Dans les vidéos suivantes, vous allez trouver de quoi illustrer le cours sur l’Allemagne nazie.

Tout d’abord, voici un premier extrait du Dictateur, de Charlie Chaplin (1940). Dans cet extrait, Chaplin fait faire un discours sur la démocratie au barbier juif qui a remplacé le Führer Hynkel . Dans ce discours, il démonte toute la propagande nazie.

Autre extrait du Dictateur : le dictateur Hynkel rêve d’une grande Tomanie. C’est une des scènes les plus connues de ce film, dans laquelle Hynkel danse avec le globe terrestre.

Ici, un extrait du Triomphe de la Volonté, de la réalisatrice allemande Leni Riefenstahl (1935). Elle a filmé le congrès du parti nazi à Nuremberg (Bavière, dans le sud de l’Allemagne).

Voici la notice qu’en donne M. Vinot, un professeur d’histoire géographie au lycée français de Djibouti :

“Adolf Hitler se rend à Nuremberg pour le congrès du parti nazi. Les fêtes, les parades, les épreuves sportives et les discours se multiplient. Ce film se présente comme un documentaire. Il est en fait un film de propagande. La réalisatrice filme un discours d’Hitler dans un stade. Les travellings sur la foule comme les contre-plongées sur Hitler permettent d’impressionner le spectateur. L’alternance de gros plans entre Hitler et de jeunes allemands illustrent la communion du peuple avec son Führer. La réalisatrice joue aussi de la bande son : les acclamations cessent à la seconde où Hitler lève la main.”

The prelude and development of World War II involved the clash between national conceptions of political systems, labor, race and the likes. Supporters of those ideas found in non-fiction films the most effective vehicle not only to create visibility for their political messages, but also to convince the audience about their inevitable supremacy. In spite of their different styles, filmmakers who plotted those feature-length films shared the same promotional purpose, which in turn, has lead academics to group their works into a category called propaganda films (Aufderheide: 2007).

However, the embarrassment present audiences experience when watching some of those films has also lead to a misunderstanding of the term ‘propaganda’ applied to non-fiction films. That misunderstanding stems from confusing propaganda with political stance, and considering the former as a defining feature of this kind of films. The analysis of those films instead exposes the historical grounds of every technique filmmakers used, and a formula that might be present in any man holding a movie camera.

In Germany, dancer, actress and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl accepted the commission, by the Nazi party, to produce a feature-length movie about the party’s rally to be held in Nuremberg in 1934. That was the third work (Sontag:1975) Riefenstahl would carry out for the Nazi’s cause, though it was the most acclaimed by international critics. Counting on thirty cameras, a staff of 120 people (Barnouw:1993), and a budget any filmmaker at the time would envy, she gathered abundant footage that after months of editing would compose a 120-minutes-long film titled The Triumph of the Will.

The film opens with the arrival of then chancellor Adolf Hitler to Nuremberg. On the black and white screen, his plane makes its way through dense clouds until the monumental buildings of Nuremberg appear behind the mists. The plane then flights through the clear sky while its shadow flows gently over a column of followers walking along a wide avenue. The scene could translate that “the Führer rules in the sky and on Earth”. In Tomasulo’s (1998) ideas, “der Führer comes out of the clouds just as the Book of Revelations predicted that the Second Coming would take place”. No matter which symbolism one finds in the scene, all of them lead to the main subject of the film: the unity of a country under a regime that finds in the leader its supreme representation. Frame after frame evoke, or propagate, this idea. So do the shots portraying endless lines of followers and troops, and the scene of soldiers shouting names of German regions.

The scenes explicitly evoking Germans’ worship to the leader are combined with meticulous montage Riefenstahl brings in right after Hitler’s plane lands. By interweaving scenes of the plane parking and people with anxious expressions, she achieves the expectation for the leader who is to appear for the first time amid Germans’ clamor. The same technique is carried out so as to soften the strictness of the regime; for example, by intertwining shots of a rough Hitler’s face with shots of naïve children’s faces watching the demonstrations organized at the time in Nuremberg.

Sound and depth of the field contribute to the propaganda purposes, as well. In these terms, the scene showing Hitler’s back of the neck while he is saluting the troops rivets special attention. Riefenstahl’s camera at first highlights Hitler’s hand and blurs the image of the marching troops. She then lowers the ambient sound and the camera slowly pans up to Hitler’s face. Such a superb combination of image and sound invites the viewer to a moment of intimacy with the leader. The effect has over and over been imitated by fiction movies –like Oscar-winning Gladiator- to add drama when the hero faces the most ferocious of the battles.

All the way to the end, The Triumph of the Will does not count on a narrator to drive the viewer’s thoughts. To spread the message within the audience, located inside and outside Germany, Riefenstahl rather chose a riveting flow of images, field sound and music. The diagonal lines composition and the harmonic movement of the camera while objects enter the scene speak to that. Finding such beauty in Riefenstahl’s work, however, always demands what Sontag (1975) calls the trick of filtering out the noxious political ideology of her films so as to leave only their aesthetic merits.

A different style, though with similar ‘propaganda’ purposes, was later carried out by British filmmaker Humphrey Jennings. His most acclaimed works appeared when England had not entered the battlefield. His films spread the idea that war is something that Britons have to go through in order to come back to the missing normality of their lives; an attitude that conveyed the ideals of the historical context. London Can Take It stands as a perfect example of that period.

Filmed in 1940, London Can Take it depicts the actions of London citizens prior, during and after a German blitz.  As for the first scenes, the camera stands in different corners of London, just capturing ever-day life events –people leaving the subway, buses running the street. The city scenery is only disturbed when the camera lens register sandbags located at the entrance of underground shelters. The sandbags would otherwise stay unseen if a narrator had not warned the viewer about their presence. Besides the tone of their pieces, such use of voiceover –called commentator in the film’s credits- stands out as the most noticeable difference between Jennings and Riefenstahl’s choices in structuring the story.

From the first scene up to last one, the voice of American journalist Quentin Reynolds accompanies, and even constructs, the images on the screen. Sometimes, he claims impartiality for himself –“I am a neutral reporter”. Other times, he directly inquires of the viewer –“Do you see any sense of fear on these faces?”, he says when the screen pictures Londoners sleeping during the blitz. Though, his words always aim at building confidence amid Britons –“There is no panic, no fear, no despair in London town”.

Jennings used montage to serve his ends, as well. It is clearly present in the sequence that portrays Britons sleeping “through” the noise of the German blitz. However, neither the images, nor the narration promote incitements against the enemy. As Barnouw (1993) states, “His works were defensive. In one way or another, all of them said that England could “take it” –the keynote of the early years of war, but less appropriate later”.

The more furious the combat was, the more forceful the propaganda became. American non-fiction films proved to be so. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US army commissioned a series of films by acclaimed Hollywood director Frank Capra.  He was required to create non-fiction films to spread within local troops and society the concept of an unavoidable war. Such purpose for the documentaries stemmed from the need not only to harangue the inexpert draftees, but to also spoil feelings that favored isolationism and disfavored any action to protect the British Empire.

In 1942, Capra finished Prelude to War, the first of a series of seven documentaries that together would come to be known as Why We Fight. Out of footage from foreign documentaries, and even from fiction films, Capra built his first serving-the-army-ends piece primarily to state, in a straightforward manner, the reasons for entering the war. Prelude to War opens by identifying a ‘free world’ (United States) and a ‘slave world’ (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Hirohito’s regime in Japan). The juxtaposition of worlds was meant to awaken fear within the audience, and in turn, build on that fear the case for the war.

The style chosen to portray those worlds involves montage, colors and animated maps and symbols. The footage depicting the ‘slave world’ –most of them from Riefenstahl’s works- shows the power achieved by German, Italian and Japanese leaders in a flow of images that pays no heed to time or space. The ‘slave world’ is also colored black and associated with a dark shadow threatening foreign nations, and symbols recalling old empires. The ‘free world’ instead is represented with white, light colors.

Like in London Can Take It, constructing those meanings for the images would not have been possible without a narrator. Prelude to War counts on him all along its fifty-four-minutes length. There are no traces of Jennings’ poetry, though. Capra’s narrator does explain –“To the Japanese people the emperor is God”; exhort –“It’s us or them; the chips are down”; and harangue –“We hadn’t yet learnt that peace for us depends on peace for all”. Such tone, along with its non-diegetic position, gave it the status of voice of God (Bruzzi: 2000) that warns the American audience on a ready-to-attack ‘slave world’.

Despite their differences in terms of style, Riefenstahl, Jennings and Capra share the same purpose: to propagate the ideas that were in vogue by the time they produced their films. To do so, they “link(ed) the present crisis to what viewers could see as their enduring values and cultural heritage” (Aufderheide:2007).

However, modern documentaries –adopting features coming from journalism field- lead to a misunderstanding of the term propaganda when it is applied to documentaries. The embarrassment some of propaganda films collect from audience contributed to that, as well. Such misunderstanding tends to turn propaganda into political stance, and considering the former as a defining feature of films produced in war times.

Riefenstahl, Jennings and Capra actually did take responsibility for the ideals they consider to be the better option for the audience at the time. The analysis of those films reveals the specific purposes, matching the historical context, behind each technique the filmmakers used to effectively reach the audience they were supposed to target. All filmmakers of non-fiction movies share that formula, though.

In a more or less evident manner, documentary makers, in different historical periods, used the screen to hold up a political stance –in the broadest sense of this term. Even non-fiction films on the war that appeared later –such as Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog- concealed that formula. Although they display a very different style, they do rely on a personal stance on political issues, such as the need to learn from the past. The non-fiction films made out of that formula might also be influenced by external factors. In the cases of Riefenstahl, Jennings and Capra, the historical context and the sponsorship appear to be the most powerful forces leading to the outcome one can see in Triumph of the Will, London Can Take It and Prelude to War.

References

Tomasulo, F. (1998). The mass psychology of fascist cinema. leni riefenstahl’s triumph of the will. In B. K. Grant, & J. Sloniowski (Eds.), Documenting the documentary: Close readings of documentary film and video (pp. 99-118). Detroit: Wayne St. University Press.

Aufderheide, P. (2007). Documentary film, A very short introduction. Great Britain: Oxford University Press.

Barnouw, E. (1993). Documentary, a history of the non-fiction film (2nd Revised ed.). United States of America: Oxford University Press.

Bruzzi, S. (2000). New documentary, A critical introduction. USA and Canada: Routledge.

Sontag, S. (1975). Fascinating fascism. The New York Review of Books, 22(1)

Stummfilm, s/w; 76 Minuten
Deutschland, 1928

Regie: Rolf Raffé

Darsteller: Fritz Spira, Erna Morena, Maly Delschaft, Leni Riefenstahl u.a.

Uraufführung am 16.11.1928 im Waterloo-Theater, Hamburg

Einziger Spielfilm mit Leni Riefenstahl als Schauspielerin (in der Rolle der Baronesse Mary Vetsera), in dem nicht Arnold Fanck oder Leni Riefenstahl selbst Regie führte, und der nicht im Bergfilm-Genre angesiedelt war.
Der Film blieb in seiner Zeit relativ unbeachtet, und auch Leni Riefenstahl war mit ihrer Rolle, in die sie zunächst viele Hoffnungen gesetzt hatte, sehr unzufrieden, weil ihr Part aufgrund einer Erkrankung bei den Dreharbeiten auf Schloß Schönbrunn in Wien stark gekürzt werden mußte. Nach eigenen Angaben habe sie den fertigen Film selbst nie gesehen.

“Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg” erzählt die familiären Verstrickungen am österreichischen Kaiserhof zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts um Kaiser Franz Joseph I., Kaiserin Elisabeth I. und deren Kindern, Kronprinz Rudolf und dem Thronfolger Franz Ferdinand, der schließlich 1914 in Sarajevo einem Attentat zum Opfer fiel, dem Auslöser des I. Weltkriegs. Im Film sind vom Regisseur Rolf Raffé zur Spielfilmhandlung original Dokumentaraufnahmen eingeschnitten worden.

Der Film galt lange Zeit als verschollen. Laut Rainer Rother existieren im Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv Berlin zwei kurze Fragmente von etwa 11 Minuten Dauer.
Am 18.08.2001 zeigte die Bonner Kinemathek anläßlich des 17. Bonner Sommerkino-Festivals eine restaurierte italienische Fassung (76 Minuten) mit den erhaltenen deutschen Untertiteln oder übersetzten italienischen Untertiteln. Die Basis dieses restaurierten Films bildete eine Nitratkopie der Cineteca Paolo Venier (1706 m). Da einige Teile stark beschädigt waren, wurden gut erhaltene Fragmente aus dem Bundes-Filmarchiv (382 m) und dem Filmarchiv Austria (335 m) eingeschnitten. Völlig unbrauchbare Teile der italienischen Kopie mußten jedoch durch Standbilder ersetzt werden. Die italienische Fassung war zur damaligen Zeit zu propagandistischen Zwecken umgearbeitet worden.

Am 29. August 2002 zeigte das Filmuseum Potsdam anläßlich der Ausstellung “90 Jahre Babelsberg” vermutlich die gleiche Fassung von 76 Minuten Dauer.

Der Film ist derzeit weder als Video noch als DVD erhältlich.
Einen kleinen Eindruck kann folgendes RealMedia-File bieten:
“Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg”
Dauer 4:31 Minuten / Dateigröße zum Download 7,4 MB!

(comentarios para escrituraletoria.blogspot.com de la genial y polémica Miriam Jerade)

I

Considero “Bastardos sin gloria” como la mejor película del año y una de mis favoritas de todos los tiempos.

La vi con emoción, y la podría ver varias veces más. Tarantino es uno de mis directores consentidos, aunque me decepcionó con “Jackie Brown” y “Death proof”.

Las cintas de Tarantino me han dejado una marca: como el silbido de “Kill Bill”, en estos días retumba recurrentemente en mi cabeza el “au revoir Shoshana!!”.

Hay otras películas con la temática de la Segunda Guerra Mundial que, por el contrario, quiero olvidar para siempre; por ejemplo “La vida es bella” del abominable Roberto Benigni, que provocó que cada que escucho “buon giorno principessa” me dan náuseas de tanta cursilería.

Este año también vi el filme mexicano “Corazón del tiempo”, una fábula de propaganda del EZLN; los diálogos son inverosímiles, la historia absurda, y principalmente, ostenta una clara, abierta y beligerante postura política. Es una ficción con “compromiso” y “mensaje” sobre un hecho real y actual. No comparto casi nada con los postulados de los zapatistas (creo en la justicia social, pero no en la vía armada) y menos con los del guionista/productor de la cinta (Hermann Bellinghausen) más sin embargo, la película me encantó: los actores son formidables (y entrañables), la historia de amor es conmovedora, la realización es buena, sin dejar de mencionar que la banda sonora es bellísima.

Puedes estar de acuerdo o no con la ideología del realizador, o con los intereses que enarbola, pero el valor del cine, y del arte en general, pertenece a otro ámbito. Una película como obra, no vale por su ideología sino por otros elementos. Por ejemplo, considero que el “Acorazado Potemkin” es propaganda estalinista, pero es una magnífica película.

No coincido con los postulados básicos de “Bastardos sin gloria”, es decir la venganza, el ojo por ojo, el militarismo, crueldad, etc., pero no me preocupa, porque se trata de una ficción, sátira de humor negro y parodia cruda. Tampoco comparto la discriminación racial en “Memín Pinguin”, ni la violencia familiar que ejerce su mamá -pegándole con un palo con clavo cuando se porta mal- pero realmente disfruto releer de vez en cuando mi colección. El “Memín Pinguin” es, para muchos pensadores, un clásico de la cultura popular mexicana.

Y si me pusiera riguroso, pues varias películas que me parecen maravillosas, están plagadas de postulados reprobables (traición, violencia, intriga, venganza, etc.).

II

Hay quienes afirman que cuando Tarantino vino a Morelia, dijo en una entrevista que tiene “origen judío” (aunque luego corrigen y dicen “remoto origen judío”).

No dudo que Tarantino tenga ancestros judíos, al igual que un gran porcentaje de mexicanos que provenimos de mezclas con judíos españoles conversos (por la buena o por la mala), yo hasta hace poco me sentía purhépecha “puro”, pero eso no existe. No creo que su “parte judía” haya influido mucho en la idea de la película, pero sí su intima amistad con Eli Roth, quien interpreta a Donny Donowitz, el “Oso judío” y que además dirigió el filme ficticio del ficticio Goebbels, “El orgullo de la nación” que se proyecta en el cine en llamas (o sea una película dentro de otra película). Este actor y director judío también realizó la famosa violenta cinta “Hostel” (con postulados muy “reprobables”, por cierto).

Creo que Tarantino es muy claro en este tema: “los judíos siempre salen como jodidos, ahora van a salir de cabrones”, punto. Cuando vi “Eréndira Ikikunari” (no confundir con la otra “Eréndira” de R. Guerra 1982) la verdad es que sí disfruté cuando mis antiguos purhépechas se echaron algunos conquistadores.

Algo con lo que nunca voy a estar de acuerdo es con algunos críticos de la película que plantean directa o indirectamente la idea del “complot judío”. Incluso hay quienes relacionan la venganza de Shoshana con la “venganza judía”, hablar de un poder judío en Hollywood y las bombas de racimo en los campos de refugiados palestinos es tan entrampado como cuando un articulista acusó una extraña relación Madoff-Mossad-Israel-Bancos judíos-bombazo en la India. Cuando leo “complot judío de Hollywood” me viene a la mente Mel Gibson, y bueno, Mel Gibson es el antisemita Mel Gibson,

Afirmar que “Bastardos sin gloria” es parte de una estrategia de “propaganda judía” de Hollywood es absurdo; con Tarantino, todos son objeto de burla, todos son parodiados:

 -           Los ingleses: (curiosamente la única parte donde habla Churchill es sobre los judíos y Hollywood), ¿qué tal el inglés cliché hablando sobre el whisky antes de morir?

-           Los gringos: Pitt hace de antihéroe, una parodia de Lee Marvin, un ignorante soldado.

-           Los judíos: ¿qué tal los ridículos integrantes de la pandilla de Bastardos sin gloria? No son precisamente guapos, inteligentes ni heroicos.

-           Los franceses: me encanta cuando se muestra que no todos fueron partisanos, que hubieron muchos colaboracionistas, muchas chavas que se ligaron invasores, muchos que entregaron a sus compañeritos de clase; eso es algo que los franceses todavía no terminan de digerir.

-           Obviamente los alemanes: donde Landa es el personaje principal, refinado y brutal. Interesante es el tema de la insubordinación y resistencia al régimen. Por supuesto que prefiero a “Hugo Stiglitz” que a Tom Cruise en “Valkiria”.

Un punto muy interesante es la estrategia de Landa de querer quedar en el lado de los ganadores: muchos nazis vivieron como reyes en Estados Unidos y otros países occidentales, y murieron de viejos, a pesar de haber sido unos ojetes. Me viene a la mente Von Braun, que fue el principal precursor de la carrera al espacio y la llegada a la Luna.

Me gusta esta perspectiva, de algún modo, que no hay blanco y negro, sino muchos grises. He visto muchas películas acerca de mexicanos indocumentados que sufren violencia y discriminación en Estados Unidos, pero ninguna sobre indocumentados centroamericanos en México, que la pasan incluso peor.

Y qué mejor si se presenta de manera fresca, vi hace tiempo un documental llamado “Sobibor” sobre unos presos de un campo de concentración que se organizaron para darle en la madre a los alemanes, pero la película es larga y tediosa.

III

“Bastardos sin gloria” es un homenaje al cine desde el cine, tan bien lograda como “La rosa púrpura del Cairo” de Woody Allen.

 Tarantino homenajea:

-nombrando a un personaje como un director mexicano, Hugo Stiglitz;

-citando a directores como Leni Riefenstahl (por cierto, excelente cineasta más allá de ser una nazi, que hizo la película oficial de las Olimpiadas de Berlín, el “Triunfo de la voluntad”);

-colocando escenas de la película ficticia de propaganda “El orgullo de la Nación”,

-exaltando a Shoshana y su sala de cine como vehículo de venganza,

-todo el cine del Espaguetti western

-parafraseando, como se ha mencionado, a la italiana “Quel maledetto treno blindato” (“Inglorious bastards” en inglés).

IV

Me parecen graciosos los videos musicales de raperos gringos, donde los negros son millonarios, y donde los blancos son el chofer, el jardinero y el mayordomo. Después me imagino que los raperos no leen Archie o Richie Rich, sino un “Memín Pinguín” modificado, que se madrea a los blancos.

 Me gustaría que el “aparato” maléfico michoacano utilizara al cine “como herramienta de manipulación” y se realizaran filmes donde los purhépechas le ganan a los españoles. Y por fin, los purhépechas “dominen” el mundo.

Fuera de broma, creo que hablando del Medio Oriente y el cine, hay muchos temas que casi se nos pasan por desapercibidos. Si pudiera pedir una película, sería una que muestre cómo Siria, Jordania y Líbano han tratado tan mal a sus hermanos palestinos; que nos cuente las historias donde árabes han matado árabes; que descubra el pecado cometieron los palestinos para ser rechazados por quienes deberían ser sus principales aliados.

EVERYBODY HAS SEEN THE images, but how many have sat through the whole thing? In 1927, Fritz Lang first unleashed his 204 minute-long studio-busting sci-fi flick Metropolis on the public, the answer is “precious few.” It bombed at its opening in Berlin on January 10 of that year and it did little better in a somewhat shortened version that premiered in Stuttgart and Munich on August 25. It was not until Paramount Pictures took mercy on this beached whale of a would-be epic, hired scriptwriter Channing Pollock to cut it way down to a form that at least Americans could swallow, that the film finally started to attract an audience. “Metropolis knew no boundaries and had no logic,” Pollock later explained. “I gave it my own meaning.” This version, running to around an hour and a half, became the one the world would proceed to call Metropolis, a movie that everyone knew about but hardly anyone actually liked.

Sure, the visuals were always stunning – visionary even (director Luis Bunuel called it “the most wonderful picture book you could imagine”) – but good visuals do not a good movie make. The generally poor film quality we usually got to see on late-night public TV was one stroke against it, and the even worse (and widely divergent) soundtracks were another. But most of all, the egregiously dysfunctional story of Freder Fredersen, the naïve but courageous son of the great city’s lord and master, and the Christ-like figure of Maria, the prophet of Metropolis’s vast proletarian underground population, whose implausible love for each other brings the two seemingly irreconcilable classes together, seemed both cloying and downright insulting. As one critic wrote in the Berliner Börsen-Courier the morning after the 1927 premiere, “[Screenwriter] Thea von Harbou has invented a preposterous plot whose motifs are stuffed to the gills. (…) She continually works with hollow feelings. Horrible. A serious topic is transformed into gruesome kitsch. [It is filled with] special effects, not because ideologies themselves cause explosions, but because the film wants to show off its tricks. The conclusion – the tearful reconciliation of employer and employee – [is] appalling.” …

Continued…

Last night, Brit Hume and Bill O’Reilly informed their audience, in a discussion about recent White House attacks on Fox News, that partisan comparisons to Nazi Germany in today’s political world are verboten. Apparently it rebounds negatively back onto the writer or speaker. However, sometimes the shoe fits so well, it must be worn. White House interim communications director Anita Dunn is desperately trying to avoid the fate of her historical doppelganger sister in arms, Leni Riefenstahl. Let me elaborate.

