Leni Riefenstahl, Interviewed by Die Welt
Jan. 7, 2002
Part 2 of 3
(Translated by Otto Hinckelmann)
Hoffmann: Why did you distance yourself from Arnold Fanck? He had certainly fashioned a unique catapult into the medium of film for you.
Riefenstahl: Somehow I had the wish to oppose Dr. Fanck, because I wasn't satisfied with his directing. There was a lot I didn't like, for example the aesthetics of his pictures, his "beautiful pictures," which he also decreed in scenes which were sad and negative. To me that was a stylistic discontinuity. I felt it to be wrong that he would introduce positive lighting into a sad scene. If I want to introduce beautiful pictures then the plot has to correspond to them. That's how I hit upon the idea of making only beautiful pictures for Das Blaue Licht whose plot, of course, is fairy-tale like. For a film like Piz Palü, where avalanches rumble and people die, that would have been absurd. I found it inappropriate that cheerful sunrises and glistening glaciers were shown while the plot was dramatically sad.
Hoffmann: So you created a counter design...
Riefenstahl: That was actually the basis for my idea of countering with Das Blaue Licht. With beautiful pictures the plot has to have the same tone: a fairy tale, a beautiful legend. A realistic plot also demands correspondingly realistic pictures. If I show beautiful pictures-- pictures of fog, streaming light, and so on-- then that has to correspond to the content. To that extent I found myself in opposition to Fanck.
Hoffmann: So you weren't able to convert Fanck to your concept of beauty?
Riefenstahl: On the contrary, but only after I had broken with him. When I showed Fanck my manuscript, at first he wouldn't listen to my suggestion: "You're crazy, you cannot do that." I asked, "Why not?" He said you can only afford that if you have millions at your disposal in order to exceed nature and to simulate it through sets. Kind of the way Fritz Lang did, for example, in Nibelungen, with huge trees and so forth. You don't have that kind of money.
Hoffmann: Did Fanck change his opinion after he saw Das Blaue Licht?
Riefenstahl: He admitted that he had made a mistake. Of course I had big problems myself in implementing my ideas, the circumstances really weren't exactly ideal. In fact, in many points he was actually right, for example when he asked me, "How are you going to make the mountains look fairy-tale like when you climb around on them, they are certainly completely realistic." That irritated me, there was something to that. I brooded over it for three or four nights until the idea came to me to envelop the mountains in fog and to photograph them backlit so that the fairy-tale like mood was created. The point is that most of the time I figured out a solution.
Hoffmann: After that you filmed Hitler's Party conventions, in 1933, Victory of Faith and in 1934, Triumph of the Will. With these you succeeded in making documentary films interesting and to give them an emotional quality through the use of a new aesthetic. Walter Benjamin characterized this as the aestheticization of politics. Was it intentional or accidental that you were able to make the negative aesthetic of National Socialism popular with the help of the positive aesthetic of the film?
Riefenstahl: That's a hard question because I can't answer it concisely and conclusively. It wasn't that way at all. It was much more like: After Das Blaue Licht I only wanted to make films that appealed to me. Projects such as the Penthesilea or Michael Kohlhaas, films that fulfilled me. Films about politics or science not only did not interest me, I was strictly opposed to them. You can understand that I was in despair when Hitler asked me to make films for him. The first ones he offered me were Nazi themes like SA Man, Brand or Hitler Youth, Quex, feature films that were ultimately made by others.
Hoffmann: By Franz Seitz and Hans Steinhoff. Together with Franz Wenzler's Hans Westmar these three Party-conforming films were made in 1933. Furthermore, until the war began, they were the only films that explicitly glorified National Socialism. After that Goebbels didn't want to see any more brown shirts and any more swastikas on the screen-- in the theaters the viewers were to be lulled by an ideal world.
