs the risk of drawing conclusions about Riefenstahl's career which depend more heavily than is warranted on the political era during which she made these films. The writer is by no means suggesting that this is insignificant material, but it seems equally as important to study the development of Riefenstahl's whole artistic life in order to put the political influences in their proper perspective Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 483 Hopefully, this dissertation will serve that purpose for those who go on to write in detail about the rest of Leni Riefenstahl's film career. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES ■ ‘ ■William Gallo, "The Film Flap at Telluride Festi val," Los Angeles Times, 22 September 1974. 484 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX A THE DANCER LENI RIEFENSTAHL EXCERPTS FROM PRESS REVIEWS Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE DANCER LENI RIEFENSTAHL EXCERPTS FROM PRESS REVIEWS Translated by Gordon Martindale and Franz Rohwer Berlin Per Tag October 29, 1923 "A New Dancer" The lineage of German dancers is continued in Leni Riefenstahl. Ascends to almost feather-like, acrobatic suppleness. A perfectly trained body. Flexible in all joints. Shoulders, hips, stomach muscles, ankles and wristsj perform just as well as the magnificently formed legs and arms, as the slender neck and well-placed head, as the entire splendidly-trained torso. And how this body obeys! It is, so to speak, the well-tuned keyboard on which an artist plays. Not only in movement, but also in repose. At times the dancer stands rigid like a statue. Impressively expressive. With hanging or raised arms that are formed into the shape of a lyre. Little by little life murmurs from her. Movement quivers; the body springs for ward or to the side. And then the entire figure flies across the stage. Rushes, whirls, flings itself up, bends down to the floor. Everything sways, flutters, floats away. Completely in the rhythm of the music. The flow of the poetry in the dance makes all movements incredibly musical. Suddenly, almost abruptly, it ceases. Or it fades] away slowly, hoveringly. Or, so to speak, it sinks back into itself; on the stage cowers a figure all bent over, still with graceful lines; delineated in power and beauty. Leni Riefenstahl's greatest artistry flows from her inner feeling; from her lyrical inspiration; from her pas sionate devotion. She is completely lost in her perception 487 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 481 of the music. She composes this once more on the scale of her body. With an expressive ability born from within her. With an unerring accuracy. The audience of the Bluthner- saal raved on, not missing any of this. Many dances had to be repeated. A great art victorious at first sight. A rare experience. — Franz Servaes Berlin Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung October 29, 1923 Leni Riefenstahl appeared before the Berlin audi ence. The slender, youthful, beautiful dancer has many excellent qualifications for dancing. She possesses phys ical culture and physical sensitivity, taste and tempera ment. Her extensive and precise gestures show trained physical technique, her dances display true perception of the themes. . . . — Fritz Bohme Berlin B. Z. am Mittag October 29, 1923 Leni Riefenstahl forms each dance graphically in space so that it is based securely on her striding body. Balanced in her choice of dance forms, the harmony of which is guaranteed by her beautiful slenderness, by the richness of expression in her thin, pale hands, and by the refined, somewhat dreamy head; in sinking down and rising up, a creative power exerts itself in her body. She joins the "Drei Tanze des Eros" into a flowing chain of movement. . . — lub. Berlin Die Zeit October 30, 1923 Leni Riefenstahl has attained a level of perfection in her art which is sometimes astounding. Her programme encompasses a broad range from a simple dance to the sym bolizing of dramatic events. With a great gift of empathy for the ideas of the composer, the dancer knows how to master easily all the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48: problems, always with charm, always with grace, from the raging maenade to the bronze statue, rigid but still breath ing hot life. This great and overpowering artistry, which found its highest expression in the first part of the "ünvollendeten H-Moll Sinfonie" aroused a proportionate amount of applause from the audience. In the "Lyrische Tanze" and especially after the dance "Traumblute," the enthusiasm of the audience demanded an encore. Leni Riefenstahl gave us an opportunity to linger for two hours in the realm of true beauty. Berlin Vorwarts November 16, 1923 Delicate, mood-producing details sh^ne over the jperformances casting a spell of beauty and poetry— but, I I said to myself, perfect technique, temperament, imagination youth, grace— these are things which enchant and seduce me. And I thought of Wigman. There I hesitated— once, twice. It was during the "Sinfonie" and with "Traumblüte." It was a revelation. New country. Almost a de-materialization of the artistic medium was reached. I no longer saw costumes or physical forms, but I experienced the pure rhythm of animated lines and forms of color. Everything earthbound, objective, pantomimic disappeared; one felt himself lifted up into the heights of absolute art. In these two crea tions, the artist came very close to the goal at which the development of the modern dance is aimed and for which her famous colleagues, up to this point, have striven. Here ripples the sought-after source, here flows the fountain of youth. If, despite the blinding public success and a head-turning press acclaim, her sincere desire for artistic achievement can remain alive and effective, then the young Berliner can bring, I am convinced, to ful fillment the hope of the future of modern dance: the new spirit and the great style. — John Schikowski Innsbrucker Nachrichten November 22, 1923 Leni Riefenstahl's artistry makes two things appar ent: first, an incredible technical ability, and what should be judged even more important, the capability to place this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 9 0 ability in the service of a thoroughly spiritual interpreta tion. The result of the mutual effect of these two condi tions is a dance of perfection in expression, in rhythm and in line which is certainly not often attained. Charac teristic of this, first of all, is the truth of the percep tion and the relative simplicity of the means used or, negatively stated, the renunciation of every means outside the scope of compelling necessity. For that reason, each of