Leni Riefenstahl

(archive.org Streaming, March 2021) As much as I think that we should deplatform Nazis of all stripes, it does bother me a bit that you can’t find Triumph of the Will anywhere on YouTube or other mainstream streaming sites — no commercial outfit will tolerate it despite its importance in movie history, or as a provocative archival document. That explains both why the film is regularly mentioned in extended lists of historically important films, and that you have to go to good old impartial non-profit archive.org in order to see it. I really did not enjoy viewing Triumph of the Will — nominally a documentary describing the 1934 annual meeting of the Nazi Party, it endures today as a descent in the middle of Nazi madness, a document self-congratulating members of a fascist party for their extremism, and promising much more to come. Seldom have so many villains been featured in one single film: Watching massive crowds of civilians throwing Nazi salutes drives home the point that this is a cast of thousands of Nazis, several of whom would not survive the incoming war. Director Leni Riefenstahl was not running a cheap operation in executing Triumph of the Will: there are enough aerial shots, impressive camera placements and staged crowd movements to underline how this was a well-financed documentary aimed to galvanize its audience and possibly intimidate opponents. It’s a sobering film in many ways. You can watch the film and be reminded why so many Germans followed Hitler despite the silly moustache and terrible haircut: his oratory skills come through clearly, even in translation, and—of course—he had the single biggest advantage an orator could have: leadership and an army of thousands. It’s equally sobering to hear everyone so singularly dedicated to fascist objectives, praising the Fuhrer as part of a mass cult of personality. It’s even worse to realize that the fully-developed aggressive rhetoric showcased here had only one inevitable outcome: armed expansion. The Germans did not somehow stumble into war in September 1939: They deliberately planned and prepared for it over nearly a decade, then whipped themselves up in the necessary frenzy to start it. It’s not at all ludicrous to draw parallels between the Nazis and modern authoritarian movements, especially in the United States: beyond the awful hair lies thousands of people all looking at an aggressive fascist regime as a way to further their own ambitions, and that’s the dangerous part. These things can be seen coming years in advance, and take just as long to fight and put down. As I said: I really did not enjoy Triumph of the Will, but at the same time I can now defend its inclusion in extended essential movies — it’s well-done (for the time) to such an extent that it raises troubling questions about art as propaganda yet remains a provocative document in its own right. I’m not going to forget it any time soon.