Few accused Riefenstahl of being boring. She once wrote, about seeing Adolf Hitler speak for the first time,

“It seemed as if the earth’s surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth.”

Let’s hope we do not find such obvious subliminal sexual imagery anytime soon from Dunn’s so far more pedestrian recollections. Riefenstahl received lavish praise and awards from the European intelligentsia for her truly frightening and repulsive 1933 propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will.” As a child, this movie literally gave me nightmares while I was almost mesmerized watching clips shown on WOR, channel 9, in NYC. Riefenstahl still is perceived as a tortured genius of sorts, with both Jodie Foster and Madonna having each tried to star in and produce a film about her.

But Riefenstahl lost all her pizzazz once the Nazi Regime was vaporized. She had trouble finding work for the remainder of her unfortunately far-too-long life. Dunn is a drone with an archetypical engineer’s personality and has none of that flamboyant Satanic charisma which Riefenstahl was able to evoke with such ease. Yet in some ways, this drone’s mental “Gestalt” is as frightening as the sexualized and romanticized imagery of Riefenstahl. It’s like a Terminator Robot versus the True Believer.

Glenn Beck broke the story of Dunn’s speech before a high school class about her two favorite “political philosophers,” Mao and Mother Theresa. While she did try to elicit a laugh from the audience through this odd juxtaposition, there was nothing amusing about the message. Neither of the two was a political philosopher, so Dunn is incoherent on that point. But the fact that she felt comfortable extolling the “will” of both Mao and Mother Theresa in the same speech, without regards to what ends their “will” served, is so typically nihilistic and modern, it makes one sick. Her message was an extolling of the empty vessel of “will.” She advised the 17 and 18 year old students to just pursue their dream, be it Maoist or Roman Catholic, it’s really all the same. It’s the “will” that matters. Watching her YouTube clip from January of 2009, we again see Dunn pontificating and bragging to her technocrat audience how the Obama campaign sought to manipulate the media, with her, of course, leading the charge. What is so prominent in the video is the focus again on “means,” not ends.

Dunn will be leaving the White House soon. As controversy surrounds this previously unknown wonk due to her radical moral equivalence high school speech, she fears for her reputation and future work. She is trying to avoid being “Reifenstahled” for her Mao comment. So she did what the White House often does when criticized. She blamed “Bush.” Well, technically she did not blame “Bush,” but she did blame “Bush Pere” campaign strategist, now long dead, Lee Atwater. See, it was Atwater who really made that moral equivalence comment 25 years ago. Dunn was merely riffing on ‘ol Lee. Get it?

I don’t. But just in case you don’t either, the White House will continue to remind you that the true enemies are those who disagree with them, like Fox News. Yet O’Reilly and Hume tell us certain historical comparisons are not appropriate. Well, sometimes such comparisons help warn us of the potential dangers of certain “perspectives,” to turn a phrase back onto the White House.

Editor’s Note: Visit Michael Rulle’s Blog Here. See his previous NewsReal commentaries here.

Are his movies even worth it?

I keep waffling on the issue of documentaries.  I hate the, except when I love them.  There seems to be little middle ground, based on my own personal reactions.

The Evidence for the Prosecution:

1.  Documentaries can be boring.  An Inconvenient Truth – This has to be the worst quality documentary made.  I don’t like getting political when I rate movies.  Even when it concerns politics I agree with.  You cannot give me enough money to say a poor movie is interesting when it isn’t.  This is why this type of review is worthless. A perfect review of this type of movie is only a political move.  This movie is boring, and not boring in the deliberately slow-paced manner, which I typically enjoy.  It’s just not good.  It is a glorified PowerPoint presentation.  It is surprising, shocking, and meant to be moving; on most counts it fails because it does not engage me.  At all.  This first type of documentary is all too common.  It’s the reason most documentaries go on the shelves of stores…and stay there.  No one’s interested in being bored.  The coffee table edition is more interesting.

2.  Documentaries as propaganda.  Triumph of the Will – Probably the best example of propagandism, the film by Leni Riefenstahl (spelled right the first time!) about the rigid professionalism, determination, and divinely ordained nature of the Third Reich I have had to watch three times for classes.  The first time was in high school, just a clip of the beginning.  The second for a class called The World between the Wars in college.  The third was for another college class: The History of Film: Part II.  I’ll admit.  The film isn’t that engaging, but it’s one hell of an interesting movie.  It was interesting all three times.  Not exactly documentary, incredibly staged and all factual, but technically documentary.  Because we know it is propaganda, its value as a piece of recorded history is lost.  As a piece of fiction, presenting the fictionalized version of a true event is great.  As a documentary is cannot be taken with much seriousness.

3.  Documentaries as a time waster.  The Up Documentaries – This set of documentaries is amazing.  Other people know this. You should know this.  If you don’t–watch them!  But be prepared to waste a lot of time.  The problem is this series is well edited, but takes footage from people’s lives when they are 7, and revisit their lives every seven years, from 7 to 42.   This is the straightest set of documentaries I have ever seen.  I think they are revealing, interesting, and engaging on every level.  But be prepared to use up about 10 hours of time watching these documentaries.  Which is the problem.  As documentaries are generally a labor of love for the directors, there is so much content that they do not want to sacrifice that they should.  Information that seems unnecessary, out of place, or useless is included.  Why?  Because the director understands why it fits it.  The director has hours of footage for every minute in the films.  Why not include a little extra?  But still, 10 hours?

The Evidence for the Defense:

1.  Documentaries can be really interesting. Spellbound – I will never be able to get past this documentary.  I think this is the first documentary I truly thought was amazing.  It was shameful to watch because I saw glimpses of how nerdy I was as a child, I saw the way parents drive their children just to win, and I saw how cruel children can be on themselves.  But mainly I just laughed out loud at the absurdity of the nerdiest thing on ESPN–the fierce competition for the title of Spelling Bee Champion.  This documentary you must watch.

2.  Documentaries as understanding.  Hoop Dreams – I knew when I started working with disadvantaged youth, the realities of their lives were disastrous.  The problem was I never thought about it in the long term.  Even after the first year, I never thought about where those students I taught would move after I was done teaching them how to use a comma with nonessential information.  This documentary reminded me of what issues they face: standardized test bias, social pressure, rough neighborhoods, limited resources, poor education, and institutionalized practices that look a lot like discrimination.  The scene where, after a student has made it to college, but lives in a house removed from the main campus where other athletes live–all black, all removed, all separate–is shocking.  These events are not from the sixties, or seventies.  They are from the ’90s.  They could be from today.   The movie made me understand, again, what issues really plague urban youth.

3.  Documentaries as entertainment.  Super Size Me - The movie was done to entertain.  Without the cameras there, would the man have undergone his personal experiment to eat McDonalds every meal of every day for a month?  Doubtful. It was only done to be filmed.  A staged documentary, just not staged like Triumph of the Will, so I’m willing to go with it.  This movie is just funny.  Interspersed with interesting facts about the fast food industry, and one man’s body decline because of the food he eats, the movie was made to demonstrate a point.  It demonstrates that people need to eat less fast food.  It makes it’s point.  I still eat fast food, and will always go for a Whataburger Honey Chicken breakfast sandwich whenever I get into a town that actually has a Whataburger.  But the movie did make its point.

Verdict:

The drawbacks of documentaries are just too much to risk.  I have trouble enough finding a good documentary.  The semi-interesting facts of the History channel work like 60 Minutes reports rather than historical research.  And while I wanted to be fair by presenting an even number of documentaries for both side, the fact of the matter is I could come up with several more documentaries that I did not enjoy, and had trouble coming up with three that I did enjoy.  The sheer enjoyment factor should win, but I won’t let it.

Documentaries do one thing, generally, very well: they tell a good story.  When they fail to do that they are awful.  A movie, after all, exists to tell a story.

All of the bonuses of movies, like cinematography, direction, editing, acting, etc. are lost in the necessity of a documentary.  Almost never will a documentary be able to demonstrate artistic merit and the factual entertainment that defines its genre.  Because I stake so much of what a movie is based on what a viewer can see, I must dismiss documentaries, generally speaking, as a failed genre.  There are just too few good documentaries to make the genre worthwhile.

Feel free to point out an excellent documentary.  I have a feeling that means I’m not going to get very many comments on this post.

Ogni film di Tarantino, ormai lo sappiamo, è un grosso gioco sul cinema. Le iene giocava con tutto l’immaginario del genere gangster, dai Poliziotteschi italiani, ai Polar francesi, fino ai film di yakuza giapponesi, e agli abiti eleganti di James Bond. Jackie Brown era un omaggio al genere Blaxploitation, il cinema afroamericano di serie B degli anni Settanta. E Kill Bill un cocktail di generi che andava dai film di Kung Fu agli Anime fino allo Spaghetti Western di Sergio Leone. Grindhouse, poi, era dichiaratamente un film di serie B, uno Slasher come si giravano tra gli anni Sessanta e i Settanta.

Quale occasione migliore poteva esserci, allora, che un film di guerra ambientato nella Francia occupata dai nazisti, per confrontarsi (oltre che con il cinema italiano di guerra, che all’estero chiamano Maccheroni Combat: lo spunto arriva da Quel maledetto treno blindato di Enzo G. Castellari) con il cinema tedesco? Un cinema che è parte della storia della Settima Arte, e che fino all’avvento del Nazismo era all’avanguardia a livello mondiale. In Germania sono nati l’Espressionismo, e autori come Lang, Pabst e Lubitsch. Poi arrivò Goebbels, e fece del cinema un mezzo della propaganda nazista: i grandi autori scapparono in America, facendo grande Hollywood, e il cinema tedesco fu soffocato dall’ideologia. Bastardi senza gloria è stato girato a Berlino, nei leggendari studi Babelsberg, dove Fritz Lang girò Metropolis nel 1927. La cosa deve aver ispirato non poco Tarantino, che fin da piccolo si nutre di pane e cinema. Tutto il cinema. “Sono sempre stato affascinato dall’idea di ritrarre Goebbels come direttore di uno studio cinematografico, cosa che fra l’altro era una delle sue principali attività” ha dichiarato Tarantino. “Visto che il film ha come tema il cinema tedesco sotto il Terzo Reich, mi pareva fosse interessante incentrarlo proprio sulla figura di Goebbels, a capo dello studio cinematografico, che realizza il suo capolavoro e gli dedica addirittura una première”. E infatti, nel film Tarantino gioca molto su questo aspetto: gustatevi il dialogo tra il generale inglese Ed Fenech e il luogotenente Archie Hicox, che prima di arruolarsi era un critico cinematografico. Hicox gli racconta come il cinema tedesco dopo l’avvento del Terzo Reich abbia perso moltissimo in qualità, ma guadagnato negli incassi (inutile che noi critici ci si accanisca, è così da sempre…), e poi racconta come secondo lui Goebbels si senta una sorta di David O. Selznick (il leggendario produttore di Via col vento) tedesco.

