The Leni Gaze
Notes on Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will'
“[Hitler] wanted a film showing the Congress through a non-expert eye, selecting just what was most artistically satisfying – in terms of spectacle…. He wanted a film which would move, appeal to, impress an audience which was not necessarily interested in politics.”
Leni Riefenstahl
Hitler: “What you fink? Not too camp?”
Goebbels: “Nah! Not the way YOU do it!”
IN MOST SCENES, the 32-year-old director, producer, co-writer and editor of Triumph of the Will (1935), is the only woman present – in this documentary about the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, with a cast of hundreds of thousands.
Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) herself is never seen because she is always behind the camera. She is the camera. Capturing the handsomest young men. She has a good eye. One might even say 'gay' eye. But let’s call it what it is: the Leni Gaze.
The Leni Gaze is the main reason a two-hour film about a party rally is much less tedious than it should be. And why, as propaganda, it is much more effective. Much more seductive. More than anyone else, Riefenstahl was responsible for making Nazism look beautiful. To paraphrase Stendhal, what is beauty if it is not a promise of happiness? Even if it turns out to be a horrible, nightmarish lie.