the performed dances was a work of art within itself. And finally, as a third element, we should not forget the inherent ability of Riefenstahl's artistry to liberate one: one felt that the burden of this existence was completely {overcome and done awa^ with through the strong personality of this dancer, an impression that transferred itself also psychologically to the audience. . . . Prag Bohemia November 29, 1923 Leni Riefenstahl conquered the people of Prague. In looking at the paintings of Pechstein or Nolde, or whom ever else one might name from this new art, if one is inclined to think that the dislocations of the limbs and turns of the head might be unnatural and impossible to per form, exaggerated merely for expressiveness, then one has been taught by Riefenstahl that all this can become natural in the movements of the dance, and of course can become amazingly powerful and effective as movement. Her dances seem to be as the living lithographs of Bromse, with a spiritual expression which makes this figure, slender as a wand, and the spiritualized linibs including the wonderfully expressive hands, quiver. . . . Prager Presse November 30, 1923 A new dancer who will not soon be forgotten by those who have seen her dance in the "Central," is Leni Riefen- istahl. That she is young and beautiful, tall and slender, natural and fresh are qualities that will prove useful to her dancing ability without becoming an essential feature of her performances. Vitality, in a degree seldom seen today, happily makes its appearance here. Joy in its own youth, in the physical, in the power of healthy existence makes itself known in the charming, powerful smile, breath and step. Leni Riefenstahl's step is itself alone dance. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — -------------- — - 4 ^ As a child she might have been similar to the marvelous childlike-mischievousness of Niddy Impekoven. Now she is more austere, no longer a child, scarcely yet a woman. This lovely uncertainty gives the dance of Leni Riefenstahl a singular, rare fascination. Question and affirmative answer are expressed by this dancing which, unrefined, works enticingly and pleasurably in all phases. . . . Munchener Neueste Nachrichten December 12, 1923 She is of the Wiesenthalic type— this dancer, blessed by good fortune, will again and again celebrate her truest successes in the outspoken and original dances, as in the "Valse Caprice" and the summer-like final dance in which she portrays the billowing and circling joy of nature, the waving poppy and the bowing corn flower. . . . Berliner Tageblatt December 21, 1923 This very beautiful girl, who began dancing in the intimate theaters of Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Innsbruck and Prague struggles for a place beside the three whom we take seriously: Impekoven, Wigman and Gert. And when we see this perfectly-built, proud creature standing in the midst of the music, there comes a presentiment that there can be glories in dance which none of the other three were allowed to reach. It is not the heroic sound of the gong of Mary, not the sweet sound of the violins of Niddy, not the cruel drums of Valeska. Here is the glory of a dancer, who appears only once every thousand years; that of the perfect, powerful grace and the unparalleled beauty of the image of God.... — Fred Hildenbrandt Seneralanzeiger fur Stettin und Pommern February 7, 1924 A human body of noble beauty and blossoming youth and in this body the strong, beautiful soul which can /enliven it with boundless life. Leni Riefenstahl's dancing ^is born from the strong, inner life of the soul, the spirit ual blending with the mysteries of music and fervent percep tion of service at the altar of oeauty. The Greek god Eros Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 493 lives and forms himself from within her, who simply does not know the black dash between the life of rhe soul and the life of the body which religious asceticism has carried into the strongly related Germanic inner life. The noble, beautiful human being expresses her strength and youth to the fullest in the strong and spirited rhythm: that is Leni Riefenstahl's dance. . . . — Karla KSnig Stettin Volksbote February 8, 1924 One of the best of our modern dancers was a guest in our concert hall. What she presented had nothing in common with old forms of the art of dancing, indeed i even decidedly individual and unique in the art of modern dancing. Her dancing, if one can even be allowed to say so, is neither simple, mimed interpretation of the music, nor simple, rhythmical gymnastics. On the contrary, it is rhythm of the soul, to which the accompanying music plays a subordinate role. One could imagine her dance creations just as well without the accompanying music, because her rhythm is music itself, the rhythm revealing itself here in perfect proportion as the original principle of all art. Music, painting, sculpture, all areas of art are expressly formed with an ideal spiritual-corporal harmony into a work of art and actively molded through rhythmical movement. Disciplined even to the fingertips. What force and power, with all gracefulness and playful agility, lies in the "Marsch" from the Kaukasische Suite; what almost visionary emotion in the Drei Tanze des Eros, and what enchanting magic in the Lyrische Tânze: "Orientalische Marchen," "Traumblüte," and "Sommer"! It cannot be described, it must be experienced. The sell-out concert audience was enthusiastic and thanked the young artist with stormy ova tions .... — P. P. fas Neue Züricher Zeitung February 21, 1924 . . . her performances carry the mark of high cul ture and good taste which also reveals itself in an appeal ing manner with professionally artistic costuming. The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — 493 lyrical dances suit her best. We saw, among other things, an arabesque, expressed in delightfully easy, pretty varied arm and hand movements, dancing movements of the body and graceful turns, a delicate veil dance "Traumblüte," then Drei Tanze des Eros, among which especially "Hingebung," danced in an undulating white robe, communicated intensified intoxication with sensitively phrased gestures. . . . Züricher Post February 22, 1924 Seldom does a foreign dancer draw such a filled house and such warm unanimous applause with her first appearance in Zurich, as did Leni Riefenstahl. She per formed her best and most purely in the lyrical, graceful dance creations "Hingebung" and "Loslosung" which possessed singular, unforgettable, poetic moments. . . . A body, beautiful as if sculptured in marble, of perfect proportions, beautifully cared for and uniformly trained; an exceptional degree