Triumph of the Will

[osprey_archer]

This week, my assignment for my History of Fascism class was to watch Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, which I attempted to watch a few years ago when it was shown in the IU Cinema, but about half an hour in, I got so bored that I left.

This time I made it the whole way through, but the film remains intensely tedious. There are a few iconic shots, notably the blocks of SA and SS troops which later inspired certain shots of the Imperial troops in Star Wars, but there is also a fifteen-minute segment (how I wish I was exaggerating) which is just guys marching. They march with flags, they march with shovels, they march with swords, they march with drums, they march and march and march.

This time around I went in forewarned by that first attempt, but the first time round I left the theater feeling let down. I had gone in under the impression that the film was (to quote Roger Ebert) "great but evil." But it's not! It's just dull! Riefenstahl is fantastic at setting up a shot, and I strongly suspect that the years when many people experienced this film in the form of a few iconic still images really raised its reputation. The stills are tremendous, and when you look at them you can extrapolate a propaganda film of artistic genius and almost hypnotic power.

But the film itself, again quoting Ebert, is "paralyzingly dull, simpleminded, overlong and not even 'manipulative', because it is too clumsy to manipulate anyone but a true believer."

Now it may have been less dull in 1935: indeed, it might be quite riveting if you were watching it in an uneasy attempt to gauge Germany's resurgent military power. God, so many guys marching! But riveting for utterly non-artistic reasons.

Pace Wikipedia, there was apparently little attempt to promote the film internationally. I suspect the real intended audience was your average Nazi-in-the-street pining for some way to experience the Nuremberg Rally vicariously. It might perhaps be enjoyable if you were imagining yourself taking part in the interminable marching.

Comments

[sovay]

It might perhaps be enjoyable if you were imagining yourself taking part in the interminable marching.

If you can ever find television footage of the Nuremberg rallies, it is hilarious because it does not look like gorgeous choreography of the flawless Aryan bodies of the Third Reich, it looks like what happens if you are on the sidelines of a parade, i.e. there are crowds and you can sort of see what's going on. (spatch tells me the place to look is a 1999 documentary called Television Under the Swastika.)

[osprey_archer]

Riefenstahl monopolized all the best camera angles, clearly! Everyone else could film from the sidelines like home videographers in later decades.

[philomytha]

Huh, I'd also had the impression that it would be 'great but evil' too, not incredibly boring.

[osprey_archer]

It really has that reputation! It's so often described as this brilliant Nazi propaganda piece, a work of cinematic genius, with appropriate hand-wringing about the proper way to relate to Great Art that is also Evil... and doubtless with regard to other works this is a moral quandary, but here I sincerely believe that for most people the tedious experience of watching the thing would dispel all the mystique.

[lucymonster]

Kudos for getting through it! Triumph of the Will is one of those pieces I’ve decided I’m happier understanding by analysis than by personal consumption…that said, it sounds like the hype about its greatness might not last if more of us actually watched it the whole way through.

I suspect the real intended audience was your average Nazi-in-the-street pining for some way to experience the Nuremberg Rally vicariously. It might perhaps be enjoyable if you were imagining yourself taking part in the interminable marching.

This sounds about right.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I feel that its reputation for brilliance might be dispelled if more people watched it! Hard to feel that the thing is a rivetingly brilliant propaganda piece if half your classmates in film school fell asleep halfway through the screening.

[rachelmanija]

Haha. I am feeling so much schadenfreude at this review.

[osprey_archer]

I must admit that no one else in the class came in all "So this was extremely tedious!" so it's possible that other people genuinely do come out pumped by its artistic greatness... However SURELY even the diehard fans admit that fifteen straight minutes of marching is too much marching.