Riefenstahl Film Analysis

967 Words4 Pages
This extract shows how Riefenstahl’s films captured the Nazi ideals by specific use of camera angles, shots, and content. Riefenstahl’s footage portrays Hitler as a ‘deific Führer’, which would have added to the already growing opinion of Hitler as the saviour of Germany. The source also disregards any possibility of Riefenstahl not producing these films under Joseph Goebbels’ (and therefore Hitler’s) orders, and it therefore disregards the possibility of the films being anything other than propaganda pieces for the Nazi regime. The source is useful to the investigation as, firstly, it is a secondary source and so it is mainly unbiased and more neutral about the topic. Secondly, it is useful in showing how Riefenstahl affected the Nazi regime…show more content…
Riefenstahl’s film allowed this view to be seen worldwide, by the people who did not attend the Games, and in this way, it became the basis of what Hitler and his nation stood for, as Olympia represented the Nazi regime. The source is useful to the investigation because it highlights how significant Olympia was in creating a dominant view of the 1936 Olympics and of the Nazi regime. Most of the world saw the Olympics through Riefenstahl’s eyes because of this film, and so she had the power to position them how she saw fit. This extract offers an alternate view of the topic, one which claims Riefenstahl cannot be included in the Nazi’s politics because she merely recorded them. Her film is not propaganda itself, but rather a documentary of the propaganda that was already happening. It goes on further to say that Riefenstahl ruined the chance of the film being propaganda by including elements that ‘do not support’ the Nazi’s aim of propaganda, mentioning the ‘loving treatment’ and ‘considerable time’ spent on the black athletes Jesse Owens and Metcalfe. Including Owens and Metcalfe would have destroyed the image of the ideal Aryan that the Nazi regime strived for, so this contradicts the idea of the film being pure Nazi
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