Se è molto divertito dall’idea di vedere Goebbels come un produttore cinematografico, Tarantino non ha nascosto il suo amore per Leni Riefenstahl, la regista di regime per eccellenza, l’autrice del famigerato Olympia. “È stata la più grande regista mai esistita” ha dichiarato Tarantino. “Per rendersene conto basta vedere il suo film sulle Olimpiadi”. Per scrivere il suo film, Tarantino ha anche ammesso di aver letto i diari della Riefenstahl. La omaggia direttamente, nel suo ultimo film: nella scena in cui vediamo Shosanna per la prima volta a Parigi, mentre armeggia con le insegne del suo cinema, vediamo che in quel cinema viene proiettato L’inferno bianco del Piz Palu, un film del 1929 diretto da Pabst, in cui c’era Leni Riefenstahl come attrice. È un film tedesco pre-Reich e pre-Goebbels.

L’ammirazione per i cineasti tedeschi di Tarantino e sincera e priva di pregiudizi. Ma anche consapevole di cosa avrebbe potuto continuare ad essere il cinema tedesco senza l’avvento del regime. E allora uccidere i nazisti con il cinema (letteralmente, visto che nel film le pellicole diventano un combustibile vero e proprio, e molto efficace) significa allo stesso tempo ritorcere loro contro quella che hanno usato come un’arma impropria. Significa liberare il cinema come Arte, liberare un’artista come Leni Riefenstahl dal giogo di un potere che l’ha per sempre marchiata. Significa liberare le immagini di Olympia dal sottotesto e dal messaggio al quale sono sempre state collegate. Per diventare così puro cinema, da ammirare solo per la sua bellezza. Guardate le scene del film di propaganda nazista Nation’s Pride, ispirato a Il trionfo della volontà (Triumph Of The Will) di Leni Riefenstahl (considerato un prodigio a livello tecnico): è stato girato su quello stile da Eli Roth, un regista ebreo. Un’ulteriore beffa ai nazisti. E guardate anche le sequenze inserite da Shosanna, girate in puro stile tedesco, con cui annuncia il suo attentato ai nazisti. È come se avesse preso un fucile a una guardia delle SS e glielo avesse puntato contro. Ancora una volta un film di Tarantino è un sanguinoso atto d’amore, per i registi. E per il cinema.

(Pubblicato su Movie Sushi)

Impressed with Leni Riefenstahl’s romantic films, Adolph Hitler recruited her to document the 1933 congress of the Nazi party. After making that first party film, Riefenstahl complained to Hitler that she had not been allowed sufficient creative control. In 1934, she was given wider latitude. She employed several camera crews for various angles; she constructed tracks for dynamic panning shots; she built mechanical camera elevators. The film she created is a masterpiece of propaganda, entitled Triumph of the Will.

Decades later, Riefenstahl insisted in interviews that Triumph of the Will was a documentary, not a propaganda film. The distinction, she explained, was that her film had no narrator commenting on the scenes, telling the viewer what to think. This is a clever but unconvincing defense. The film has no narration because it needs none—its propagandistic message is made so clear through visual cues that any voiceover would be redundant.

With her background as a silent film actress, Riefenstahl knew how to construct a narrative without language. Close, low angles portray Hitler as a heroic, towering figure. Hitler’s close-ups are intercut with wide-angle shots of thousands of Germans in parade formation, saluting in unison. The viewer is compelled to perceive Hitler as a great leader, the singular personality behind whom all of Germany was uniting in irresistible solidarity. Today, when we think of the frightening conformity of German society under Hitler, the images that come most readily to mind are these, staged and manufactured with great skill by Leni Riefenstahl.

In Triumph, Riefenstahl emphasizes those aspects of the Nazi party that are most seductive. The film does not acknowledge that the Nazis had already burned books, persecuted minorities and assassinated political rivals. This is one of the most consistent characteristics of propaganda, the lie of omission.

It is a mistake to equate all propaganda with false information. Contemporary propagandists know that most audiences have access to information, and that bald lies will be easily recognized and resented. The contemporary propagandist therefore presents what seems an unimpeachable message, emphasizing only those facts that advance his agenda, while carefully omitting any other information. Statistics and studies are cited, experts quoted.

In the film Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, director Robert Greenwald outlines several propagandistic strategies used by contemporary news agencies to distort information for idealistic reasons. In the medium of television, where hour-long speeches are reduced to five-second clips, it is easy to misrepresent political news through the careful selection of sound bites.

The still photograph is not immune to manipulation for propagandistic purposes. Photoshop has been used (with various degrees of skill) to alter news images. Iran released these manipulated photos of a missile test launch. Fox News responded to an article by New York Times writer Jacques Steinberg by airing distorted, unflattering headshots of him on the morning program Fox and Friends.

But the biggest recent controversy over a still image in political news coverage concerns this 2008 Newsweek cover, featuring vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The photo is taken at close range with a telephoto lens. The photo has not been retouched much (if at all) in Photoshop. The image is of sufficient size and resolution to reveal the tiny blemishes on the Alaska Governor’s skin; her wrinkles, the tiny hairs around her mouth, her slightly yellowed teeth, and her heavy makeup are all rendered sharply.

Palin’s fans were livid about this magazine cover. They believed it was designed to make their candidate unattractive.

It was.

The main source of light for this portrait (likely a medium-sized softbox) comes from the right and slightly above. Strong side lighting emphasizes textures and contours, and certainly the photographer who took this shot would know that more uniform lighting (especially front lighting) would be more flattering, especially at this near-macro range. For cosmetics advertisements, when models are photographed in similar proximity, photographers often use a ring light, or several large softboxes to create soft, diffuse light that diminishes the appearance of blemishes and wrinkles.  The Newsweek photographer did Sarah Palin no such small favor.

The ethical considerations of retouching a photograph in Adobe Photoshop (the industry standard software application) are surprisingly complex. The rule for most photojournalists is simple: don’t use software to manipulate the content of a photograph, period. The reasoning behind this practice is clear—newsworthy events should be recorded objectively, and not revised post-facto. But cover photos like this one are portraits, not reportage. The same ethical standards shouldn’t be applied. This photo shoot was scheduled; Sarah Palin’s makeup, hair, and wardrobe were chosen with consideration for this photograph. She was told where to stand and how to pose relative to the camera and the light. This was not an objective shot, captured as events were unfolding, but rather a collaboration between subject and photographer, in which the photographer acted in bad faith.

The unflattering treatment of Governor Palin is even more evident when compared to other Newsweek cover photos. An image of economist Paul Krugman was taken at nearly the same magnification, but with better lighting and almost certainly some use of the clone stamp and healing brush tools in Adobe Photoshop to hide blemishes. Then candidate Barack Obama appeared on a 2008 Newsweek cover washed in lens flare. His head partially eclipses the sun, forming a halo. The photo was not manipulated, but it was selected from many other usable photographs.

In recent news, the New York Times reports: “Possible Nazi Theme of Grand Prix Boss’s Orgy Draws Calls to Quit” (www.nytimes.com, 4/7/08). Having read only twelve words I know that this article is not entertaining gossip, but challenging theory. What is a Nazi Theme? Is it possible to combine Nazism with Orgies? Is this an article about social or personal psychology? Beyond the title, the article proves even more provocative. The “Grand Prix Boss” is also Max Mosley, the “younger son of Britain’s 1930’s fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, and the society beauty Diana Mitford, whose secret wedding in Berlin in October 1936 was held at the home of the Nazi propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels and included Hitler as a guest of honor.”  Immediately, without any details of what occurred at the actual “orgy,” it is easy to conclude that the “Nazi Theme” is Mr. Mosley himself, who was finally caught revealing his true fascist nature. However, the presumptive response is shortsighted and relies on the same reductionist theory of essence that led to the persecution of the Jews during the Third Reich. Details of the orgy as provided by the New York Times include:

[T]wo of the women wore black-and-white striped robes in the style of prisoners’ uniforms. The video showed Mr. Mosley counting in german –“Eins! Zwei! Drei! Vier! Funf!”-as he used a leather strap to lash one of the women.“She needs more of ze punishment!” he cried in German-accented English. One woman appeared to search his hair for lice, while another called off items on an inspection list. Mr. Mosley, naked, was bound facedown and lashed more than 20 times.

This is all the evidence the newspaper provides to inform the public of how Mr. Mosley’s orgy was “Nazi Themed.” Where are the uniforms? Swastikas? Salutes? The session (as relayed by the New York Times) incorporates sadomasochistic behavior with limited German language, prisoner uniforms, and prison role-playing.

In defense of his behavior, Mr. Mosley argues “he spoke German during the sex-and-bondage session because two of the women involved were Germans, not to engage in Nazi role playing.” In addition, he also states “the garb worn by the women was ‘American convict uniforms,’” and as dismissing the Nazi allegations by saying, “The scenario was more Alcatraz than Auschwitz.”  In addition, it is important to note that all the behavior was legal and consensual. While there is no question that Mr. Mosley participated in a sadomasochistic orgy, there are doubts as to whether or not the orgy had a “Nazi Theme.” Here is the critical point of departure, where tabloid revelations become theoretical debates. In Susan Sontag’s 1974 essay, “Fascinating Fascism,” she discusses the appeal of fetishizing SS Regalia (which is without doubt a “Nazi Theme”):

[T]he perennial Englishman in a brothel being whipped is re-creating an experience. He is paying a whore to act out a piece of theater with him, to reenact or revoke the past—experiences of his schooldays or nursery which now hold for him a huge reserve of sexual energy. Today it may be the Nazi past that people invoke, in the theatricalization of sexuality, because it is those images (rather than memories) from which they hope a reserve of sexual energy can be tapped. What the French call “the English vice” could, however, be said to be something of an artful affirmation of individuality; the playlet referred, after all, to the subject’s own case history. The fad for Nazi regalia indicates something quite different: a response to an oppressive freedom of choice in sex (and in other matters), to an unbearable degree of individuality; the rehearsal of enslavement rather than its reenactment. (325)

While it is unclear whether or not the accoutrements of Mr. Mosley’s orgy were Nazi inspired, Sontag’s exploration of the relationship between sexuality and repression as it may be acted out through theatrical fascism is important. Regardless of whether Mr. Mosley’s actions were motivated by sexual gratification and/or psychological catharsis, the situation is complicated because Mr. Mosley’s lineage is sided with the oppressor, rather than with the oppressed. It is also likely that, having been raised by fascist British parents, Mr. Mosley may have many personal issues with repression and is struggling to channel these repressions in a constructive manner that include both sadistic and masochistic behavior. However, Mr. Mosley’s actions too closely resemble the oppressive, fascist fantasy of Hitler, and supercede personal psychology by collective values. The public’s reaction is strong and clear: while it is okay that Mr. Mosley’s personal behaviors are not accepted by mainstream sexuality standards, it is not acceptable for him to re-enact a violently oppressive political regime. In the public’s eye, Mr. Mosley’s behavior is ritualistically evoking the crimes of the Nazi party. Situations, like the one that surrounds Mr. Mosley, are important because they allow us to explore the emotional power that rituals provoke throughout a society. How is it that a private psycho-sexual encounter has the power to create outrage? In answering this question, it is critical that an understanding of the relationship between ritual, politics, and aesthetics be established.

