Opinions on your character of study (1 Viewer)

[meDAawesome]

I was just wondering what everyone thought of the character they're studying.

I'm studying Leni Riefenstahl for my character and so far my impression of her is that she is a gigantic stuck up bitch who is a compulsive liar.

So what are your opinions on your character?

 

[MBTMaster]

Doing Leni as well and I have to sympathise with her. You're a director and the bloke in charge of the country gives you the biggest budget for any film ever and virtually unlimited resources, do you take the moral high ground and refuse, perhaps at the penalty of death? Or do your eyes light up with cash symbols and get ready for the ride of your life?

Plus I don't intrinsically she is a bad person after all she was never a member of the Nazi party, never committed a crime and never persecuted any minorities in her films. At heart she was an artist.

Yes perhaps there are some inconsistencies within her story and her autobiography. But if your writing your memoires 50 years after the events I think you are, at least unconsciously going to go easy on yourself. What did people expect from The Sieve of Time]? that she would suddenly confess to being a war criminal?

Plus I reckon that purely because she was a successful woman film-maker there was a certain level of criticism reserved for her.

 

[meDAawesome]

My biggest problem with Leni is that she was so close-minded to the stuff going on around her ie. the persecution of her Jewish film colleagues. Also although she claimed to has no interest in politics, she was the one who wrote to Hitler to meet him and had many connections to high ranking Nazis, as well as attending Nazi rallies as an official member. To me the fact that there are so many holes in her story, you could fly a plane through them.

I don't claim her to be a war criminal but she just seems like such a shitty person such as her anti-semitic remarks towards critics of her films. Also her willingness to become a war reporter for the Nazis goes beyond just monetary gains, she wanted to further the cause of the NAjust tells me she lived in this little bubbl
I really can't buy her "just an artist" story,

If you haven't already I strongly suggest you watch Ray Muller's film the Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.

 

[MBTMaster]

Her criticism of Jews attacking her IMO is warranted. Her films are in no sense anti-semetic and she has never been herself.

There has been a concerted effort by Jewish organisations to boycott her films, for no other reason that she was connected to the Third Reich. If everything connected to the Third Reich was boycotted we wouldn't have ICBM's, space exploration, guided missiles, fanta, modern submarines and a bunch of other things.

She isn't persecuting the Jews, she never has, they have been attacking her.

And the point on the War Correspondence. She didn't know of the atrocities of the regime, if I were a film-maker and in a similar situation I would have probably done the same thing. You also leave out the fact that she observed war crimes of the Wehrmacht and almost immediately reported them to higher authorities. Does this make her complicit? I don't think so. Regardless she was only a correspondent for a few days maximum.

If I were in Germany at the time, I would have probably wanted to meet Hitler as well. The man who sorted out the economy, the man who gave people I know a job. The man who revived Germany from the ashes. Besides those persecuted I'm pretty sure there were a lot of people who wanted to meet with Hitler, particularly keeping in mind all of the propaganda.

 

[meDAawesome]

Wait are you serious? I was kinda liking your argument up until you tried justifying anti semitism? Dude wtf?

There was no organised effort by Jews to attack her film you are talking shit out of your ass, she was just a racist and called anyone who was critical of her 'art' (shit art at that) a jew. She even refused to pay a Jewish person who worked on one of her films, Julius Streicher, and contacted the Nazis she had connections with to have him arrested. Thank god he had fled to the Soviet Union by then. The fact is she exploited how close to the Nazis to further gains only for herself.

The world would be a better place without ICBM, guided rockets and ballistic missiles and isn't it funny how the USSR didn't need Nazis to reach space. Almost as though that the Nazis weren't required to do it huh.

Also her propaganda can hardly be called art. She had a choice, there is always a choice, and instead of taking a moral decision not to work for them, even if it meant not being able to direct and instead decided to make money. By making propaganda for the Nazis, and furthering their horrific cause makes her a criminal in my mind.

 

[MBTMaster]

Your claims are the unsubstantiated ones. Leni protected a friend Eduard Kunneke's Jewish wife as well, orchestrated the release of Ernst Jager's Jewish wife from a concentration camp, and prevented Robert Herlth's (a colleague) Jewish wife from being arrested by the Gestapo. Quite anti-semetic behaviour.

Her propaganda can and has been called art for years, I have already laid out my argument regarding her motives for her accepting the films, not dubious in any sense.

It makes no difference if she is a criminal in your mind, she didn't break the law.

 

[MBTMaster]

she wanted to further the cause of the NAjust tells me she lived in this little bubbl

If she had a fixed dedication to the Nazi cause why didn't she join the Nazi party or help them in any real sense during Third Reich's largest conflict, the Second World War?