David Allen The Wonderful Horrible World Of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) documentary was filmed with actress, dancer, movie director, photographer Leni Riefenstahl's permission, participation, and help (she supplied many examples of her movies, still photos, and other important memorabilia to the producer of the movie, Ron Muller).She was 90 years old when the movie was made in 1993, and was then in amazingly good health both physically and mentally. She dressed herself in attractive, stylish clothes and had attractively colored (ash blonde) and styled hair at a level of handsomeness never seen on most 90 year old persons of either gender. In her youth (the 1920's) she was a stage and movie actress and dancer famous for her attractive, shapely, sensuous legs.We see those same legs displayed bare, still shapely and attractive, in a scene toward the end of this documentary where she sits on a bed with her boyfriend "Horst" (40 years younger than she, and by then her "companion" and protégé of 18 years at least), watching beautiful underwater video camera-work they both did...a scene where Leni actually caresses the huge back of an unresisting Giant Manta Sting Ray with a body at least four feet in diameter, and a deadly "sting" tail which could easily kill any diver or other person unlucky enough to touch the tail.Leni Riefenstahl (1903 - 2004) died at age 101 following an incredible life as a performing and photographic artist which continued literally until the year she died. She never "retired," quit, or ceased her artistic activity or the promotion and publicity of that activity.The Wonderful Horrible World Of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) documentary by Ron Muller was made with Leni's full cooperation and participation (and possibly co-ownership) and made intentionally dramatic and riveting because Riefenstahl knew the importance of publicity and keeping her name in the public eye, and examples of her work provided for mass public attention.Much of what she did over her life was done with her own money and resources. She was an owner as well as a hired artist, and a very prosperous person thanks to her business acumen and abilities.She owned both the famous Trimph Of The Will (1934) documentary depiction of the 1934 Nuremburg Germany Nazi Party three day outdoor rally and gathering, and also owned the Olympia (1936) documentary about the World Olympic Games For 1936 held that year in Munich, Germany.After World War II and the defeat of Germany, she moved to insist on legal and financial control of both those important (landmark) documentary movies, and money she obtained due to her control of the two famous documentaries (and also of feature movies she acted and danced in done before 1934, both sound and silent movies of fame and great art and skill) was used to fund further artistic, photographic and underwater video projects she continued to work on through her ninth decade.Leni Riefenstahl (1903-2004) was a remarkable woman, and this documentary portrait of her is worth screening over and over again.She is a role model for all women, and all preforming and photographic/ cinematic artists of all ages, and in all countries.------------ Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor. Visit WWW.IMDb.Com and choose "Tex Allen" "resume" for contact information, movie credits, and biographical information about Tex Allen. He has reviewed more than 42 movies posted on WWW.IMDb.Com (the world's largest movie information database, owned by Amazon.Com) as of January 2011. These include: 1. Alfie (1966) 29 July 2009 2. Alien (1979) 24 July 2009 3. All the Loving Couples (1969) 17 January 2011 4. All the President's Men (1976) 16 November 2010 5. American Graffiti (1973) 22 November 2010 6. Animal House (1978) 16 August 2009 7. Bullitt (1968) 23 July 2009 8. Captain Kidd (1945) 28 July 2009 9. Child Bride (1938) 24 September 2009 10. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) 22 September 2010 11. Destination Moon (1950) 17 January 2011 12. Detour (1945) 19 November 2010 13. Die Hard 2 (1990) 23 December 2010 14. The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) 19 November 2010 15. Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) 26 July 2009 16. King Solomon's Mines (1950) 1 December 2010 17. Knute Rockne All American (1940) 2 November 2010 18. Claire's Knee (1970) 15 August 2009 19. Melody Ranch (1940) 10 November 2010 20. Morning Glory (1933) 19 November 2010 21. Mush and Milk (1933) 17 January 2011 22. New Moon (1940) 3 November 2010 23. Pinocchio (1940) 6 November 2010 24. R2PC: Road to Park City (2000) 19 November 2010 25. Salt (2010) 24 August 2010 26. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) 21 January 2011 27. Sunset Blvd. (1950) 1 December 2010 28. The Forgotten Village (1941) 21 January 2011 29. The Great Dictator (1940) 1 November 2010 30. The King's Speech (2010) 19 January 2011 31. The Last Emperor (1987) 20 January 2011 32. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) 9 January 2011 33. The Man in the White Suit (1951) 5 August 2009 34. The Philadelphia Story (1940) 5 November 2010 35. The Social Network (2010) 19 January 2011 36. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) 1 August 2009 37. The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) 14 August 2009 38. The Witchmaker (1969) 21 July 2009 39. Thousands Cheer (1943) 3 December 2010 40. Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) 24 November 2010 41. Wake Up and Live (1937) 27 July 2009 42. Witness for the Prosecution (1957) 1 August 2009 ....Tex Allen's email address is TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com.See Tes Allen Movie Credits, Biography, and 2012 photos at WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen. See other Tex Allen written movie reviews....almost 100 titles.... at: "http://imdb.com/user/ur15279309/comments" .

