Film Forum – Riefenstahl

Join the University Center for Human Values Film Forum and European Cultural Studies for a film about fascism,  Riefenstahl.  Professor Jan-Werner Müller, who is teaching ECS 338 Fascism: Politics and Culture this semester, will moderate a faculty discussion following the film presentation.

Leni Riefenstahl was Hitler’s favorite filmmaker. He personally asked her to make a documentary of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally which, more than any other movie ever made, expresses the fascist, totalitarian ethic on film in a captivating and totally immersive way. This was Triumph des Willens, or Triumph of the Will. It has provided stock shots of Hitler and his adoring audience of Nazi supporters for hundreds of film-makers ever since. Even if you have never seen Triumph of the Will in its entirety, you will have seen clips from it over and over again in television documentaries about the Third Reich. Riefenstahl’s images of Hitler and the Nazis have become enduring emblems of the regime.