of dancing ability, a sense for costume and style, a feeling for music: that is Leni Riefenstahl. Uproarious applause fell upon her after the fresh "Sommer" inundated with life and overpowering in its harmony of color: white, poppy red, and cornflower blue. Züricher Volkszeitung February 22, 1924 Zurich Tagesanzeiger February 22, 1924 The youthful, extremely charming dancer possesses physical culture in exceeding proportion with taste and temperament at her disposal. The latter is genuine, instinctive and not feigned; it flows from the soul, from sensitive perception, which becomes manifest partly in the exquisite softness of the forms, partly in the absorbing, passionate creative power. Everything is united in her to a harmonious whole of the purest balance: slenderness of the wonderfully-formed body that reacts to the lightest impulse of the soul, richly shaded movements of the small hands, the dignified head with the expressive eyes. Every thing unfolds in the music, subordinates itself completely to the musical thought. At the occasion of her first Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■ r a appearance in Zurich, Leni Riefenstahl has won much lasting fondness. She belongs, like the Sacharoffs, Impekoven and Wigman to those phenomena that one always likes to see appear, because they not only have something, but much to give besides. . . . Zurich Kampfer February 24, 1924 Halle Volksblatt She came, was seen and had conquered. Before the lovely, fairytale-like wonder of an amazingly perfectly- trained body with a sweet madonna-like face, one forgets— ah, so willingly— to sharpen the critical faculties and one is not at all tempted to apply comparisons and to verify inch by inch how far away from Impekoven and Wigman she is. Her exquisite physical being is the reason that she need only appear in order to make one forget her rivals in the art of Terpsichore. . . . March 11, 1924 This is music. This is more than timing, more than rhythm as the Hellerauer present it. This is musical scope from the deepest sense of creativity. The Freie Volksbûhne accomplished the praiseworthy task of bringing such a per formance to Halle. Where the feminine soul flows from the depths, where sensitivity and devotion caress the limbs, there is Leni Riefenstahl, creator; there she sinks into perfection. The Studie nach einer Gavotte was her noblest success; the dance of the unfinished H-Moll Sinfonie was her most gifted. . . . — Hermann Lange Halle Klassenkampf March 12, 1924 What was particularly engaging in Leni Riefenstahl was her humanity. What we are otherwise accustomed to seeing are empty gestures that are rhythmically strung together. Here, however, the whole human being is involved, entirely carried along by the reality of the experience which is formed in the dance. Eye and mouth dance like the body and limbs; a perpetual pantomime. The audience was visibly drawn up to the stage, no more a simple aesthetic Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49^ gratification, but it was a communal dance, a communal resonance in redemption, a being filled with ultimate quali ties that are life itself. . . . — Rd. Hallesche Zeitung March 12, 1924 A fine reputation precedes the artist. That she is a capable performer was to be felt step by step. "Das Feuei" showed her mature ability: flickering flame, leaping blaze— this creation was a glowing poem. In fearful shyness before the dekorativen, she put her technique in the service of the fine and pure language of her soul. . . . — Dr. Gunther Schab Halle Mitteldeutscher Kurier March 12, 1924 In the overflowing Thalia-Saal, Leni Riefenstahl danced Monday evening. It was a fiery experience, a tri umphant symphony of singing limbs. Gloriously the body grew into space. Its language was noble, impressive and enticing. It began with a strongly emphasized "Marsch." Then came the Drei Tânze des Eros; "Das Feuerl” Wildly crackling coals raised up in the furious performance. "Hingebung!" Despite the monk-like strictness of the lines, the body sang a delicate, soft song of spiritual love and quiet humility. "Erlosung!" In the cold-blue light, the plaintive mystery of the transitoriness of earthly existence revealed itself. And then, as a refreshment, "Valse Caprice," danced with youthful bravado, with laughing eyes and rejoicing aims and legs. The "Studie nach einer Gavotte" was strictly and soberly accomplished. From the dance to the unfinished "H-Moll Sinfonie" there came a cry of maternal agony of the artist, there sprang the titan strength of the creative genius, the resounding shriek of the human being. At the end, the dancer presented another lyrical offering: "Orientalische Marchen," a magnificent fantasy; "Traumblüte,” an unusual, soft blossoming of deep longing; and then once again the exuberant temperament of "Sommer." . . . — H. T. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Kôln Rheinische Volkswacht ----------3 - 9 5 March 18, 1924 It is a fairytale the way the slender limbs are united to the music. First shyly and austere, then flowing more voluntarily and softly into the music in order to sink with passionate, flooding accord into the finale. It is a wonder the way the beautiful, spiritual hands form the tones from nothing, seem magically to force them out. Dance and music are in perfect harmony. One can no longer dis tinguish one from the other, one feels only the grace of this fresh youthful, but still so mature, artistry flowing into one's body and soul. It is almost blasphemy to say that this accomplished ability is profaned into nothingness by cheap routines: feminine beauty, the blood of an artist and purity for the trio of qualities in her wondrous appearance. — Dr. Wilhelm M. Esser Kôln Rheinische Zeitung March 18-, 1924 . . . This pronouncement, expressed entirely unphilosophically, reached into the deepest ability of Miss Riefenstahl expressing what "dance" is. She is not a dancer, she is "dance." Something dances within her, grows elementarily out of her, carries her and her viewers away. Her legs are the rhythm, the play of her hands the music which she elucidates from all obscurity. So she presents a demonic "Furioso" of Brahms, the quieting charm of the stormy cradle song, a sweet tenderness in the "Traumblüte" of Chopin, and above all, the most exhausting that we have ever seen in dance to this point: the unfinished "H-Moll Sinfonie" of Schubert! She dances naturally, simply; she rocks the rhythm with feeling and animation to the point of passion; she herself becomes the waltz. This dancer is a blessed human being. Those of you who have seen her, take joy into your everyday existence. . . . Kolnische Zeitung March 18, 1924 The Volksbûhne in