The Triumph of the Will, a documentary from 1935 set in Germany, revolutionized cinema when Leni Riefenstahl captured and exalted the fearless Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler and his infamous Nazi party. The film uses powerful imagery of Hitler himself and adoring crowds to emphasize his deity like leadership and the people’s love for him. In a time of insane rule, Riefenstahl’s picture was the propaganda for the Nazis that pushed its ideals through techniques that gave them false hope for the future of Germany in a ruthless and fascist regime. I will endeavor to investigate what techniques such as mise en scène and sound Riefenstahl uses to capitalize on the pathos of the viewer to follow the Nazi regime and their cause.
Nazi Germany in 1935 was under the influence of the authoritarian ruler Adolf Hitler. He recruited Leni Riefenstahl to make a movie on the Nuremberg rally. The Nuremberg laws was Hitler’s attempt to exclude Jews from economic, political life. The Nuremberg laws were created to protect German blood. Hitler wanted to remain the puppeteer and contain the violence and still have control. Hitler started off by taking away the rights for Jews to marry Germans and/or to have sexual contact with them. In order to even have a Jewish woman living in the same home, the woman needed to be over the age of fort-five for fear of procreation. Hitler implanted these laws and the Germans adapted to them quickly because they did not like the violence and they offered clear boundaries about the Germans and Jews which segregated them politically, economically, and socially. The Germans had hopes that these laws would end the violence in the streets and it would become a more livable place. Reich citizenship law stated that Jews could not be German citizens. These laws specifically focused on the “pure race” aspect, and was seen as a sense of forced evolution within the country. With the implantation of these laws, Jews were in a sense put into a corner and limited on who they could converse with, and with that it limited the ability of the German blood becoming tainted. The public saw these laws as something to take pride in. At the time they saw Hitler as the savior of Germany due the previous years following the Great Depression. Now the people had jobs, they had a livelihood to take care of, and they had a sense of national pride mainly in part to the massive amount of propaganda the Nazi’s were able to produce. To them–being German was a thing of pride now after the earlier years following World War I. We see these ideals come through specifically in Hitler’s speech as he proclaims “We carry the best blood and we know this. We have resolved to the keep the leadership of the country and never it up! Now we inspect ourselves and reject that which is bad…and therefore does not belong to us.” The film glorified the Third Reich and portrayed the army as a band of brothers. The way Hitler descends from the clouds with crowds, children, and cats adoring him leads the viewer to buy into his deity. There is Nazi at the end of the film who introduces Hitler but before doing he makes some remarks on the Reich “…the flags and standards of National Socialism. If their cloth ever rots only then will people understand the greatness of our time. And they will understand what you, my Führer mean to Germany. You are Germany. When you act, the nation acts.” The documentary pushed the idea of Germany’s eternal nature and how their progressive moves were …show more content…
She was handpicked by Joseph Goebbels, the master of propaganda, along with Hitler, the tyrant himself because of the way she was able to move people through her art in film. She was able to pair excellent music and film technique to touch people’s hearts. The article “Triumph Des Willens (1935): Documentary and Propaganda” explores how Hitler had admired Riefenstahl’s work specifically Das blue Licht (The Blue Light, 1932). He is quoted to have said to her “Once we come to power, you must make my films.” (153). Together they did exactly that and made
Nazi Germany in 1935 was under the influence of the authoritarian ruler Adolf Hitler. He recruited Leni Riefenstahl to make a movie on the Nuremberg rally. The Nuremberg laws was Hitler’s attempt to exclude Jews from economic, political life. The Nuremberg laws were created to protect German blood. Hitler wanted to remain the puppeteer and contain the violence and still have control. Hitler started off by taking away the rights for Jews to marry Germans and/or to have sexual contact with them. In order to even have a Jewish woman living in the same home, the woman needed to be over the age of fort-five for fear of procreation. Hitler implanted these laws and the Germans adapted to them quickly because they did not like the violence and they offered clear boundaries about the Germans and Jews which segregated them politically, economically, and socially. The Germans had hopes that these laws would end the violence in the streets and it would become a more livable place. Reich citizenship law stated that Jews could not be German citizens. These laws specifically focused on the “pure race” aspect, and was seen as a sense of forced evolution within the country. With the implantation of these laws, Jews were in a sense put into a corner and limited on who they could converse with, and with that it limited the ability of the German blood becoming tainted. The public saw these laws as something to take pride in. At the time they saw Hitler as the savior of Germany due the previous years following the Great Depression. Now the people had jobs, they had a livelihood to take care of, and they had a sense of national pride mainly in part to the massive amount of propaganda the Nazi’s were able to produce. To them–being German was a thing of pride now after the earlier years following World War I. We see these ideals come through specifically in Hitler’s speech as he proclaims “We carry the best blood and we know this. We have resolved to the keep the leadership of the country and never it up! Now we inspect ourselves and reject that which is bad…and therefore does not belong to us.” The film glorified the Third Reich and portrayed the army as a band of brothers. The way Hitler descends from the clouds with crowds, children, and cats adoring him leads the viewer to buy into his deity. There is Nazi at the end of the film who introduces Hitler but before doing he makes some remarks on the Reich “…the flags and standards of National Socialism. If their cloth ever rots only then will people understand the greatness of our time. And they will understand what you, my Führer mean to Germany. You are Germany. When you act, the nation acts.” The documentary pushed the idea of Germany’s eternal nature and how their progressive moves were …show more content…
She was handpicked by Joseph Goebbels, the master of propaganda, along with Hitler, the tyrant himself because of the way she was able to move people through her art in film. She was able to pair excellent music and film technique to touch people’s hearts. The article “Triumph Des Willens (1935): Documentary and Propaganda” explores how Hitler had admired Riefenstahl’s work specifically Das blue Licht (The Blue Light, 1932). He is quoted to have said to her “Once we come to power, you must make my films.” (153). Together they did exactly that and made