Mood:
crushed outI was actually sorry to hear of the death of Frau Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's documentary filmmaker, who died yesterday at the age of 101. I've made sure to include her Fuhrer's name in the opening sentence of her obituary because it is the fairest and unfairest thing I can do. She was a hedger (just like Speer) about her involvement with and true loyalty to the cause of Nazism, but she could so easily retreat into the safehouse of her genius that it really made no difference. What punishment was she supposed to have endured beyond the many decades of her exile and stigma? She was a Nazi once and the world never let her forget it. She was a German and could never stop being that. And Leni was a beautiful woman. You should do yourself the favor of seeing her face when she was younger. And certainly when she was older. It's a package deal, my beloved aesthete. Your fascist idealism had a beginning AND an end.
Leni Riefenstahl was one of the most important filmmakers who ever lived and a true pioneer of many things cinematic. Make sure to see some of her work sometime. It's so damned good you won't believe it's nearly 70 years old.