the Metropoltheater secured for us on Sunday morning the acquaintance of one of the newest, most celebrated dancers of Berlin, Leni Riefenstahl. First of all, a beautiful, carefully-trained body enamored us. In Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■4971 the dance one notices its splendid rhythmical development; the entire body lives the dance, and especially the hands express unobtrusively, but noticeably, the feeling, the meaning of the dance. It was especially so in the "Ara- beske" (Brahms) in which, almost without changing the posi tion of her body, only with fine movements of the hands, everything was expressed. That she also possesses powerful movements was shown by the introductory "Marsch" and the "Furioso"; that she can express humor was demonstrated in the "Mazurka" and in the village harvest dance "Sommer." — Strassner Braunschweigische Landeszeitung March 29, 1924 I believe in the excellence of the body, which revealed itself in the motionless presence of Leni Riefen stahl, and which, from afar, awakening a quiet hope, rose resplendent in the sketch "Loslosung." . . . — Friedrich Carl Robbe Breslauer Neueste Nachrichten April 7, 1924 . . . It is a pleasure to see how the great state ment has become artistic fact. From Wigman, she took ornamental body vehemence, the vibrating arabesque, but while dance for Wigman is a rhythmical thought, an abstrac tion, Leni Riefenstahl's dancing is always more like a melody. I would like to call the essence of her artistry, "The experience of a new musical body dynamic." Riefenstahl is always in control of the dance, but it is expressed as a series of contrasts. It is a rising and falling of the limbs, a shifting and retracting, a losing and finding, it is a lyrical flowing from one movement into another, a capricious attempt of vacillating body powers, it is a soft, feminine dancing performance with flowing diagonal movements, but strictly fixed in the music, full and com manding in the idea of the dance. The seriousness of this dancer is not of the relentlessness of a Wigman; it is a happier service to a body which is filled with the joyful consciousness of its musical functions. . . . — H.S. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Breslau Schlesische Zeitung March 8, 1924 Lobetheater-Dance Matinee From now on she cannot be placed in any of the so- called "schools," on the contrary, she is a thoroughly original talent, and her dance, dissolving itself and vibrating into pure music, must be judged as a serious, artistic affair, something sovereign in itself, something self-certain. And at the same time, a diversity of forms that is astonishing— next to the overpowering "Furioso," the infinitely delicate "Traumblüte" with a finale which recalls the "Dying Swan" of Pavlova. — A. D. Kolner Tageblatt March 29, 1924 . - . She surpasses all dancers and it is not too much, actually it is too little, to say that her artistry is comprised of two things: an amazing technical ability, and the talent to place this ability in the service of a thoroughly spiritualized interpretation. With her, all art again becomes nature, the most striking expression linked with an unrivalled charm is something that cannot be learned. She gives the impression of being a messenger of the gods, sent from the land of the Graces and Beauty. — W . Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX SUMMARY OF GUSTAV RENKER NOVEL BERGKRISTALL 499 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SUMMARY OF GUSTAV RENKER NOVEL BERGKRISTALL Translated by Leopold Zahn The book is written in the form of a diary kept by a painter by the name of Kurt Luethi. In order co escape the turmoil of the city and an unhappy love affair with an aristocratic woman. Liane von Werdt, Luethi moves into a secluded mountain hut above a little village called Hochwiler. A huge rock formation which rises high into the atmosphere captures the painter's interest. He observes the elemental changes which occur throughout the day and night. Around midnight, and only when tliere is a full moon, a blue light emanates from one area in the rock. The light wanders slowly across the top for aoout forty-five minutes and then disappears. The villagers tell stories of a mysterious man, Gottlieb Aerni, who is the one who built the mountain shack where the painter Luethi is now living. The peasants are 500 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. — ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5UT\ certain that the devil caught Aerni because he supposedly went after the blue light. Actually it is said that the mountain was exploited for its crystal deposits some three hundred years earlier by Spaniards. The crystal supposedly came from a cave marked by the blue light. Eventually there was a peasant uprising against the Spaniards and they were driven out. Regina, a shepherd girl, and her brother, Jost Anderegg, often visit the painter bringing supplies from the village. As Luethi gets more and more intrigued by the mystery of the crystal cave and the unresolved death of Gottlieb Aerni, Regina becomes concerned for his well-being Jost, however, is as interested as Luethi and they both decide to climb the mountain via the paths left by Gottlieb Aerni. On this first climb, they find no trace of the miss ing man. On another occasion, the painter decides to make the climb on his own but he is eventually accompanied by Regina. When it begins to rain, they take shelter in a cave. During this time, Luethi realizes that he is falling in love with Regina and that his feelings for Liane have turned to aversion. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 0 2 However, Regina soon becomes engaged to the village school teacher, Killian Moser, but her acceptance is more a result of her fear of becoming involved with a stranger than it is because of her love for Moser. And besides, the peasants in Hochwiler do not like the painter because he is jnot Catholic. I j Eventually Jost, who had left the village to study } music in the city, returns to Hochwiler with Liane, Luethi's former love. They all decide to climb the mountain with the hope of solving the mystery of the blue light. Gradu ally, as the climb progresses, Luethi and Liane become reconciled. With Jost's guidance, they finally reach the ,op and find the mysterious spot. But a big disappointment was in store for them. The blue light is a mere optical illusion: a reflection of the moonlight which falls through a tunnel and hits the basin of water in the cave. Jost finds a long letter left by Gottlieb Aerni. As it turns out, Jost is Aerni's son. Aerni was forced to emigrate to America when his wife was still pregnant with Jost. A false