Riefenstahl: That could be. Initially at least, I was able to turn down the Party films. Hitler was near anger about it, but I had the strength to reject the offers. And then something happened that one might call fateful. Hitler got it into his head that I should do something different for him-- a film on the growth of the Party, which I still managed to avoid doing. Nevertheless, after many refusals and thereby being slowly driven into a corner, I had to consider the fact that I would have a lot of trouble realizing my ideas. I considered reaching a compromise by making a film on the Party convention. "You can at least make that one, it's only six days and you can surely give me six days of your life," said Hitler. I answered, "May I then please express a wish?" "In the first place, I don't know if I can even do it, I've never seen a Party convention and I also don't have much interest in doing something like that. But if I do it then I have one urgent request: I'd like to have your promise never again to have to make a film for you or the Party, just this one and without responsibility." Hitler promised me that officially in Albert Speer's presence.
Hoffmann: But finally there were three Party convention films made by you.
Riefenstahl: The fantastic part and what is for me incomprehensible is that after many attempts at first I succeeded in having to make only one Party convention film. That was to have been the 1933 film named after the Party slogan, Victory of Faith. Hitler had ordered Goebbels to have the Propaganda Ministry help me to do it. By that time Goebbels, for many reasons, already hated me and he did not follow Hitler's direction. As a result there was a big argument between Goebbels and Hitler. Later, when Hitler had me meet with him in order to find out how far I'd gotten with the preparations in Nuremberg, I had no inkling because no one had informed me. Then he called Dr. Goebbels and chewed him out in my presence. I almost sank into the floor, it was scary. "How could you not carry out my order, Frau Riefenstahl doesn't know anything, however I want her to make this film and your people to help her to do it." Of course, Goebbels had his own film department and it would have been sensible for it to help me. Because Hitler wanted me to come out on top against Goebbels, his aversion to me was increased.
Hoffmann: There's the additional factor that you belonged to the select circle around Hitler that enjoyed his confidence. To that extent Goebbels considered you as competition.
Riefenstahl: I did not have Hitler's confidence and I was rarely with him. In all those years I had only one telephone conversation with him. Nevertheless, he said to his people, "I want Frau Riefenstahl to make a film of the Party convention."
Hoffmann: Of course, we're still talking about the 1933 film, the one that carried the title of the Party convention, Victory of Faith.
Riefenstahl: Yes, the first attempt was in 1933. But the Party attempted to boycott the project. In Nuremberg I received neither film supplies nor money, simply nothing at all. I had taken my brother, who had some money, with me. I was desperate because they all boycotted me. At that time I had gotten to know Albert Speer and he encouraged me: "Frau Riefenstahl, you have to do it, I will help you. I asked, "Sure, but how?" He would try to get me a good cameraman. Then Speer sent me Walter Frentz and he brought two additional people. Said Speer, "You will now film what Frau Riefenstahl tells you to film." Then I tried to do some filming with these two camera people. But Party people knocked over the cameras and a lot was destroyed. I had shot barely a couple of thousand meters of film and I said to Speer, "That's it, I've had it. The best thing is for me to leave Germany. I get boycotted by the Party even though Hitler wants me to do the film. What can I do?" His advice was: "Tell Hitler everything that happened to you." "But then I'll have even more enemies," whereupon he insisted, "You must tell him everything." That's exactly the way it was.
Hoffmann: Did you then tell Hitler everything, as Speer advised you to do?
Riefenstahl: After the work was done I was called to meet with Hitler. When he asked me how things had gone I told him everything. Naturally, that was a scary situation. He suggested that I edit the material as well as I could. "You'll have to make a real film next year." That was like a death blow to me. As if things weren't bad enough, now I was supposed to do better in 1934. Later, the Party showed up in the person of a low-level employee, and he rented a room for me, an out of service elevator. There was an old cutting table in it where I was supposed edit the material for Victory of Faith. A lady splicer was also made available to me. That's how I then edited the material to make that film short.
Hoffmann: Victory of Faith runs exactly 63 minutes. With Triumph of the Will in 1934 did you anticipate little or no resistance?
