Take One (Oct 1976)

kawa, Wolper, et al.), but is it necessary for that sense to extend to the Games themselves? The Olympics — at once a persuasive display of political power and rabid nationalism, not to mention an_ overwhelmingly grand spectacle unrivaled in its ability to manipulate emotions — must be awesome for its participants as they're shuffed about from event to event, political Crisis to political crisis. To catch this sense of the insignificance of the athletes themselves, their complete powerlessness — forget the little girls on the telephone or Bruce Jenner explaining the loneliness of a long distance insurance salesman — if the NFB had only set out to do that. Now that would truly be “putting attention where it should be put... on the human element ” fg La grande dame blonde aux petits gants blancs by Will Aitken Leni Riefenstahl, the filmmaker/propagandist Adolf Hitler called ‘my perfect German woman,” blitzed her way through Montreal while here taking still photographs of the XX|I Olympiad. The Canadian Jewish Congress promptly fired off telegrams of protest to COJO (the Olympic organizing committee responsible for inviting Riefenstahl to the Games — she’s been present at every one since the 1950s) and to Robert Andras, Canadian Minister of Immigration. The telegrams objected to the presence of a “principal Nazi propagandist” who ‘made films glorifying Hitler, genocide and the odious philosophy of the master race.” The Montreal press, on the other hand, couldn’t have been nicer. Or less informed. From an interview with movie reviewer Dane Lanken in the Montreal Gazette (23 July 1976): “... history has recorded Riefenstahl's initial refusal to do the film [Olympia], largely because of emmity between her and Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels. The film was finally made, but by the strictly independent Leni Riefenstahl Produktion.” According to Susan Sontag in a review of Riefenstahl’s new book of photos, The Last of the Nuba, Riefenstahl, with her “un ’ limited personal access to Hitler,” was the only German filmmaker not responsible to Goebbels. She was the only filmmaker not under the supervision of the “Short and Propaganda Production” section of the Reich Film Chamber of the Ministry of Propaganda. A series of letters from various Nazi officials throw similar doubt on Riefenstahl’s claim that the Olympia film was her own “strictly independent” production. From the Reich Minister of Finance’s “Ministerial Proposal” of 15 October 1935, cited in Nazi Cinema, by Erwin Leiser: “Ref. Request for new funds for publicity on 1936 Olympiad. At the request of Minister Goebbels, Ministerial Secretary Ott referred to me the disposition of very considerable funds for: 1. Olympics Security 300-350,000 RM 2. Olympia films 1.5 million RM!The Propaganda Ministry has submitted the draft contract for the production of an Olympics film, whereby Frin. Riefenstahl is assigned to produce a film on the Summer Olympics. The cost is estimated at 1.5 million RM. According to Ministerial Councillor Ott, Minister Goebbels wants the initial financing of the film to come from state funds.” From a letter from Goebbels to the district court at Charlottenburg, Berlin (30 January 1936), quoted in Nazi Cinema: “The Olympia-Film Co. Ltd. is being founded at the government's request and with government funds. In addition, the company’s financial requirements for the production of the film are being met entirely from the State budget. The establishment of the company is urgent since the State is unwilling to appear publicly to be the producer of the film.” And, from a letter from the President of the State Film Department to the Charlottenburg district court (12 February 1936), again from Nazi Cinema: “It is thus not a matter of a private undertaking or an undertaking with ordinary film business objectives, but of a company which has been established simply for the purpose of the external organisation and production of the film in question. It is clearly impracticable to have the Treasury itself acting as film producer.” In an interview with Elizabeth Gray on CBC radio, Riefenstahl explained, “Goebbels was a propagandist, | am an artist.” Similarly, in the Gazette interview she notes, ‘Film is the best document there is; it provides the best history. Triumph of the Will is not a commentary, it is just an account of what happened... it is not a propaganda film.” In her 1935 book, Behind the Scenes of the Party Rally Film (published by Franz Eher, the central publishing house of the National Socialist Party), Riefenstahl wrote that the 1934 Nuremburg Rally ‘was planned not only as a spectacular mass meeting — but as a spectacular propaganda film.” The introductory titles to Triumph of the Will, referred to in Leiser’s Nazi Cinema, read: “On 5 September 1934, twenty years after the outbreak of the Great War, sixteen years after the beginning of the German people’s humiliation, nineteen months after the German nation was reborn...” Riefenstahl told an unidentified interviewer in the Montreal Star (20 July 1976), “Politics never interested me... | am an artist.” In the Gazette article she noted: “You know | have gone to court over 50 times since the end of the war, often [emphasis mine] to get an apol ogy from a newspaper that called me a Nazi — which | never was — but also to stop the pirate prints of my films.” In 1934, during the filming of Triumph of the Will, Riefenstahl wrote a letter to Karl Auer of the State Film Association to complain about a cameraman who objected to working under her. She addressed the letter to “Fellow Party Member Karl Auer.” In the body of the letter (quoted in Nazi Cinema) she said she considered the cameraman’s recalcitrance to be “an expression of disparagement for a work commissioned by the Fuehrer.” And, again from her 1935 book Behind the Scenes of the Party Rally Film: “During the Labor Service Parade [of the Nuremburg Rally] the sun disappeared behind the clouds. But the moment the Fuehrer arrives, its rays break through the clouds: Hitler weather!... in the will of the Fuehrer his people triumph.” It’s so hard to decide which quote from which interview to conclude with. Perhaps it’s best to use them all. From the Gazette; ‘“... before she leaves here, director Jean-Claude Labrecque has _ scheduled a spot for her in the National Film Board’s official movie of the Montreal Games. She is to be filmed while at work photographing athletes, which scenes could only add distinction to our Canadian film.” From an interview with Jean Pelletier in La Presse (19 July 1976): “La grande dame blonde aux petits gants blancs... Si elle ne faisait pas allusion a des Hitler, des Goebbels, et des Himmler, on ne devinerait pas son age.” And Elizabeth Gray for CBC: “I! can only respect her work and her word... | can’t help feeling guilty that I’m doing it too [making connections between Riefenstah! and Hitler], except that that is a context from which she cannot escape, and | know she knows that too... but she demands the right to rise above it, so we talked about now.” | 15