While Nazi Germany and the Third Reich may be called many things, they are first a political party. The essential goal of a political party is to obtain power to influence the fate of a community. Theoretically, Democracy holds that the majority should be the deciders, while Fascism asserts that one individual should decide for the majority. In Catherine Bell’s article, “Basic Genres of Ritual Action,” she discusses political rites:

In general, political rites define power in a two-dimensional way: first, they use symbols and symbolic action to depict a group of people as a coherent and ordered community based on shared values and goals; second, they demonstrate the legitimacy of these values and goals by establishing their iconicity with the perceived values and order of the cosmos. (129)

Bell is stating that the power of political rites is focused on “symbols and symbolic action” forming a community that can then relate to a “higher power.” A bridge must be built between the higher authority, the symbol of political power, and the individual. While the initial construction is focused outward, the goal is to create a “connection” with the cosmos that will make it seem that the cosmos initiated the structure, rather than the other way around. Bell states, “It is through ritual, however, that those claiming power demonstrate how their interests are in the natural, real, or fruitful order of things” (129). How can one make a political party seem to be the natural path of a people? “When ritual is the principal medium by which power relationships are constructed, the power is usually perceived as coming from sources beyond the immediate control of the human community” (129). Bell’s statement is very important. In politics, rituals may create an authority beyond the control of a community. Ideally, the political party is expected to represent the interests of the community. However, if this is not so, political power is able to manipulate the community toward other goals. The success of political rites in bonding a group of people together depends on the strength of engagement. Symbols consolidate identification to embody the conscious and unconscious collective identity desires of a community. The artistic work of Leni Riefenstahl during the Third Reich demonstrates the power of symbols in political rites.

Celebrated as the poster-girl of Germany, Leni Riefenstahl shaped the public image of the ideal Aryan through her performances and productions. A biographer of Riefenstahl, Jurgen Trimborn describes her work and political affiliation throughout her 101 years of life. Her career began as a dancer and her work focuses on the aesthetics of the body throughout its entirety. Her networking efforts led her to become friends with Adolph Hitler shortly before he came into political power. Her friendship with Hitler provided her with abundant patronage. Her skills as artistic cinematographer were recruited to both document and artistically render the cultural climate of the time. Her film Triumph of the Will is a montage of a military rally at Nuremburg that was figure- headed by Hitler and his philosophy of a united, pure, Germany. Olympia features beautiful bodies committing astounding athletic feats during the 1936 Olympics that took place in Germany. Riefenstahl’s artistic eye had never been doubted.  However, her fusion of art and politics is frequently described as propaganda. Returning to Bell’s description of political rites, Bell emphasizes that it is important to have “symbols and symbolic action to depict a group of people as a coherent and ordered community based on shared values and goals” (129). Without a doubt, Riefenstahl created a symbolic image that mirrored the philosophy of Hitler’s regime. Sontag describes Riefenstahl’s work as “evoking some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiles, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical” (314). The aesthetic perfection of Riefenstahl’s portrayals provides evidence that divine beauty is possible on earth. However, her work also is explicit in supporting the Third Reich as the modern operating agent of this higher energy, the symbolic connection between beauty, power, and triumph is made to seem naturally affiliated with the Nazi party.

The Nazi party was exceedingly adept at accessing and utilizing the power of the political rite. Bell writes, “Political rituals, […], indicate the way in which ritual as a medium of communication and interaction does not simply express or transmit values and messages but also actually creates situations” (136). Hitler and Riefenstahl were very successful in creating “situations” that would go beyond the communication of the Nazi philosophy to embodiment. An important distinction in Riefenstahl’s work that facilitated greater symbolic meaning is that she was working as an artist, not as a journalist. While both perspectives demand authenticity, the artist has the right to an interpretive perspective. Throughout history this has proven to be dangerous territory. Where is the line between interpretation and manipulation? Artistic perspective and delusion? According to her biography, Riefenstahl claims to have been apolitical throughout Hitler’s (and her own) career and to have merely been an artist with a very powerful agent. Having read her 1938 speech in support of Hitler, she creates fellowship between the art of film and the art of nation building:

Once years ago, the Führer said that if artists knew what great tasks were in store for them in a better Germany, they would join the movement with even greater enthusiasm. Today every artist knows what also is clear to every comrade: reality is providing you with more than your fantasy ever allowed you to dream of. A Greater Germany has become a reality; we have seen it grow from year to year with increasing confidence and deep regard. The creator of Greater Germany is at the same time its most artistic member. (Trimborn 147)

Every successful political party has relied to some degree on political rites. Constructing symbols of state and ideals are intended to create a relationship between a people and their leaders. But what happens when the power of the symbols exceeds the influence of the regime? Can the association that created the symbol lose control? In her speech, Riefenstahl states: “reality is providing you with more than your fantasy ever allowed you to dream of.” Her relationship with Hitler enabled Riefenstahl access to complete creative control and unlimited funding for her artistic endeavors (art which just happened to be aligned with the taste and philosophy of her patron). Riefenstahl celebrates her success as an artist while simultaneously celebrating Hitler’s success as a political leader. Both are built on fantasy.

Sontag argues that Riefenstahl’s art embodied an aesthetic that is inseparable from her politics, a Fascist aesthetic. She describes a fascist aesthetic in the following way:

[Fascist aesthetics] flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain; they endorse two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude. The relations of domination and enslavement take the form of a characteristic pageantry: the massing of groups of people; the turning of people into things; the multiplication or replication of things; and the grouping of people/things around an all-powerful, hypnotic leader-figure or force. The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets, uniformly garbed and shown in ever swelling numbers. Its choreography alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, “virile” posing. Fascist art glorifies surrender, it exalts mindlessness, it glamorizes death. (316)

What is the relationship between Fascist aesthetics and the authenticity of an artist? Riefenstahl successfully works with film to create visual metaphors, which should technically make her an artist. But what about the content that provides meaning to an artists work? Beyond the production, is there a responsibility to challenge how the audience views the world? In the 1993 Riefenstahl interviews portrayed in film “The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl,” directed by Ray Muller, Riefenstahl argues that she is interested in what is beautiful, not what is political. Throughout the film she is aggressively more interested in sharing how she filmed, rather than why. True to Sontag’s description of fascist aesthetics, Riefenstahl’s own life has embraced “two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude.” The enduring question regarding Riefenstahl’s work is whether she can be an artist, creating during and with the patronage of Nazi Germany, or is her art saturated by politics and limited to being beautifully crafted propaganda?

In regard to ritual, Riefenstahl developed the widespread success of the political rites that portrayed Germany throughout the world. She was working as an artist, but she was also working as an artist who knew her work was being read as if it were journalism. The world was viewing her work as an example of Hitler’s regime. The problem is that Riefenstahl’s work was limited to representing the grand philosophical ideals and failed to share the racist and destructive. In “Documenting Ritual,” Ronald Grimes writes about his experience working as an expert for a documentary film about ritual.

The choice of rites depicted in the film is driven almost exclusively by visual interest and the availability of footage and archival materials, not by how widespread or important the rites are not, nor how well they illustrate a category, nor by how much is known about the rite. (19)

Grimes’ experience working with the filmmakers shows that he was not expected to present the critical study of rituals; rather he was expected to support a preconceived drama of ritual made by the producers. His complaints of the producer’s narrow vision are supported by their ability to manipulate the perspectives of others through literally cutting and pasting film. The following is a description of what type of material was represented in the “documentary”:

The implied criteria for visual interest are how much movement and color there is, the recording quality of the clip, and the projected ability to attract and hold viewers’ interest. Among the aesthetic preferences exhibited by “Sacred rites and Rituals” are largeness of scale (big crowds and wide vistas are preferred), scenes involving blood or pain, actions with no obvious explanations, culturally unfamiliar sites, and actions displaying ornate or minimal clothing.

Interestingly, the standards for this documentary are similar to the “fascist aesthetics” that Susan Sontag described. Instead of engaging in the experience of ritual, the documentary turns ritual (and those who practice ritual) into “things.”  By turning ritual into a representation of “the other” or a “different thing,” it is no longer representing its original symbolic embodiment within a community; rather it has been co-opted by another perspective. In “Documenting Ritual,” Grimes explains that the problem with this process is that the viewer becomes dependent on the film to interpret the material. The audience fails to think for themselves:

[V]iewers of a “touristic” documentary are rendered dependent on the film. They could not possibly understand performances so exotic and impenetrable without experts, narrators, and filmmakers. Viewers would not perform such rites, because they are too “mysterious,” and viewers could not make intellectual sense of the rites without assistance. In contrast, the viewer of a contemplative documentary thinks, “well, that makes more sense than I would have imagined. Why not do it the way these folks do it?” Or the viewer muses, “ I would never do that, but now it makes sense why they do it that way.” (26)

The complaint against Riefenstahl is first that she was facilitating political rites that enabled the Nazi party to accomplish tremendous crimes against humanity. Secondly, that even if her intentions were to create beautiful images, she was able to do so by the commission of the Nazi party, was privileged to their inner circles, was an intimate friend of Adolph Hitler, and claimed to be an artist while failing to achieve critical engagement within her self and audience. If her failure of perception was intentional, then it was criminal, but if it was unconscious, then she becomes an initiate to the political rite she worked to establish.

In both the case of Leni Riefenstahl and Mr. Mosley’s “Nazi Themed Orgy,” the participant’s relationship to ritual helps to clarify public response. As Riefenstahl demonstrated with her work for Hitler, the energy of political rites is established by creating a connection between the individual, the symbol, and a higher cosmic energy. Because of her success in engaging a nation, and the world, through her mythic images, it is impossible to disassociate the art from what inspired its creation. Through the atrocities of Nazi Germany, the symbols of Riefenstahl’s work are invested with a cosmic power beyond the control of the artist. The effectiveness of the initiation of these symbols by the Nazi political rite is demonstrated through the public outrage expressed toward Mr. Mosley’s private acting out of abusive behavior and its vague illusions to the rituals that previously provoked world war. If Riefenstahl’s work served as Nazi propaganda and disengaged the audience from being critical, then the repercussions are found in a heightened sensitivity toward any symbolic reference to the imagery that distracted the world from preventing crimes against humanity. Consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Mosley incited a response of outrage that was absent during the original symbolic initiation.

Voto: 9 (su 10)

Può il cinema cambiare la Storia? Forse no. Ma forse può farlo “un” cinema. Un cinema che si trova al centro di Parigi, durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale, e dove tutti i pezzi da novanta del Terzo Reich, da Hitler a Goebbels, si stanno riunendo per assistere alla prima di un film di propaganda nazista. E dove un manipolo di soldati ebrei americani, i “bastardi senza gloria” guidati dal tenente Aldo Raine (un Brad Pitt con le guance gonfie come Il padrino Brando) e Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), una giovane ebrea scampata a un eccidio, che ora gestisce il cinema, cercheranno di appiccare il fuoco. E cambiare la Storia. È Bastardi senza gloria, l’ultimo grande film di Quentin Tarantino. Deus ex machina per eccellenza, burattinaio capace come nessun altro di giocare con i suoi personaggi, e con lo spettatore, Tarantino ora si permette di manipolare la Storia, riuscendoci alla perfezione.

Per aspera ad astra. Tarantino parte come al solito dal basso, dal B Movie per eccellenza, un sottogenere come il film bellico italiano (ma è attento a tutto il nostro cinema, vedi l’ufficiale inglese che si chiama Ed Fenech…), che definisce Maccheroni Combat, per arrivare a un film d’autore allo stesso tempo colto e divertente. Lo spunto arriva da Quel maledetto treno blindato di Enzo G. Castellari, e dall’idea che degli ebrei americani praticassero la resistenza degli Apache, operando dietro le linee e prendendo gli scalpi ai nemici. E la presa degli scalpi è il vero momento pulp del film, che, contrariamente a quanto ci si aspetta, vive di pochi e brevi momenti di violenza, introdotti da lunghi dialoghi carichi di ironia e tensione: Bastardi senza gloria è come una doccia scozzese, caldo e poi improvvisamente freddo e ancora caldo. È il Tarantino che più amiamo, quello dai dialoghi da culto.

Ma è soprattutto il Tarantino che ama giocare con il cinema. E quale occasione migliore che quella di confrontarsi con il cinema tedesco, e parlare della sua storia, di Goebbels e della propaganda nazista, confrontarlo con i produttori hollywoodiani, e raccontare come la propaganda abbia abbassato la qualità del cinema, ma alzato gli incassi. Leni Riefenstahl, la regista di regime per eccellenza, l’autrice del famigerato Olympia, è stata una delle più grandi registe di sempre secondo Tarantino. E allora uccidere i nazisti con il cinema (letteralmente, attenti alle pellicole) significa allo stesso tempo ritorcer loro contro quella che hanno usato come un’arma impropria e liberare il cinema come Arte, lasciare gli artisti, come la Riefenstahl, liberi dal giogo di un potere che li ha per sempre marchiati. Non usa le parole mai a caso, Tarantino: così quando parla di King Kong gioca sì sul cinema degli anni Trenta, ma smaschera anche l’anima profondamente razzista dei nazisti.

Parole, parole, parole. È un film parlato, quello di Tarantino. Ma mai i suoi dialoghi erano stati così carichi di tensione. Pensiamo al primo incontro tra il terribile ufficiale nazista Hans Landa (l’eccezionale poliglotta Christoph Waltz) e un contadino francese, dove la lingua in cui parlano cambia più volte. Sembra un virtuosismo, ma capiremo presto il perché. È la prima volta che Tarantino in un suo film gioca veramente con la suspence. E lo fa come lo faceva il maestro, Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Il quale raccontava che se sappiamo che sotto al tavolo c’è una bomba che sta per scoppiare, assistiamo alla conversazione delle persone che vi sono sedute in modo diverso, perché sappiamo che da un momento all’altro la bomba può esplodere. In Bastardi senza gloria ci sono almeno tre scene a un tavolo, e la bomba che conosciamo sono gli ufficiali nazisti, pronti a esplodere e a uccidere da un momento all’altro. Come Hitchcock Tarantino crea suspence con gli oggetti: quel bicchiere di latte riproposto da Landa a Shosanna, o la scarpa fatta indossare all’attrice Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), Cenerentola al contrario, sono come le tazze de Il sospetto e Notorious.

È la prima volta che il regista di Pulp Fiction affronta una storia dichiaratamente ambientata nel passato e in un preciso periodo storico. Ed è la prima volta che la sua violenza, puramente estetica, surrealista e iperbolica, si confronta con quella reale, storica e documentata. Quello che ne esce è un cortocircuito che rende la sua violenza più sobria e meno divertita, per quanto possa esserlo quella di un suo film. Ma è una violenza coinvolgente e liberatoria. Bastardi senza gloria è un film catartico, perché la violenza tipica delle “iene” e delle “vipere” tarantiniane è rivolta contro chi se la merita, i peggiori di sempre, i nazisti. Ed essere violenti non è mai stato così bello. C’è, nel film, la voglia di tornare, in chiave pulp-pop (a proposito di pop, godetevi lo splendido anacronismo delle note di Cat People (Putting Out Fire) di David Bowie, a un’America che combatteva le guerre dalla parte dei giusti. E, a dispetto del titolo del film, era gloriosa.

Da vedere perché: il film Nazi-pop di Tarantino è catartico: la sua violenza estetica si confronta con quella reale, il Nazismo, e si scatena contro i peggiori di sempre.

 (Pubblicato su Effetto Notte On Line)

I saw Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” yesterday, and I’m still thinking about it. I keep picturing red — red dress, red lipstick, red blood. I also mentally checked off all the Nazi and Nazi-sympathizing names on my historical figures list: Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goring, Joseph Goebbels, Emil Jannings, Leni Riefenstahl.

Riefenstahl always denied being a member of the Nazi party, which is true. And then she denied the letters she wrote about Hitler, which isn’t. And then she denied that her films were propaganda, and that Gypsy extras in her films were then sent off to Auschwitz, and that she witnessed civilians being killed.

Riefenstahl was also a fantastic director. Therein lies the problem: the internal struggle over whether you give credit for someone’s accomplishments when you find him or her morally questionable or even disgusting. I’ve been struggling with that since Ted Kennedy died — can you still lionize a man for his formidable accomplishments when he is, after all, a man who also left a woman to die? I don’t know.

Riefenstahl began her career as a dancer before moving into Arnold Fanck’s films as a beautiful mountain climber beloved by the public. It was in 1932 that she wrote to Hitler, entranced by the candidate. If you can imagine a picnic with Hitler and Goebbels, do — it was during such a lunch that the two men asked her to make the films that would establish her name. She would show the world the new Germany Hitler was hoping to build, which she did in “Triumph of the Will,” depicting the Nazi party in all its 1934 Nuremburg glory.

Riefenstahl lived a long life and remained a controversial and provocative figure until her death. She still is. Below, a clip from “Olympia,” depicting the 1936 Summer Games:

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Sehr geehrter Herr Beckenbauer,  

Es ist vorbei, bye bye Junimond. Was war das für eine Zeit. EURO in den Alpen. Ein Hauch orangener Revolution wehte durch die Berner Altstadt wie die Verheissung einer neuen Welt. Bern wurde befruchtet. Befruchtet von Lebensfreude, Lockerheit und Partystimmung. Sie müssen sich das so vorstellen als hätten sie ausnahmsweise mal keiner Ihrer Sekretärinnen, sondern Johan Cruyff die Frucht Ihrer geschätzten Lenden geschenkt, und deutsches Spielverständnis und Disziplin hätte sich mit niederländischen Genie vereint. Ob die Berner das Geschenk annehmen bleibt offen.  

Doch was soll ich sagen, Herr Beckenbauer: Nun wird’s wohl erstmal Herbst, Meister! Die Ausnahme weicht der Regel. Wo gestern noch van Persies und Engelaars das saftige Grün aufwühlten, kleben heute wieder Joetex’ limitierte Latschen im Latex. Depression in der Elftal und Robbensterben im Rhein. Und wie wird es erst sein, wenn die Aare nach dem nächsten grossen Wolkenbruch endgültig ihre azurne Farbe auf jangtsekiang umstellt. Ist dann alles wieder beim Alten? War dann alles umsonst?  

Die harte Zeit der Vorbereitung, die ganzen Freundlichkeitsseminare, eine Viertelmillion Volunteers, alles für nichts?  Hat Benedikt Weibel sich die Abseitsregel umsonst mühsam eingetrichtert? Musste Hans-Rudolf Merz wirklich so dringend die Luzerner Jodeltage besuchen, damit sein Kollege Couchepin sein haararmes Haupt am Finaltag in den Wiener Nachthimmel recken konnte? Bleibt nichts über für die Schweiz außer ein paarhundert Millionen auf einem UEFA-Konto?  Wo bleibt denn da die Nachhaltigkeit?  

Ich weiss, Sie können ja nichts dafür. Sie hätten den Job ja gemacht aber dummerweise haben die Ignoranten Platini gewählt. Und der lässt Sie zum Dank aus der Übertragung schneiden. So einiges ist ja offensichtlich der Zensurschere zum Opfer gefallen. Fatih Terims Brandrede in der er das Team mit den Worten: “ Eure Mütter haben Euch für dieses eine Spiel zur Welt gebracht.” einschwor, die Szene in der sich Angela Merkel nach dem Lahm-Torjubel ein Ohrfeige von Platini einfing. Nur das Zigarettchen, dass Jogi sich in der Loge erlaubte, das ließen die UEFA-Riefenstahl-Cutter lustig über den Äther.  

In manchen Ländern sollen gar die beiden Mertesacker-Kopfballtore aus dem Endspiel manipuliert worden sein, so dass in einigen iberischen Provinzen immer noch Leute der Meinung sind, die Spanier haben das Turnier gewonnen. Kurios.  

Zurück zur Schweiz, Herr Beckenbauer. Man wird sich arrangieren. Man bleibt, wie immer genügsam. Vielleicht fehlt der unbedingte Siegeswille. Vielleicht ist das aber auch gut so. Was sollte Frau Streller denn auch antworten wenn Herr Kuhn fragen würde, wofür sie Marco gleich noch mal zur Welt gebracht habe? Für Schlafanzugwerbung?  

Nein, die Schweiz ist keine Siegernation. Es fehlt der totale Ehrgeiz. Und dafür mag ich die Schweiz. Und warum sollte man als Gastgeber auch etwas mitnehmen. Den Gästen hat’s offenbar gefallen. Jetzt geht’s nach Peking, und man ahnt es schon: Federer ist müde. Medaillen gibt’s vielleicht im Winter und man ist sehr zufrieden, sich als exzellenter Zeitnehmer in den Dienst der Sportwelt zu stellen. Nächstes Jahr ist ja endlich wieder Alinghi.  

Ihr Clemens Herbstmeister 

P.S.: Rätselspass zum guten Schluss: Wenn das A-Team “Nati” heisst, nennt man die Junioren dann künftig Hitzfeld-Jugend?

Das 40 Jahre Woodstock-Jubiläum sollte erst nächstes Jahr, im Sommer 2010, gefeiert werden. Denn als es vom 15. bis 18. August 1969 über die Bühne ging, bekam das niemand mit – mit Ausnahme jener amerikanischen Fernsehzuschauer vielleicht, die am 19. August 1969 im US-Sender ABC zufällig die Dick Cavett-Show sahen, in der Stephen Stills und David Crosby zu Gast waren, die sagten, sie kämen direkt vom Woodstock-Festival und hätten noch den Schlamm auf ihren Stiefeln (den die Kamera auch prompt ins Bild rückte). Im Sommer 1969 berichteten die Medien jedenfalls kaum darüber. Der ORF übertrug stattdessen das Konzert der Rolling Stones vom 5. Juli 1969 im Londoner Hyde Park, das ganz im Zeichen des Todes des Stones-Gründers und Gitarristen Brian Jones stand und zu dem ebenfalls eine halbe Million Menschen pilgerte – also genauso viele, wie nach Woodstock kamen. Und zur damaligen Zeit waren die Rolling Stones allein ohnehin viel größer und populärer als Crosby, Stills & Nash, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix und alle anderen Woodstock-Künstler zusammen genommen.

Der Woodstock-Mythos, der Generationen prägte, entstand erst ein Jahr nach dem Event, als nämlich der Film, den Michael Wadleigh über das Woodstock-Festival drehte, in die Kinos kam. Erst jetzt sahen die jungen Leute in aller Welt, was in Woodstock abging, aber sie sahen es gefiltert durch die Magie des Kinos. Die Woodstock-Besucher wurden zu Statisten, die – kunstvoll inszeniert und geschnitten – die Illusion einer Revolution vorgaukelten – und die wurde von den Kino-Besuchern im Sommer des Jahres 1970 als reale Revolution empfunden. Das Chaos, das beim Festival ausbrach, wirkte wie der Umsturz der alten Ordnung. Die Hippies im Schlamm, die mit No Rain-Gesängen den Regen zu stoppen versuchten, symbolisierten die Macht einer neuen Generation, die alles erreichen kann, was sie will, ob es den Repräsentanten von Law & Order nun passt oder nicht. Und in den auftretenden Künstlern schien ein Feuer zu lodern, das alles niederbrennen konnte, was von Gestern war. Und wenn Jimi Hendrix mit seiner Version des Star-Spangled Banner buchstäblich die Sterne vom Himmel holte, dann schien der Hippie-Traum zum Greifen nah: nicht nur der Traum von freier Liebe und Frieden, sondern auch der Traum von der Rückkehr zur Natur und zu kleinen Einheiten (Henry David Thoreaus Walden) und der Traum von der Abschaffung des Geldes (This is a Free Concert Now!). Da glaubte niemand, der damals im Kino saß, dass die siegen werden, denen Woodstock am Arsch vorbei ging.

Woodstock ist ein Produkt der Macht des Films, wie sie etwa auch Sergej M. Eisenstein nutzte, als er 20 Jahre nach der Meuterei auf dem zaristischen Kriegsschiff vor Odessa, die am 14. Juni 1905 stattfand, sein Revolutions-Movie Panzerkreuzer Potemkin drehte und mit seiner filmmagischen Rhythmik und Schnitt-Dynamik die Revolution erst so richtig anheizte. An diesem Beispiel erkannte dann später auch Hitlers Propagandaminister Joseph Goebbels die Macht des Kinos, der ja gesagt haben soll: „Gebt mir einen Panzerkreuzer Potemkin“, und damit meinte, es gäbe keine bessere PR für die Nationalsozialistische Herrschaft als einen gut geschnittenen und inszenierten Film. Den bekam er dann auch mit Leni Riefenstahls Triumph des Willens und ihren Olympia-Dokus, die in Sachen Magie mit dem Woodstock-Film locker mithalten konnten. Nur stand das NS-Regime für die Gegenwelt des Hippie-Traums: Für Arbeitslager, Kurzhaarschnitt, Selbstverleugnung in militärischem Drill, Krieg, Terror, Rassenhass und Zeugungspflicht statt für Landkommunen, lange Haare, Selbstsuche & Selbstverwirklichung, Freiheit, Frieden und Spaß an Free Love.

Gottfried Distl

Quentin Tarantinos Inglourious Basterds är en enorm succé. Det är i och för sig inte överraskande, det är en briljant sitcom med lysande manus och naturligtvis blir det hela ännu bättre av att en stor del av aktörerna är uppklädda i SS-uniform.

Filmen, en remake av en italiensk b-film från 70-talet, är också en fullkomlig orgie i referenser. För ovanlighetens skull när det gäller Tarantino inte till lagom patinerad trash-kultur, utan till Leni Riefenstahls alpinistfilmer, tysk mellankrigsfilm över huvud taget, King Kong och den tyske indianboksförfattaren Karl May.

Titelns Inglourious Basterds är ett irreguljärt judiskt förband inom US Army som opererar bakom fiendens linjer i Frankrike 1944. De ägnar sig åt en extremt osannolik operation som inte går ut på sabotge och spaning för att underlätta för den allierade invasionsstyrkan, utan på att personligen döda så många tyska soldater som möjligt, för hand och med bollträn om nödvändigt. Offren skalperas.

Som tur är utvecklas filmen från denna grottmännisko-”München“-plot till en otroligt underhållande matinéfilm som samtidigt är en drift med 60- och 70-talets alla b-filmer med irreguljära allierade styrkor som iförda SS-uniformer pangar tonvis med nazister med Schmeissers.

Sammanlagt två personer i filmen ges någon form av djupare karaktär – en judisk biografägarinna och hennes pojkvän, resten är tvådimensionella figurer byggda för att skjutas ner. Detta inbegriper även The Inglourious Basterds, som förutom att vara extremt brutala och osympatiska även är ganska klantiga.

Det finns helt enkelt ett antal lager av kitsch, referenser och ironi i filmen, och det går helt enkelt inte att se den som berättelsen om ett gäng man ska jubla åt när de mördar tyskar.

Det är det naturligtvis risk att ganska många människor gör ändå, och jag undrar hur mycket problem  självmedvetenheten i modern underhållningsfilm faktiskt skapar för tolkningen av den. Sjuttiotalets ultrahårda ultrahögerfilmer som Dirty Harry och Death Wish-serien saknar ironi, Clintan och Charles Bronson är precis vad de ger sig ut för att vara. För att inte tala om Rambo.

Ställ dem mot exempelvis Inglourious Basterds, eller den påkostade skitfilmen 300. Det är inte på grund av sitt på ytan tokfascistiska budskap 300 fallerar, utan för att den är så förtvivlat tråkig. Det fascistiska budskapet går helt enkelt inte att ta på allvar med det skruvade formspråk filmen har, och samma är det med Inglourious Basterds primitiva hämndtema där varje tysk menig förtjänar att åtminstone få ansiktet sönderskuret. Specialstyrkan framstår mer som ett gäng östeuropeiska boneheads än en elittrupp, när de ristar in hakkors i ansiktet på sina fiender och slår ihjäl dem med baseballträn.

Samtidigt riskerar detta gå över huvudet på många biobesökare, precis som 300 både sågades och hyllades, alltefter personliga preferenser, av folk som missuppfattat den som en simpel fascistfilm.

Jag kommer att tänka på ett äldre exempel, långt bättre än 300 och en helt annan sorts film än Inglourious Basterds. Paul Verhoevens Starship Troopers fick skäll av mindre begåvade tittare som fick för sig att de sett en film med ett högerextremt budskap, medan vi andra hånskrattade åt deras oförmåga att förstå ironi och satir. Samtidigt satt en majoritet filmtittare och njöt av smaskig SF-action utan att reflektera över eventuella budskap alls. Huruvida det innebär att de ändå accepterade den spartanska krigarideologin som genomsyrar Verhoevens framtidssamhälle där alla i hela världen talar amerikanska är en öppen fråga.

Så tar de flesta antagligen även Inglourious Basterds, och går därmed miste om flera dimensioner i filmupplevelsen. För att inte tala om de högerextremister som tar tyskslaktandet på blodigt allvar – och samtidigt hyllar 300. På allvar.

Mer om Inglourious Basterds, Inglorious Bastards, Quentin Tarantino, WWII, Nazister, Leni Riefenstahl, King Kong, Karl May, Paul Verhoeven, Starship Troopers, The 300, Zack Snyder, Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Death Wish, Rambo

IMAGE: Heinrich Hoffmann var Adolf Hitlers personliga fotograf. Hoffmann träffade Hitler redan 1919 och började ta bilder av nazisterna på 1920-talet.

Hoffmanns främsta uppgift blev att producera Hitler-vykort, Hitler-planscher och Hitler-böcker. Sedan nazisterna hade tagit makten 1933 ökade omsättningen och firman hade 300 anställda.

Tillsammans med exempelvis Leni Riefenstahl och den mindre kände Walter Frentz bidrog Hoffmann till att skapa en nazistisk estetik. Genom en strikt koreografering av sina bilder bidrog han till kulten kring Hitler och bilden av diktatorn som den starke och allvetande ledaren. 

Steven Heller – tidigare art director på The New York Times och författare till artiklar och böcker om propaganda – har skrivit;

Adolf Hitler was not the first to embrace cinema, radio and graphic design, but he and his minions certainly mastered the fine ‘art’ of image building, what we now call branding. Initially using limited means, Hitler relied on the most outreaching communication tool of the day: photography.

(…)

Although Joseph Goebbels (…) receives the lion’s share of credit for campaigns that branded the NSDAP and the Nazi state, Hoffmann was, in fact, Hitler’s most prodigious image-maker and propagator. From the fruits of this work, he built an huge entrepreneurial business by making Hitler into a veritable commodity.

En av de mer kända bilderna är nedanstående valaffisch från 1932. Affischen är ett exempel på hur nazisterna använde sig av modern propagandateknik av enkla budskap och starka bilder. Hoffmann var fotografen och stilen påminner om hur man på den tiden brukade avbilda diverse filmstjärnor.

En intressant pendang är ”Nürnberg – Schuldig!” som var en av de affischer som de allierade satte upp runt om i Tyskland efter krigsslutet.  

Som kuriosa kan nämnas att det var i Hoffmanns ateljé som Hitler först träffade den 17-årige Eva Paula Braun som jobbade där som elev 1929.

Källa: Se även utställningen State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda på United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Da der Name von Leni Riefenstahl hier (und auf dem Blog “Metalust”) nun einige wenige Male gefallen ist, und ich deshalb ein wenig über Riefenstahl nachgedacht habe, kurz ein paar unsystematische Bemerkungen zu ihr.

Today und für unsere heutige Zeit: Riefenstahl goes Pop, gegen den Willen und meist als Konterbande untergeschmuggelt, in allen Winkeln, das ist sonnenklar: die Kapelle Rammstein ironisiert diesen im visuellen Raum ansonsten eher verborgenen Subtext Riefenstahl ganz gut und spielt damit auf eine eigentlich amüsante Weise. Die ganze Clip-Ästhetik, eine bestimmte Pop-Kultur ist ohne Riefenstahl gar nicht denkbar und hat von ihr abgekupfert bis zum Abwinken und bis zum Es-geht-nicht-mehr. Warum also nicht: sie selbst einmal sprechen lassen: Völkerball.

Riefenstahl hat die ästhetische Optik, Formen der Visualisierung und damit auch im nachhinein die Elemente des Populären sehr geprägt, sie war ästhetisch für ihre Zeit doch maßgeblich. Über ihre widerlichen politischen Verstrickungen und ihre dumm gespielte Naivität hinterher sind wir uns, denke ich, alle einig.

Eine ideologiekritische Sichtung ihres Werkes verspräche allerdings interessant zu werden. Und insbesondere was das Faschistische in oder von Riefenstahls Bildern betrifft, so seien auch die Photographien Herbert Lists, der vor den Nazis zunächst floh, heranzuziehen. Sie enthalten ein Moment, das die Körper zentral setzt, den Photos von Riefenstahl nicht unähnlich. Oder aber die aus Nazi-Deutschland emigrierte und niemals mehr zurückgekehrte deutsch-israelische Photographin Liselotte Grschebina mit ihren an der „Neuen Sachlichkeit“ orientierten Photographien. Es bildet sich in all diesen Photos ein „Geist der Zeit“ ab, eine bestimmte Form von Ausdruck, wo es unzureichend ist, dies sogleich als faschistisch zu brandmarken. Es ist in diesen drei so unterschiedlichen Photographen mit diesen so unterschiedlichen Biographien ein kultureller Unterstrom auszumachen, der sich nicht nur auf das Faschistische festlegen läßt. Unter diesem Aspekt dieses kulturellen Unterstromes, der teils ein Konglomerat aus neuer Sachlichkeit und Lebensphilosophie, samt Jugendbewegung bildet, sollten auch Riefenstahls Werke gesehen werden. (Anzuschließender Disclaimer: Ich möchte damit die Nazizeit nicht relativieren und etwa in den Kontext der „Neuen Sachlichkeit“, des „Neuen Sehens“ oder gar des Bauhaus“ rücken, so daß alles eine Soße und damit sowieso unterschiedslos egeal wird. Schon gar nicht möchte ich jemandem wie Liselotte Grschebina qua Dekonstruktion unterjubeln, daß sie statt eines Opfers eigentlich Täterin ist, sei es auch nur im Modus des Ästhetischen. Ich bitte hier also um Nachsicht und auch darum, die alten Reflexe mal kurz einzustellen und sich auf diese Denkbewegung einfach mal einzulassen)

Leni Riefenstahls Photographien etwa haben Maßstäbe gesetzt, auch wenn sich darauf keiner so recht berufen mag, ihre In-Film-Setzung der Olympischen Spiele 1936 („Fest der Völker“) hat für die Sportberichterstattung nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg Fenster geöffnet und es wurde fleißig abgekupfert in allen Ländern. Die Nuba-Bilder sind einmalige Dokumente. (Wieweit sie ethnologisch auch wertvoll sind, vermag ich nicht zu beurteilen, wäre aber für sachdienliche Hinweise dankbar.)

Und trotzdem ist sie eben Nazi-Leni: „Tiefland“ kann man nicht mehr immanent ästhetisch sehen, wenn man um die Hintergründe dieses Films weiß. Bei den Dokumentationen über ihr Leben möchte man zu recht und begründet brechen, und das kann man dann vor Zorn nicht mehr von ihrem Werk trennen. Und ich mache es dann manchmal doch, weil ich ihr Werk in Auszügen schätze. (Wenngleich manches in der Tat eine Nummer zu dick aufgetragen ist. Aber das ist wie bei Rammstein und Laibach. Und trotzdem hören wir diese Musik gerne. Etwa so wie Nörgler es wunderbar nennt: „Musik bei 230 km/h“)

Daß „Triumph des Willens“ verboten ist halte ich, nebenbei, für lächerlich und – auch – für einen widerlichen Fall von Zensur.

Ich hoffe sehr, daß ich nicht wieder eine weitere Baustelle aufgemacht habe, wo nun die Fetzen fliegen, zumal ja nach den Postmoderne-Essays (2. Teil folgt morgen) irgendwann, demnächst, etwa gegen Jahresende eine Lektüre von Carl Schmitt hier ansteht, der im Subtext Benjaminscher Philosophie eine nicht geringe Rolle spielte, explizit natürlich in seinem „Kritik der Gewalt“-Aufsatz.

“Clothes are my passion,” quoth Blanche Dubois in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. I’ve always related to Blanche somewhat (a bit too close for comfort sometimes I must confess) and I’ve frankly always been secretly afraid of ending up like her, but fears aside I do share two things with her that I readily embrace. One, we’re both “Miss Virgos” and two our passion for clothes. All Blanche had left from the “epic debaucheries” of the lords of Belle Rive was her steamer trunk of Paris originals or “old Mardi Gras costumes” as Stanley crudely categorizes them. I love Brando, but I hate Stanley, which makes Brando an incredible actor, as everyone knows. When Stanley roughly manhandles Blanche’s “feathers and furs” I feel pain, literal pain.

If I step back and psychoanalyze the reason why clothes are so important to me I realize that they’re important in an ephemeral way–I rarely hang on to them. It’s a constant shift of atoms in similar tones of black, navy blue, white, gray, silver, light blue, and an occasional red or khaki, (rarely going in for prints but I do love my tartans) and a pretty consistent and conservative style. I realize is all goes back to mother bonding. Before she had four kids and moved deep into the then country of Central Bucks, my mother was very much into clothes and extremely stylish. Style is something you never lose even if you give up on it for awhile (I’m just passing through what Joe has categorized as my “G.I. Jane” period of jeans, work boots, etc.–it’s nice when someone knows you so well). Every few years I go through my “anti-fashion” period. It usually happens when I am doing “important artistic work” and I’m concentrating on it, and not me (which is why the work looks good and I look like shit–nice underwear). But all my anti-fashion periods are is just a cleansing of the palette (and the closet) for the preparation of next inevitable phase of expansion and self expression. It’s part of the cycle.

I tend to get slightly utilitarian during these periods of cleansing, but even that is an affectation because even an anti-fashion statement is still a fashion statement. I like to think my baggy Levis are an ode to my working class roots, my ALA t-shirt a statement of solidarity among all artistic outcasts. Nice try. As the end of summer approaches I find G.I. Jane less and less appealing as I’m itching to once again build my wardrobe of fall fashions (I recently bought four dress and a conservative black skirt suit–now, I no longer have a job that requires me to dress like that nor a bank account to afford them but it won’t stop me) and I’m asking for black suede pumps for my birthday, my utilitarian tendencies go right out the window.

What’s challenging me right now is how to sweat in a warehouse on a hot summer day, or work outdoors on location in the freezing cold and not look like shit when your on-set photographer snaps you unawares (a talented YOUNG student Kevin Martin took these photos–note to Kevin: careful shooting a woman over thirty-five from a low angle unless you wish to inspire her wrath)
My growing out gray/black hair isn’t helping.

The thing is, I love directing, but I don’t quite relish looking like Penny Marshall in a baseball cap when I do it (sorry Penny, love ya gal). There has to be a way to get the job done without looking done-in. I turn to the experts for advice. No, not these so called “fashionistas” of today whom I despise, although there are some exceptions., but to old Hollywood glamor. Let’s look at the style of directors and designers on set from the Hollywood golden age.

Edith Head: Edith Head was one of Hollywood top designers (most notably from Hitchcock films) and reportedly one hell of a bitch. But how else can one get to the top in tintseltown (or any town). She had style though (even if she got her first job by stealing artist “friends” designs and pawning them off as her own). Edith wasn’t pretty, but she made the most of what she had by developing a unique “look” of heavy bangs, poindexter shades and a “uniform” of the same suit in different colors that she wore everyday. She did this to keep her mind clear to concentrate on designing for others. That makes sense. I admire her discipline and simplicity.

Leni Riefenstahl: She may have been a nazi, but she still inspires me. First of all. There are not many female directors out there, and second, she kept working well into her 80’s doing underwater photography with her 50 year old boy toy. Now THAT is something I do aspire to. Leni kept her cool on the dolly in well cut slacks and a sweater. Classic!

Werner Herzog: This is what I call stylish anti-style. My friend and Fugue Films partner, Chris Marston, has this even though he won’t admit to it, although I doubt if he’d object to being compared to his hero (and my not so secret crush) Herzog. In his rumpled khakis and denim shirt in the heart of the Amazon jungle, Herzog holds his style together, which says a lot about this fellow Virgo (I know my own kind). Did you know that the most prominent film directors are either Virgos or Leos?

I’m inspired! I have to admit, this description of Virgo directors hits home with me. Seven to ten years though. Sigh! It’s possible.

Note: Some of these images are from the next Gemini Rising episode which should be coming out this fall.

Este é pra guardar na galeria.

Olympia 1. Teil – Fest der Völker
(Olympia Parte 1 – Festa das Nações, Alemanha, 1938)
[Nota IMDB: 8.2/10]

O documentário gravando durante as Olimpíadas de Berlim em 1936, em plena Alemanha nazista é um dos maiores marcos na história do cinema. Leni Riefenstahl despeja todo o seu brilhantismo em tomadas monumentais. Muito o que se fez depois no cinema, deve-se à moça, chamada por alguns de mãe da cinematografia moderna.

Olimpíada também histórica, com vitória de negão em “solo ariano”. [God Bless Jesse Owens].

Salvo estupidez profunda desta mula que vos escreve, foi a primeira aparição dos anéis olímpicos e a primeira vez em que foi feito o revezamento da tocha. [Muito bem, a mula se enganou, mas nem tanto: os anéis foram criados em 1912, apresentados na Bélgica em 1920, mas ganhar popularidade mesmo foi em Berlim, em 1936. A informação sobre o revesamento estava correta. Foi mesmo o primeiro.]

Não bestasse ser um filmaço, a película ainda carrega consigo a controvérsia: propaganda nazista ou não? Tem argumento para os dois lados. Eu aconselho que você assista todo o filme com carinho e tire suas próprias conclusões.

Abaixo, um pequeno mimo de 10 minutos: a cerimônia de abertura. Bom demais!

Como diria o amigo Marcos Pinto, “crássico, qui nem Fra x Fru”!

Entusiasta come sempre quando parla di cinema, in un’intervista al settimanale tedesco Der Spiegel il regista Quentin Tarantino ha definito la tedesca Leni Riefenstahl «la più grande regista mai esistita». La cosa forse scandalizzerà ancora qualcuno, ma chi è del mestiere, nel senso che lo fa o ci ragiona sopra, sa che, al di là delle perentorietà, si tratta di un giudizio condivisibile. Per capire la sua grandezza «bisogna guardare i suoi film sulle Olimpiadi», ha aggiunto Tarantino. La Riefenstahl fu un genio cinematografico, di quelli che segnarono un’epoca e da un’epoca furono segnati al punto tale da essere poi costretta a sopravvivere a se stessa, impossibilitata persino a negarsi o a smentirsi, chiusa per sempre in quel pugno di anni che videro l’ascesa al potere di Hitler e la trasformazione di un talento in strumento, più o meno consapevole di un regime.
Ancora negli anni Cinquanta, con brutale sincerità una rivista americana aveva riassunto così il problema: «Sei un regista di valore e lavori per Hitler? Allora sei un nazista. Lavori per Stalin? Allora sei un genio». L’articolo ricostruiva in parallelo le carriere della Riefenstahl e di Sergej Eizenstejn, il cantore della Rivoluzione d’Ottobre, premio Stalin, cineasta di punta del regime sovietico. Allora era troppo presto perché il senso di quel parallelo fosse compreso e accettato, e va anche detto che il ragionamento era un po’ contorto: dopotutto con quello Stalin gli Stati Uniti si erano alleati, e non si può essere totalitari a scartamento ridotto. A più di sessant’anni dalla fine della Seconda guerra mondiale, tuttavia, i conti del dare e dell’avere, dei peccati e delle opere di bene si possono ormai fare senza isterie e senza preconcetti, come è appunto il caso di Tarantino. E si deve allora ammettere che non era colpa di Leni Riefenstahl. È la bellezza che non è democratica.
Sbagliando, qualcuno ironizzerà sull’ampiezza e la difformità degli entusiasmi tarantiniani: i b-movie e Lino Banfi, i western all’italiana e, appunto, Olympia… In realtà, dietro di essi c’è il riconoscimento di un artigianato, il saper far fruttare il poco che si ha, l’apprezzamento per il talento e il lavoro ben fatto e, se vi vuole, un’idea del mondo per nulla semplicistica e/o consolatoria, dove il bene e il male si mischiano e l’uomo non è un essere angelicato. Nel caso della Riefenstahl, c’è anche un elemento estetico, pubblico e privato, che nel regista-adoratore di un’attrice come Uma Thurman balza agli occhi: la purezza dei tratti, l’eleganza, come senza tempo, delle forme.
Tutta Leni Riefenstahl è racchiusa in pochi, folgoranti versi di Goethe: «E qua la mano./ Dovessi dire all’attimo:/ “Ma rimani! Tu sei così bello!/ Allora gettami in catene,/ allora accetterò la fine!/ Allora batta a morto la campana,/ allora, esaurito il tuo impegno,/ s’arresti l’orologio, cada giù la lancetta,/ per me finisca il tempo!”». È il patto siglato fra Faust e Mefistofele, ma la regista di Olympia non lo sapeva, o non se ne ricordava. Così, si provò a fermare l’attimo, nella sua bellezza, nello splendore della forma, nell’armonia del gesto, nella potenza dell’azione. Finì all’inferno.