message ^ed her to believe that Aerni was dead, so she married a Mr. Anderegg and the child was claimed to be theirs. After many years in the United States and Australia, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------5Ü3 Aerni returned to the village completely broke. He went after the blue light in the hopes of making some money which he could eventually pass on to his son. Instead, all he found.was the water. But the blue light and the cave became a romantic obsession with Aerni and he returned to it often in the years that followed. However, his death still remains unresolved. On their way back down. Liane is accidentally hit by a rock and she is badly injured. The painter flashes an SOS into the valley. It is Regina who responds. With her help, they take Liane down to Luethi's hut where she recu perates. The ending is a happy one: Luethi and Liane decide to get married. They intend to live in the mountains and so purchase the hut from the villagers. One day, on their way over the mountain, they dis cover the body of a man who they consider to be Gottlieb Aerni. He is imbedded deep into the glacier ice— in an eternal glass coffin. They decide not to dig him out so that he can be preserved until the "resurrection." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPENDIX C PLOT SUMMARY OF ANDREW MARTON’S FILM COMEDY NORTHPOLE, AHOY1 504 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PLOT SUMMARY OF ANDREW MARTON'S FILM COMEDY NORTHPOLE, AHOY! By Dr. Ernst Sorgs in With 'Plane, Boat, & Camera in Greenland, D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc., New York, 1936, pp. 91-92. These two individuals, Walter Riml, the tall one (2.05 metres), and Guzzi Lantschner, the short one, really intended to make a voyage to the Riviera, but they fetched up apparently on board the wrong ship, one sailing north. No option remained to them but to try and pass themselves off as passengers who had not paid their fare. On the trip to Greenland they had a badly hunted time of it, as the wicked mate, Gibson Gowland, gave them no peace. He and the entire crew drove them hard, up and down the ratlines, on to the bridge, into the charthouse, deep down in the holds, then up again in the ventilators of the engine-room. Final ly, goaded by necessity, they hid themselves where they were reasonably safe from pursuit— in the funnel. In Uraanak these two, Fietsche and Tietsche, found 505 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------ 5 0 é ridiculous employment as assistants to the cook of a film expedition. They discovered endless new fooleries over washing up. They waded into the sea with the whole of the crockery, depositing each newly washed dish in the water, so that everything eventually floated away. A fearful row got up between them over this, and they started to hurl plates at each other, and to empty pots and cups over each other's heads, so that they were soon wet through and crawled out like dogs from a pond. On another occasion their tent and all its contents blew clean away in a storm. The artistry of this scene turned on the expressions "registered" by the pair. The only friend who took their part was our star, Yarmila Marton. At length disaster overtook the whole expe dition. Fietsche and Tietsche saved themselves on a floe, while Yarmila beckoned to them from the land. But it was a long time before they came together again. The giant and the dwarf had a lot of adventures on their floe. They tried fishing and fished up a letter in a bottle which happened to be addressed to themselves. Later on, the floe broke in two, and as the halves drifted apart, each politely invited the other to swim across. At last they got to the inland ice. The Star Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 0 7 accordingly is almost frozen. With touching solicitude Tietsche and Fietsche start cutting palm trees out of paper with the idea of inducing Yarmila to believe she is on the iRiviera. In this tragi-comic way the dream of the two comes true. But they could reconcile themselves in no way to this eternal ice and snow, and at the very last, as they suddenly came up against a sign-post, "To the North Pole," one idea alone possessed them— to leave the Arctic— so they turned and fled precipitously in exactly the opposite direction. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. B IB L IO G R A P H Y Books Aickman, Robert. The Attempted Rescue. London: Gollancz, 1966. Balazs, Bela. Per Sichtbare Mensch: Eine Film-Dramaturgie. Wien: Deutsch-Ôsterreichischer Verlag, 1924. ________. Theory of the Film: Character and Growth of a New Art. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970, Bardeche, Maurice, and Brasillach, Robert. The History of Motion Pictures. New York: W. W. Norton and Com pany, 1938. Blass, Ernst. Das Wesen der neuen Tanzkunst. Weimar: Erich Lichtenstein Verlag, 1922. Boussino^, Roger, ed. L/Encyclopedie du Cinema. Bordas, France (n.p.): 1967. Bucher, Felix. Germany. New York: A. S. Barnes and Com pany, 1970. Bullock, Alan. Hitler; A Study in Tyranny. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1964. Dorson, Richard M., ed. Folklore and Folklife: An Intro duction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Eisner, Lotte H. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. 509 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 1 0 Fairlie, Gerard. Flight Without Wings. New York; A. S. Barnes & Co., 1957. Fanck, Arnold. Regie mit Gletschern, Sturmen und Lawinen. München: Nyraphenburger Verlagshandlung GmbH;., 1973. Stürme uber dem Montblanc: Bin Filmbildbuch. Basel: Concordia Verlag, 1931. _, and Metz, Rudolf. Precious Stones and Other Crystals. New York: The Viking Press, 1964. _, and Schneider, Hannes. The Wonders of Ski-ing. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1933. Fraenkel, Heinrich, and Manvell, Roger. The German Cinema. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971. Friedrich, Otto. Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920's. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. Fromm, Bela. Blood and Banquets. New York: Harper, 1942. Furhammar, Leif, and Isaksson, Folke. Politics and Film. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971. Srierson, John. Grierson on Documenter . Edited by Forsyth Hardy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Griffith, Richard, and Rotha, Paul. The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema. London: Spring Books, 1967. Hewlett, D. W. Eva Braun: II Mio Diario. Rome: Editrice Faro, 1948. Hull, David Stewart. Film in the Third Reich. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Jacobs, Lewis, ed. The Documentary Tradition: From Nanook to Woodstock. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1971. Kolbus, Oskar. Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst. Vol. 1: Der stumme Film. Berlin: Cigaretten-Bilderdienst Altona-Bahranfeld, 1935. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------- - 5 Ï Î Knight, Arthur. The Liveliest Art. New York: Mentor Books, 1959. Kohn, Hans. The Mind of Germany: The Education of a Nation. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.- 1960. Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychologi cal History of the German Film. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1947. Propaganda and the Nazi War Film. New York: The Museum of Modern Art Film Library, 1942. Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. N?.w York: Oxford University Press, 1960. Lamprecht, Gerhard. Deutsche Stummfilme: 1923-1926. Ber lin: Deutsche Kinemathek, 1967. Lennig, Arthur, ed. Film Notes. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1960. Lloyd, Margaret. The Borzoi Book of Modern Dance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949. Mande11, Richard D. The Nazi Olympics. New York: The Macmi1Ian Company, 1971. Olympia. TOBIS Film-Kurier. Pressbook, 1938. Ranke, Kurt. Folktales of Germany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Riess, Curt. Das gab*s nur einmal. Hamburg: Verlag der Sternbûcher, GmbHl., 1956. Riefenstahl, Leni. Hinter den Kulissen des Reichsparteitag- Films. München: Franz Eher, 1935. Kampf in Schnee und Eis. Leipzig: Hesse und Becker, 1933. Schonheit im Olympischen Kampf. Berlin; Im Deutschen Verlag, 1937. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 T 3 Rotha, Paul. Celluloid; The Film Today. London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1933, _, Griffith, Richard; and Road, Sinclair. Documen tary Film; The Use of the Film Medium to Interpret Creatively and in Social Terms the Life of the People as It Exists in Reality. London; Faber and Faber, 1952. Sarris, Andrew, ed. Interviews with Film Directors. New York; The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1967. Schuster, Mel, ed. Motion Picture Directors; A Bibliog raphy of Magazine and Periodical Articles, 1900- 1972. Metuchen, N. J.; The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1973. Seldom, Elizabeth. The Dancer's Quest. Berkeley; Univer- I sity of California Press, 1935. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; A History of Nazi Germany. Greenwich, Conn.; Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1960. Sorge, Ernst. With "Plane, Boat, and Camera in Greenland; An Account of the Universal Dr. Fanck Greenland Expedition. New York; D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1936. Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich; Memoirs. New York; The Macmillan Company, 1970. Stern, Fritz. The Politics of Cultural Despair; A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology. Berkeley ; Uni versity of California Press, 1961. Triumph des Willens. UFA Film-Kurier. Pressbook, 1936. Tyler, Parker. Classics of the Foreign Film:. New York; The Citadel Press, 1962. Wollenberg, Hans H. Fifty Years of German Film. London; Falcon Press, 1948. Wulf, Joseph. Theater und Film im Dritten Reich ; Eine Dokumentation. Hamburg; Rororo Taschenbuch Ausgabe, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ■ s i s l Rowohlt Verlag, 1966. Zglinicki, Friedrich v. Der Weg des Films. Rembrandt Verlag, 1956. Berlin: Journals and Magazines "Admired by Adolf." Time, 5 May 1952, p. 40. Alpert, Hollis. "The Lively Ghost of Leni." Saturday Review, 25 March 1972, pp. 65-67. Arkadin. "Film Clips." Sight and Sound, Winter 1965-66, pp. 46-49. "Avalanche." The Bioscope, 27 May 1931, p. 18. Bachmann, Gideon, ed. "Six TaJks \.lth G. W. Pabst: The Man— The Director— The Artist." Cinemages 3. New York: The Group for Film Study, Inc., 1955. Barry, Iris. "The German Film." The New Republic. 19 May 1947, pp. 28-29. Barsam, Richard Meran. "Leni Riefenstahl: Artifice and Truth in a World Apart." Film Comment 11 (Fall 1973): 32-37. Berson, Arnold. "The Truth about Lenx: Nazi Collaborator— or Independent Artist?" Films and Filming, April 1965, pp. 15-19. Berson, Arnold, and Keller, Joseph "S'-'ume and Glory in the ! Movies." National Review, 14 January 1964, pp. 17-21. "Biographical Sketch of Leni liefenstahl." Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 13-15. The Blue Light. 8 mm Magazine, December 1962, pp. 31-34. Bowser, Eileen. "Leni Riefenstahl and the Museum of Modern %rt." Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 16. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 î f "British Fix Techs Switch Off Light on Hitler's Leni." Variety (Hollywood), 28 July 1950. Brownlow, Kevin. "Leni Riefenstahl." Biln: A Magazine of ' the Federation of Film Societies 47 (Winter 1966- 67): 14-19. _______. "Reply to Rotha." Film 48 (Spring 1967) ; 14. "The Case of Leni Riefenstahl." Sight and Sound, Spring 1960, pp. 67-69. Corliss, Richard. "Leni Riefenstahl: A Bibliography." Film Heritage 5 (Fall 1969): 27-38. i"De Brie Model E." American Cinematographer, December I 1925, pp. 25-27. "De Brie-Parvo Model L." American Cinematographer, April 1927, p. 4. Delahaye, Michel. "Leni and the Wolf." Cahiers du Cinema in English 5 (1966): 48-55. ________. "Leni et le Loup." Cahiers du CinAia 170 (September 1965): 44-51. Elliott, Charles. "Leni Riefenstahl." Film 49 (Autumn 1967) : 38. Feldman, J. and H. "Women Directors." Films in Review, November 1950, p. 8. Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965) ; 4-31. Film Culture 56 (Spring 1973) : 90-226. Flaherty, Robert. "Robert Flaherty Talking." The Cinema, 1950, p. 28. Gardner, Robert.. "Can the Will Triumph?" Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 28-31. "The Germans Made an Epic of the Olympics.” Life, 2 Febru ary 1938, pp. 51-55. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Gregor, Ulrich. "A Comeback for Leni Riefenstahl?" Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 24-25. Gunston, David. "Leni Riefenstahl." Film Quarterly 14 (Fall 1960); 4-19. ________ . "The White Flame." Classics on 9.5 mm, c- 1959, p. 27. Hitchens, Gordon. "Interview with a Legend." Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 4-10. ________. "Leni Riefenstahl Interviewed by Gordon Hitchens, I October 11, 1971, Munich." Film Culture 56 (Spring I 1973): 113-17. I ________; Bond, Kirk; and Hanhardt, John. "Interview with Henry Jaworsky by Gordon Hitchens, Kirk Bond and John Hanhardt," Film Culture 56-57 (Spring 1973): 126-34. "Hitler's Dictator." Newsweek, 15 September 1934, p. 16. Lewis, Marshall. "Triumph of the Will." Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 22-23. Macauley, Cameron. "The Blue Light." Cineclub Scrapbook, 26 February 1952, pp. 1-4. Manilla, James. "A Review of a Lesser Riefenstahl Work." Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965) : 23. Mannheim, L. Andrew. "Leni: Maligned Genius of the Nazis?" Modern Photography, February 1974, pp. 88-95, 112- 19. Marcorelles, Louis. "The Nazi Cinema." Sight and Sound, Autumn 1965, pp. 65-69. Mayer, Arthur L. "A Statement about Riefenstahl." Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965): 5. Muller, R. "Romantic Miss Riefenstahl." Spectator (lon- don), 10 February 1961, p. 169. Picturegoer Weekly, 2i November 1931, p. 20. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. : 513 1 Poulsen, Mogens Block. "Greenland's 'Plac^ by the Ice bergs.'" National Geographic, December 1973, pp. 858-71. Pyros, J. "Notes on Women Directors." Ta3«:e One, November- December 1970, p. 7. I"Report of the Progress Committee— October 1931-May 1932." Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 19 (August 1932): 120-24. Richards, J. "Leni Riefenstahl: Style and Structure." Silent Pictures, Autumn 1970, p. 17. Riefenstahl, Leni. "Reply to Paul Rctha." Film 48 (Spring 1967): 15. "Riefenstahl Statement on Sarris/Gessner Quarrel about Olympia." Film Comment (Fall 1967): 126. "The Rise and Fall of Leni Riefenstahl." Oui, May 1973, pp. 72-76, 106. Rotha, Paul. "Leni Riefenstahl— I Deplore." Film: A Magazine of the Federation of Film Societies 48 (Spring 1967): 12-15. Sahl, Hans. "From Caligari to Hitler." Modern Review, August 1947, p. 476. Saxtorph, Erik S. "Die Weisse Holle vom Piz Palii," Det Danske Filmmuseum, January 1962. Schallert, Edwin. "The White Hell of Pitz Palû." Motion Picture News, 10 I4ay 1930, p. 53. Schulberg, Budd. "Nazi Pin-Up Girl." The Saturday Evening Post, 30 March 1946, pp. 9-11, 36-41. Snyder, Louis L. "Nationalistic Aspects of the Grimm Brother.'.' Fairy Tales." The Journal of Social Psycholcqy 33 (1951): 213-22. "SOS Iceberg." Variety (Hollywood), 26 September 1933. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 1 7 Per Spiegel (Hamburg), 30 March 1960. "The Summer Olympics: Munich and the German World." Satur day Review, 25 March 1972, pp. 40-82. "'This Future Is Entirely Ours,' The Sound-and-Picture Outline for Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will." Film Comment 3 (Winter 1965) : 16-22. Tree, Paul, and Stebbins, Robert. "Ribbontrop in Skirts." Theatre Arts, December 1938, pp. 16-17. ! ( jweigel, Herman. "Filmografie." Filmkritik, 1 August 1972. "Interview with Leni Riefenstahl." Filmkritik, 1 August 1972. Weiss, Trude. "Sonne uber dem Arlberg." Close-Up, March 1932, p. 59. "Per Weisse Rausch." Variety (Hollywood) 26 March 1938. "Where Are They Now?" Newsweek, 28 October 1968, p. 26. "The White Flame." The Cinema-Booking Guide Supplement, 5 April 1933, p. 3. "The White Hell of Pitz PalG." Close-Up, December 1929, p. 545. Willoughby, L. A. "The Romantic Background of Hitlerism." Contemporary Review 144 (December 1933): 680-87. Wright, Basil. "The Blue Light." Cinema Quarterly 1 (Winter 1932): 113-14. Young, Vernon. "Hardly a Man Is Now Alive: Monologue on a Nazi Film." Accent, Spring 1955, pp. 83-91. Compilations and Encyclopedias "Arnold Fanck." In Who's Who in Germany, p. 414. Edited by Horst G. Kleimann and Stephen S. Taylor. Mont real: Intercontinental Book and Publishing Company, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------5 Ï 1 Ltd., 1964. "Das Bloue Licht." In The Film in Germany; 1908-1958. Rochester; George Eastman House, 1965. Card, James. "The Blue Light." In The Film in Germany; 1908-1959. Rochester: George Eastman House, 1965. Degh, Linda. "Oral Folklore: Folk Narrative." In Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction, pp. 57-64. Edited by Richard M. Dorson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Dorson, Richard M. "Foreword." In Folktales of Germany, pp. ii-xvii. Edited by Kurt Ranke. Chicago: Uni- I versity of Chicago Press, 1966. Everson, William K. "The Triumph of the Will." In The Documentary Tradition: From Nanook to Woodstock, pp. 138-140. Edited by Lewis Jacobs. New York; Hopkinson and Blake, 1971. Riefenstahl, Leni. "Leni Riefenstahl." In Wir iiber uns selbst, pp. 37-42. Edited by Eerraann Treuner. Berlin: Sibyllen Verlag, 1928, Tyler, Parker. "Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia." In The Documentary Tradition: From Nanook to Woodstock, pp. 136-37. Edited by Lewis Jacobs. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1971. "The White Hell of Pitz Palü." In The Film in Germany: 1908-1958. Rochester: George Eastman House, 1965. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1969 ed. S.v. "Dance Teaching," by Walter Terry. Newspapers "Avalanche." New York Post, 29 March 1932 B. Z. am Mittag (Berlin), 29 October 1923. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5191 Beavers, John. "The Girl Hitler Likes." Sunday Referee, 4 December 1938. Beckley, Paul V. "Nothing Grand about Illusions in Nazi Film." The New York Herald Tribune, 10 July 1960, Bentley, Eric. "The Cinema: Its Art and Techniques." The New York Times Book Review, 18 May 1947, p. 7, Bild Zeitung, 15 March 1960. "Bilder aus dem Olympia-film." Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, 17 February 1938, pp. 220-21. "The Blue Light: A Dolomite Legend, Rich in Pictorial Beauty." New York Sun, 9 May 1934. "The Blue Light." New York Post, 7 October 1934. "The Blue Light." The London Times, 30 October 1932. Boehnel, William. "Avalanche." New York World Telegram, 29 March 1932. Bohemia (Prag.), 29 November 1923. Bohme, Fritz. Deutsche Allgemaine Zeitung (Berlin), 29 October 1923. Breslauer Neueste Nachrichten, 7 April 1924. Estes, Jim. "Nazi Film— A Triumph of Evil Genius." The San Francisco Chronicle, 28 July 1959, p. 35. Gallo, William. "The Film Flap at Telluride Festival." Los Angeles Times, 22 September 1974. Hall, Mordaunt. The New York Times Film Reviews, 29 Novem ber 1927. Hildenbrandt, Fred. Berliner Tageblatt, 21 December 1923. Innsbrucker Nachrichten, 22 November 1923. "Die Kamera taucht, segelt, rollt und . . . vergrabt sich." Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, 23 July 1936, pp. 1-7 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ^20 Kampfer (Zurich), 24 February 1924. Klasisenkampf (Halle), 12 March 1924. KSlner Tageblatt, 29 March 1924. Konig, ■ Karla. Generalanzeiger fûr Stettin und Pommern, 7 February 1924. Lange, Hermann. Volksblatt (Halle), 11 March 1924. "Leni Riefenstahl." New York Herald Examiner, 20 May 1952. "Leni Riefenstahl Glorified in Bremen." Die Zeit (Berlin), 24 July 1964. Machner, Hans. "Leni Riefenstahl." Neue Rhein-Zeitung, 12 March 1960. ________. "Leni Riefenstahl." Neue Rhein-Zeitung, 14 March 1960. McLemore, Henry. "Propaganda? Not in This Film!" Los Angeles Evening News, c. December 1938. Mittel.deutscher Kurier (Halle), 12 March 1924. Mûnchener Neueste Nachrichten, 12 December 1923. Nason, Richard W. Review of "Storms over Montblanc." New York Times Film Reviews, 26 March 1932, p. 813. Neue Züricher Zeitung, 21 February 1924. Newman, Claude. "For What It's Worth." Hollywood Citizen News, c. December 1938. "No Hand Shake." Daily Herald (London) 14 December 1960. Praeger Presse, 30 November 1923. "Prisoners of the Mountain." New York Times Film Reviews, Rhernische Volkswacht (Koln), 18 March 1924. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 2 1 Rheinische Zeitung (Kôln), 18 March 1924. Riefenstahl, E. F. "Goebbels Verbot ihr das Stadion." Ruhr-Nachrichten, 4 July 1964. jRobbe, Friedrich Carl. Braunschweigische Landeszeitung, I 29 March 1924. jsarris, Andrev,’. "Films." The Village Voice (New York), I 4 May 1967. Schab, Gunther. Hallesche Zeitung, 12 March 1924. Schikowski, John. Vorwarts (Berlin), 16 November 1923. Schlesische Zeitung (Breslau), 8 March 1924. jServaes, Franz. Per Tag (Berlin), 29 October 1923. "The Ski Chase." New York Herald Tribune, 26 March 1938. "The Ski Chase.” New York Times, c. 26 March 1938. Stern, Seymour. "Hitler Linked with German Film% by Critic Kracauer." Los Angeles Daily News, 10 May 1947. Strassner. Kolnische Zeitung, 18 March 1924. Tagesanzeiger (Zürich), 22 February 1924. Tazelaar, Marguerite. "The Blue Light." New York Herald Tribune, 9 May 1934. "Thrills in the Alps." Daily Telegraph (New York), 27 February 1933. Trask, C. Hooper. "Review of Sturme uber dem Montblanc." New York Times Film Reviews, 25 January 1931, p. 3844. Trenker, Luis. "Leni Riefenstahl? Noch nie gehôrt." Neue Welt, September 1971. Volksbote (Stettin), 8 February 1924. "The White Flame." London Sunday Times, 26 February, 1933, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 322 "The White Flame." Observer (London), 26 February 1933. Die Zeit (Berlin), 30 October 1323. iZüricher Post, 22 February 1924. i I Züricher Volkszeitung, 22 February 1924. Documents Berlin. Deutsche Film-und Fernsehakademie Berlin GmbH. Leni Riefenstahl, "Resume of Life." Berlin. Document Center. Arnold Fanck, "Lebenslauf." Berlin. Document Center. Fragebogen für Mitglieder, Reichsverband Deutscher Schriftsteller, 31 July 1934. "Biography of Leni Riefenstahl." Interpress Archiv, 10 August 1962. Brooks, R. D. "Triumph des Willens." University of Illinois Film Society Program Notes, 12 October 1966. London. British Film Institute. "Peasant Legend of the Alps." November 1932. London. The British Film Institute. Angus Quell, "The Film Actress Behind Hitler; Amazing Career of Leni Riefenstahl." c. 1934. London. The British Film Institute. Lady Eleanor Smith, "The Wrath of the Gods." I iNew York. Theodore Huff Memorial Film Society. William K. j Everson. "The White Hell of Pitz Palü" (program notes). 15 November 1966. Riefenstahl, Leni. "Artistic Life History of Leni Riefen stahl ." An autobiography written in English and given to the author by Leni Riefenstahl in August 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ---------------------------------------------5Z3 Toronto. Toronto Film Society. Louise Brooks, letter quoted in William K. Everson, "The White Kell of Pitz Palu" (program notes), 1967-1968. Toronto. Toronto Film Society. William K. Everson, "The White Hell of Pitz Palü" (program notes), 1967-1968. [Toronto. Toronto Film Society. Gerald Morris. "Triumph of the Will" (program notes), 3 February 1957. Wiesbaden, Germany. Deutsches Institut fur Filmkunde. Leni Riefenstahl, "Bin Deutscher Film— Welterfolg Entstand," c. 1960. Wiesbaden, Germany. Deutsches Institut für Filmkunde. Leni Riefenstahl, "Wie Ich Sum Film Kam." Interviews Angst, Richard. Berlin, Germany. Interview, 7 July 1971 I and 10 July 1971. Card, James. Rochester, New York. Interview 7 January 1971. Fanck, Arnold. Freiburg, Germany. Interview, 23 July 1971. Foeger, Luggi. Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Interview, 9 May 1971. Frentz, Walter. Uberlingen, Germany. Interview 3 August 1971. Gardner, Robert. Boston, Mai;;s. Interview, 26 January 1971. Garnett, Tay. Los Angeles, Calif. Interview, 26 April 1 9 / 1 . Hippier, Fritz. Berehtesgaden, Germany. Interview, 18 August 1971. Jaworsky, Henry v. New York, N. Y. Interview, 10 Septem ber 1972. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5241 Langr Fritz. Channel 28 KCET, Los Angeles California. Televised interview by Charles Chcunplin and Philip Chamberlain, 11 October 1971. Lüft, Kerberl 1971. Los Angeles, Calif. Interview, 14 March Mainz, Frederick A. Locarno, Switzerland. Interview, 29 July 1971. I ! Morton, Andrew. Los Angeles, Calif. Interview, 14 Decem- j her 1970. I jMuller-Goerne, Dr. Munich, Germany. Interview, 14 August 1971. Riefenstahl, Leni. Interview with Kevin Brownlow (unpub lished) , 11 October 1970. j Riefenstahl, Leni. Munich, Germany. Interviews, 4, 6, 7, I 8, 11, and 15 August 1971. Rony, George. Los Angeles. Calif. Interview, 2 February 1971. Schlichting, Isabel. Alicante, Spain. Interviews, 2 and 3 { July, 1971, and 20 August 1971, Munich, Germany. | I Sokal, Harry. Munich, Germany. Interview, 13 August 1971. Speer, Albert. Heidelberg, Germany. Interview, 14 August 1971. {Traut, Walter. Munich, Germany. Interview, 10 August 1971, I I Weidemann, Hans. Hamburg, Germany. Interview, 16 July 1971. Letters Brandler, Inge. To author. 6 October 1972. Fanck, Arnold. To author. 27 April 1971, and 21 May 1971. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. '53151 ! Jaworsky, Henry v. To author. 30 July 1972. I jRiefenstahl, Leni. To Kevin Brownlow. 19 January 1967, ! 28 July 1968, 8 February 1970, and 5 March 1970. Zahn, Leopold. To author. 22 September 1972. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Asset Metadata

Creator Wallace, Peggy Ann, 1943- (author)

Core Title AN HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE CAREER OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL FROM 1923 TO 1933.

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag cinema,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Advisor von Hanwehr, Wolfram (committee chair), Casebier, Allan (committee member), Knight, Arthur (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-458295

Unique identifier UC11351946

Identifier 7528658.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-458295 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7528658-0.pdf

Dmrecord 458295

Document Type Dissertation

Rights WALLACE, PEGGY ANN

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA