Leni Riefenstahl, known in history as Hitler’s favorite filmmaker, has long experienced a remarkable degree of approval in Hollywood. Quentin Tarantino expressed his admiration for his cinematographic gifts, and Francis Ford Coppola would have dinner with her during the first tellurid film festival in 1974 where the two directors were honored. A 2007 New York Piece magazine reported: “George Lucas praised his modernity and recognized the debt of Star Wars has [Riefenstahl’s] Triumph of the will. “”
Such a flattery reflects the success of Riefenstahl after the Second World War by rubbing its reputation for complicity with the Nazi regime and a generalized adhesion to its carefully designed story: that it was an apolitical artist who simply took missions of Hitler and her Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. This fantasy is exploded in the documentary DIFENSTAHLDirected by the German filmmaker Andres Veiel. He now plays in American theaters through Kino Lorber and will obtain a campaign for the consideration of the Oscars.
On the new edition of the Podcast Doc Talk de Deadline, Veiel explains how he revealed evidence that Riefenstahl – far from being an artist involuntarily drafted in the service of Hitler – in fact adopted with enthusiasm the Nazi ideology from the early 1930s. Bidding her archives with her producer, diligently, journalist Sandra Maischberger, Veiel Dressed by other researchers – including post -war friendly communication between Riefenstahl and the official of the third Reich Albert Speer, noted the architect and the Minister of Armaments and war production for the Nazis.
Veiel tells us about frightening evidence that he discovered that Riefenstahl witnessed war crimes shortly after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, and that it used Roma confined in a concentration camp as an extras in a film production at war – innocent people who were then put to death by the Nazis. He also reveals the reaction of Riefenstahl when an important director of photography on his film Olympia was then sent to a psychiatric establishment and forcibly sterilized in accordance with the Nazi belief in Eugenics.
It is on the last edition of Doc Talk, organized by the winner of the Oscars John Ridley (12 years of slave,, Shirley) and Matt Carey, document editor of Deadline. The Pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the above episode or on the main podcast platforms, including Spotify, IHEART and Apple.