Riefenstahl: With regard to the next film, I implored Hitler that I could not take the responsibility for it. When I said that he almost became angry and said, "You can." Then, as I was showing him Victory of Faith, it suddenly became clear to me that I really could edit. With Blaue Licht I already felt that I had a knack for editing. So Triumph became quite a nice film, but not a great film. But they hatched quite a festive premier with it and gave it high praise as a great film, which was not my own evaluation of it. Instead, I found it primitive and simple.
Hoffmann: You know that, later on, Goebbels had this film destroyed because in it SA Leader Ernst Roehm figured next to Hitler, who "the Fuehrer" had had murdered in the "Night of the long knives." He could not be allowed to continue to live in the film.
Riefenstahl: It is unusual that no copy of it can be found. Mine disappeared also. I'd give a lot to have at least one copy. My film storage safes were all cleaned out of course. Also, in Victory of Faith, sequences with pictures from Triumph of the Will were later spliced in. Of course that's not my Victory of Faith. The pictures showing Hitler riding through the streets of Nuremberg in a car are proof of that.
Hoffmann: But they weren't made until the year 1934. They couldn't be in Victory of Faith.
Riefenstahl: Although I had to make Triumph of the Will in 1934, it actually did turn out well. I attribute that to sheer magic, because I actually had no interest whatsoever in that material.
Hoffmann: That film was so outstanding that you were accused of a suggestive aestheticization of fascism.
Riefenstahl: In fact, my only wish was to be done with it as soon as possible. In order not to have anything more to do with it, I hoped that it would be halfways successful. During the editing I hadn't the slightest idea that the film would someday become so famous and also be that good.
Hoffmann: We can attribute that to the fact that the tedious military reviews and the mediocre speeches became stylized to hedonistic celebrations through your cinemetographic genius. As did Gance, Eisenstein, or Griffith before you, you also visualized the beauty of the masses in that you knew to set them in motion ornamentally in order to more or less double Hitler's "movement." The invocation of the magic of the flags, the flair of the sacral exaltation, the songs simulating a community deeply impressed us squirts at the time. We wanted to be like the blonde drummer on the screen and we were willing to walk through fire for the Fuehrer.
Riefenstahl: During the preparations I walked around Nuremberg with the camera people, especially with Sepp Allgeier, who was the most important to me, and determined the camera positions with him and how we would cinematically dramatize the crowds. In order to avoid the impression of tedium of the speeches I got the idea of setting up a track around the speaker and to arrange everything solely from the cinematic perspective. I never once thought about the politics. You can see that from the fact that I didn't include the Wehrmacht. Thus I didn't order the sequences according to their political importance but rather solely according to the effect of the entirety.
Hoffmann: And what was the effect of this arrangement on the crowds in the theaters?
Riefenstahl: Many have written about it, in America, Susan Sonntag. It's alleged that I staged a lot of it myself, for example the arrangement of the spectators, but that's not true. I didn't stage a single scene, but rather I simply picked up with the camera what there was to see in the arena. It's also been written that I had who knows how many cameramen for the film, when in reality I had only 13 and of these only two or three that were very good, the best being Allgeier. The rest were amateurs. The quality of the film was determined on the cutting table and by the background music. I had the great fortune to find Herbert Windt who found the right marches and the right music. Without Windt the film wouldn't have turned out as well as it did.
Hoffman: Was it Windt's idea to have the film start with the "Rienzi" overture?
Riefenstahl: Yes, of course.
Hoffmann: Apparently no longer enthusiastic about your Fuehrer assignment, you nevertheless created a third Party rally film, Days of Freedom (1935). That one did not achieve the level of film aesthetics that is associated with your name.
Riefenstahl: There had been a big row after the premier of Triumph of the Will. The Army had complained to the "Fuehrer" that the Wehrmacht didn't appear in it. Thereupon Hitler invited me to a meeting in Munich-- it was on a Christman holiday. During tea with Rudolf Hess, he said to me, "Dear Frau Riefenstahl, can't we somehow make up for this, because the Wehrmacht is very embittered? Can't you make a leader? You could just move along a row of these gentlemen with the camera and give the rank of each one." I threw up my hands and said, "For God's sake, how awful." As he said, "Don't forget who you're talking to," I realized I was being awful too.
Hoffmann: Did this reaction of Hitler's have any consequences?
Riefenstahl: As he said goodbye, he was pretty annoyed and, in my opinion, justifiably so. As he walked out I had a redeeming idea. Next year I will make a short film just of the Wehrmacht. But Hitler didn't want to hear any more about it. He was really enraged. The next year I sent five cameramen, the most important again being Willi Zielke, to Nuremberg where the Wehrmacht put on their big show, and asked them to make the film. Actually, Zielke took the pictures and he also edited the film. He then brought it to me and I spent a day making a few minor changes, and that was the extent of my contribution. It was premiered as Day of Freedom under my name.
Hoffman: Did monocled General Walter von Reichenau expect to find sanction for the principle of obedience as demonstrated by the lock step march?
Riefenstahl: In order to promote a reconciliation between the Wehrmacht and me, Hitler sent an invitation to a pre-Premier screening to the cream of the Wehrmacht. That was in the fall of 1935. I was 20 minutes late getting there and Goebbels gloated with sadistic satisfaction. Hitler was already nervous. I had had a car accident or something similar which made me late. Then the film was shown for the first time. It ran for about 25 minutes. The Wehrmacht sat there with their ladies. An icy mood reigned. While the film ran there was an uneasiness until finally there was a lot of enthusiasm which thawed out the room and everybody applauded. The anticipated reconcilation did, in fact, take place.
Hoffmann: The concept of Montage had to be redefined after your films. Did you learn from the Russian masters of Montage? From Eisenstein, Wertow, or Pudovkin's formula that the filmed human being is not much more than just raw material for the Montage process which later actually creates his appearance in the film?
Riefenstahl: I'll have to disappoint you there: no influence on my films. I only saw the Russian films later or not at all. Of course I admired Eisenstein, but I found no influence on my work. I found those films great, they appealed to me wonderfully. Perhaps they had an unconscious influence, that could be. In any case I found those films very nice.
Hoffmann: The great British documentary film maker John Grierson has praised you as "the greatest documentary film creator of all time."
Riefenstahl: Do you know what he did when I was in London and which I found frightfully embarrassing: in a small circle of his co-workers and friends he said a few nice words about me. Then he took my shoes off and kissed my feet. I was deeply moved by this gesture.
Hoffmann: Grierson was the designated Allied head of cinematographic counter-propaganda-- considering your films, his admiration for you is all the more astounding.
Riefenstahl: He told me how, during the war, he tried to make a farce out of Triumph of the Will as a counter-propaganda trick. He tried everything, even running the film backwards, but he didn't succeed.
Hoffmann: Jean Cocteau raved in 1952: "How could I not be your admirer since you are the genius of cinematography." And Susan Sonntag, who damns fascism most deeply, found that the "power of Leni Riefenstahl's work lies in the survival of its aesthetic ideas." Even Mick Jagger admires you. Do you see yourself as, "an innocent victim of a conspiracy of silence," here in Germany, as Cahiers du Cinéma conjectures?
Riefenstahl: Yes, actually that's the case. I've never understood why I have been attacked and shunned so much here in Germany, indeed the exact opposite of the positive things the same people said about me before the war ended. It was the same people who wrote enthusiastically about Triumph of the Will before the war or awarded it prizes. After the war they demonized my films and labeled them as witchcraft. My films were looked at through extremely political lenses. After the war the people were as if paralyzed by the terrible things, completely understandable.
Hoffman: And what did you think about that after the war?
Riefenstahl: I was also as if paralyzed and I saw those things as if through a different set of glasses, in a different color, and everything seemed very dreadful. Of course, before that, we weren't informed about Hitler's concentration camps, at that time one was still very impartial and saw only Hitler's positive achievements. However, as it later became known what terrible things happened in his name and his Party one was appalled, very deeply and rightfully appalled. That was an enormous change in our knowledge.