Hitlers film maker turns 100

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=P89hv8IZ5oo

(22 Aug 2002) SHOTLIST • • APTN FILE, Potsdam, Germany, March 1999 • • 1. Pan sign of exhibit to Museum • 2. VS Leni Riefenstahl visits exhibiton • 3. VS Time Magazine cover featuring Leni Riefenstahl • 4.SOT (German) Leni Riefenstahl: It is generally said / claimed that the German government had given me the task of making the Olympic film, or that Dr. Goebbels had given me the task or god knows who else or that Hitler had. Hitler had absolutely nothing to do with the film. He was, as I have heard, bitterly disappointed that I made this Olympic film because he would have preferred it if I had made other films. Because Hitler himself was, in the beginning, not interested in the Olympic games. He probably did not like that black athletes won great medals. • 5. CU monitor with clip from 'Triumph of the Will' • 6. Pull back monitor showing film to people watching • • • CENTENARY FOR CONTROVERSIAL FILM MAKER • • The films she made for Adolf Hitler brought her international attention and acclaim, then destroyed her postwar directorial career. But as she turns 100 it is still those movies that Leni Riefenstahl thinks of most proudly. • • Once dubbed a Nazi Pinup Girl Riefenstahl remains fiercely unrepentant about her work for Hitler, saying her films portraying Nazi Germany - like her postwar still photos - were about art, not propaganda or ideology. • • So powerful were the Nazi images in 'Triumph of the Will' - and her documentary 'Olympia' about the 1936 Berlin Olympics - that she was unable to escape their stigma after the war. • • She turned to still photography, but still faced criticism that she promoted a Nazi aesthetic of the Superman, • particularly for her photos showing muscular African tribesmen as models of physical perfection. • • Sensitive to censure of her early work, Riefenstahl says she no longer wants to discuss her association with Hitler and other top Nazi officials - but will touch upon the period to discuss _ and defend - her work as a filmmaker. • • In 'Triumph of the Will,' Riefenstahl employed a crew of 120 with 40 cameras to put together mesmerizing montages of goose-stepping soldiers in torch-light parades, endless rows of swastikas, and close-ups of Hitler and other Nazi leaders speaking to a dazzled German public. • • Some critics consider it the best documentary ever made; others say it's pure promotion and should not even be called a documentary. • • Riefenstahl has admitted that 'Triumph of the Will' could have been - and was - used to sell National Socialism's ideals, but says that was not her intent. • • Yet one of Riefenstahl's biographers, Rainer Rother, said her view is overly simplistic. I think she might not have been an anti-Semitic woman, but she still was aware of what was going on, said Rother, whose book Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Talent, is being released in English this month to coincide with her birthday Aug. 22. • • Despite her age and poor health due to injuries sustained in accidents - including a helicopter crash in Sudan in 2000 - Riefenstahl is still working and physically active, even diving for three weeks in March in the Maldives. • • She also is about to release her first film in nearly half a century. A 45-minute documentary cut from video footage shot during dives in the Indian Ocean in 1974-2000, 'Impressions Under Water,' will be shown on German television later this month in honour of her birthday. • • Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork • Twitter: / ap_archive • Facebook: / aparchives • Instagram: / apnews • • • You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

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