Leni Riefenstahl
Describe the personal background and the historical context of the personality you have studied.
Leni Riefenstahl was regarded as having led five separate lives, but the life of Leni Riefenstahl is one that is characterised by remorseless passion and incessant desire to convey herself artistically in any way, shape or form. Leni demonstrated a certain single-minded fervour in the search of artistic brilliance until the day of her death at 101 years of age, and the greater excellence of a number of the works that she produced is a testament to this assertion. While her reputation has been permanently tarnished by the involvement of her work with Nazi propaganda and fascist aesthetics, the indisputable fact of the matter is that in spite of …show more content…
As the 1920s progressed, the “Golden Age” of Weimar cinema that was characterised by the high brow Expressionist genre slowly gave way to the appearance of ‘berg’ films as the method of the film that conquered German cinema, and it is within this arena that the powerful combination of Leni and Fanck facilitated the fast rise of the former fame. Their first endeavour, entitled ‘The Holy Mountain’ resulted in the adding of a new dimension to Fanck’s filming, given that the inclusion of Leni’s past life reinvigorated the genre by adding expressionist essentials to films that had beforehand been apparent as male star vehicles. However, the actress’ raid into film did not create completely positive results, since work on the mountains was burdened with danger and Leni sustained an injury that resulted in the potentially harmful impermanent end of production. Leni’s healing on the set provided her with the chance of learning about the editing, developing and printing of film, which would later become very useful during her career as a director, such an occurrence proved fortunate for Leni as an individual. While ‘The Holy Mountain’ was a box-office success, the same cannot be said for all the films that were produced as a result of the pairing of Fanck and Leni; in …show more content…
In the years after the war Leni was besieged with accusations and slurs against her reputation, as a result, catalysing her endeavour into Sudan in the 1950’s where she joined an anthropological trip that was devoted to the study of the Nuba tribe. As a result of the rapid breach of Westernisation upon these people, there existed a need to collect all of the recognized and photographic evidence of the tribe before their looming extinction; to this end Leni travelled to the African continent a dozen times between the years 1962 and 1977, capturing the heart of the Nubian people. Even though the work in Africa was often provoking, it was a welcome haven away from the judgement that bounded her in Europe and America and the result was a series of books that recognized the customs and culture of a wiped out race. Yet again Leni was highly criticised and condemned that her Nuba photographs were deemed as ‘fascist and aesthetic’ that conformed the Nazi ideal of the ‘cult of body’ into the depiction of the human form, thereby implying that she would continually be restricted by the limits of her historical context in spite of the
Leni Riefenstahl was regarded as having led five separate lives, but the life of Leni Riefenstahl is one that is characterised by remorseless passion and incessant desire to convey herself artistically in any way, shape or form. Leni demonstrated a certain single-minded fervour in the search of artistic brilliance until the day of her death at 101 years of age, and the greater excellence of a number of the works that she produced is a testament to this assertion. While her reputation has been permanently tarnished by the involvement of her work with Nazi propaganda and fascist aesthetics, the indisputable fact of the matter is that in spite of …show more content…
As the 1920s progressed, the “Golden Age” of Weimar cinema that was characterised by the high brow Expressionist genre slowly gave way to the appearance of ‘berg’ films as the method of the film that conquered German cinema, and it is within this arena that the powerful combination of Leni and Fanck facilitated the fast rise of the former fame. Their first endeavour, entitled ‘The Holy Mountain’ resulted in the adding of a new dimension to Fanck’s filming, given that the inclusion of Leni’s past life reinvigorated the genre by adding expressionist essentials to films that had beforehand been apparent as male star vehicles. However, the actress’ raid into film did not create completely positive results, since work on the mountains was burdened with danger and Leni sustained an injury that resulted in the potentially harmful impermanent end of production. Leni’s healing on the set provided her with the chance of learning about the editing, developing and printing of film, which would later become very useful during her career as a director, such an occurrence proved fortunate for Leni as an individual. While ‘The Holy Mountain’ was a box-office success, the same cannot be said for all the films that were produced as a result of the pairing of Fanck and Leni; in …show more content…
In the years after the war Leni was besieged with accusations and slurs against her reputation, as a result, catalysing her endeavour into Sudan in the 1950’s where she joined an anthropological trip that was devoted to the study of the Nuba tribe. As a result of the rapid breach of Westernisation upon these people, there existed a need to collect all of the recognized and photographic evidence of the tribe before their looming extinction; to this end Leni travelled to the African continent a dozen times between the years 1962 and 1977, capturing the heart of the Nubian people. Even though the work in Africa was often provoking, it was a welcome haven away from the judgement that bounded her in Europe and America and the result was a series of books that recognized the customs and culture of a wiped out race. Yet again Leni was highly criticised and condemned that her Nuba photographs were deemed as ‘fascist and aesthetic’ that conformed the Nazi ideal of the ‘cult of body’ into the depiction of the human form, thereby implying that she would continually be restricted by the limits of her historical context in spite of the