artisticengineer This is a a pretty good biography of Leni Riefenstahl; done in her dotage- about ten years before she died when she was relatively still quite active. Though the film does not really emphasize this, Leni was VERY active for a 90 year old woman and ultimately lived to be 101! Now, having mentioned that it should also be noted that about 80% of this movie covers the work she did before she reached the age of 43. Imagine a biographical movie of Bob Hope (her closest contemporary) that profiles his work from age 24 to 42 (end of WWII) and then passes over most of what he did afterwords until he was 90! One would certainly miss a lot of good biography! In the case of Riefenstahl the years from her early 40s to her early 60s are not of much interest, biography wise, as she was inactive due to one fact: Her side had lost the war. If the Allied side had lost the war then I think Leni Riefenstahl would have been quite active and well known throughout most of the world during that time.Since the side she was on did lose the war Leni was very hesitant to say that she really supported the National Socialist movement in Germany. When confronted with some written facts concerning her involvement (such as entries in Goebbels diary) she either denies it, or when she cannot deny something (such as her congratulatory telegraph to Hitler when German forces marched into Paris in 1940) she offers a different "interpretation" of why she sent the telegram. Obviously she was lying then, but I do believe she was truthful to some degree about her ambivalence towards the National Socialist movement. Suffice to say that there are some pointed questions directed at her (in her dotage) during this documentary, and she does try to answer most of them.For the movie maker enthusiast there are some real good segments on how she (and her workers) did the filming of Nazi marches and Olympic sporting events as well as in some of her theatrical released films. The biography makers seem to give her at least grudging admiration for her work and accomplishments. I am of the same opinion myself.Perhaps the final judgment of her (if not of her work) lies with the "De Nazification" Panel that reviewed her during the post war era. They came to the conclusion (which I, for one, support) that though she was not a Nazi; she was definitely a Nazi sympathizer. And, it would be hard to refute that finding. All things considered that was not necessarily that terrible of a finding (at least for most people living in Germany then), but the horrified look on her face (in a photograph taken when the finding was announced) showed that she realized, at that very moment, that her career as a movie maker was finished. Had she been working for the equally repulsive dictator Joseph Stalin a finding that she was a Communist sympathizer would not have hurt her as much as the Russians were on the winning side. But, the side she did work for lost the war, and she lost her career as a result of that.

bramptonbryan >>>> "Why is Leni Riefenstahl, who created propaganda for the murderous Hitler ("Olympia" -- which pioneered many of the techniques now cliché in sports camera-work and editing, and the notorious "Triumph of the Will"), despised and reviled while the work of Eisenstein and others who created propaganda for the murderous Stalin is lovingly taught in film schools?" Riefenstahl was a brilliant technical innovator, whose status among the top film-makers of the century has never been challenged. I would be very surprised if film schools ignore her work.On the other hand, she has lied and lied again about her relationship with the Nazis. For example, she has claimed that she met after the war all the Roma and Sinti prisoners whom she used as extras. They were sent to Auschwitz after she had finished with them. She has tried to persuade us that she was a naive ingenue who knew nothing about Nazism and who was horrified that her films were used as propaganda.Eisenstein was an unapologetic believer in communism, although of a very different kind from that of Stalin. His relations with the regime were extremely difficult after Stalin took power, because of his politics, his artistic techniques and the amount of time he spent abroad. He was forced to write self-denunciations for his deviations from party orthodoxy. Of the five films he made in Russia during the last 20 years of his life, two were banned and two were destroyed.His films are marred at points by traces of immediate political concerns, as when he hints in "The Battleship Potemkin" (1925), set in 1905, at the "petty-bourgeois individualism" of some Kronstadt sailors, to justify the slaughter of the Kronstadt soviet in 1921. Nevertheless, several of his films are clearly great achievements, despite all the censorship he had to endure.As for other film-makers who were propagandists for the Soviet Union, as opposed to Russians who made films, such as Mikhail Romm and his pupils, the obvious examples are the documentarists Karmen and Vertov. Karmen is hardly known in the English-speaking world. Vertov is much better known, as a technical innovator and theoretician of film, but his career was destroyed by the rise of "socialist realism".Eisenstein was never a propagandist for Stalin in the way that Riefenstahl was for Hitler, and the visibility of other Stalinists is decidedly limited. Of course, one could decide that every unpurged Russian director was a Stalinist, or every unpurged American director was a McCarthyite.

davesf If you've ever been curious about filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, or more significantly, have wondered how a civilized nation like Germany could have stumbled into a black hole of evil and tyranny, you must see this superbly made documentary. It is scrupulously fair, presenting both exonerating and damning evidence without flinching. While it's very clear that Riefenstahl was not evil in the sense that Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and Hess were, she certainly had blind spots, and a tendency to let wishful thinking sway her judgment. Like most Germans at the time, she often looked the other way when she could (though not always, as on at least two occasions she probably put herself at risk by openly criticizing the Nazi regime).She is shown as being far more interested in art than in Nazism. I had barely realized what an extraordinary talent she was, not just as a movie maker but as a dancer, mountaineer, actress, and photographer. It is so sad that she became a significant cog in the Nazi regime, and was severely punished as a result (as indeed all of Germany was). It would have been worse if they had not."Triumph of the Will" stands as a monument, a sobering reminder of the madness of crowds and the potential tragedy that lurks when they come under the sway of a master manipulator. Riefenstahl's personal tragedy finds some vindication in her willingness to make this film and thus to help us learn the lessons from her life.9 points.