🚀 go-pugleaf

Stacia wrote:

>   I wasn't impressed much with "TotW".  Some of the camerawork was
> sloppy -- very shaky, with the subject buried in a shadow, or scanning
> across a scene too quickly.  Occasionally there were scenes which were
> evocative of silents, especially in the first half of the film which has
> little or no dialogue.

Remember, when Triumph of the Will was made, the silents were not long
gone, and Riefenstahl herself came out of a school of silents that were
evocative, imagistic and striving to reach the viewers at an almost
preconscious level. (There was, in the early years of the silent
cinema, a resentment present in the artier types that sound had managed
to destroy a great art form, and Riefenstahl may have felt that way.
the way she made her documentaries suggests that she did.)



>   When Hitler gets off the plane 7 minutes into the film, it's like the
> Beatles coming to America 3 decades later.  I was horrified.  Women were
> screaming like he was Elvis, waving their hankies and beaming and giving
> him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
> myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
> his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.


People like to forget that Hitler was extraordinarily charismatic --
Albert Speer, on meeting Hitler for the first time, wondered if he was
Christ reborn, and Speer wasn't exactly a drooling simpleton. Neither
was Riefenstahl, and she adored him.

>   So I popped in the Riefenstahl bio immediately afterwards.  First, I
> was shocked at her physical appearance -- I have to confess her freakish
> mouth was the very first thing I noticed.  I also noticed that she was
> supposedly a great beauty and dancer in the 1920s and early 30s, but
> from the clips shown, I found her to be neither.

Standards have changed.

John Harkness

Stacia wrote:
> "Harkness" <caliban43@yahoo.com> writes:
> >Stacia wrote:
>
> >>   I wasn't impressed much with "TotW".  Some of the camerawork was
> >> sloppy -- very shaky, with the subject buried in a shadow, or scanning
> >> across a scene too quickly.  Occasionally there were scenes which were
> >> evocative of silents
>
> >Remember, when Triumph of the Will was made, the silents were not long
> >gone, and Riefenstahl herself came out of a school of silents that were
> >evocative, imagistic and striving to reach the viewers at an almost
> >preconscious level.
>
>   Yes, the bio made that pretty clear.  The cinematography was
> occasionally hideous, though, even for 1934; newsreels were not that
> shaky nor was the film so strangely overdeveloped, for example, and I
> didn't see much difference between a newsreel and "TotW" in many scenes.
>   I didn't see the recent restoration though, so I suppose some of the
> technical craptasticness may have been the fault of an unrestored print.
>

I saw a good 35mm print of Triumph at the National Film Theatre of
Canada back in the 70s. What you're seeing is a certain experimental
impulse on Riefenstahl's part. Also worth remembering is that Triumph
is hugely influential -- a lot of filmmakers saw and decided thay could
steal from it, including newsreel directors. you're looking at it
backwards.



>   I've seen a lot of footage of Hitler.  I confess that while I
> understood he was charismatic at the time, I never personally found him
> charismatic, for whatever reason -- 20/20 hindsight, most likely.  What
> struck me when I watched him this time were the smug little looks on his
> face during his speeches, when he'd get a huge positive reaction from
> the audience.  So pleased with himself.
>

It's funny you mention that -- I was just watching some old SCTV on DVD
and admiring Dave Thomas' work as Bob Hope, noting how the guys who'd
edited SCTV had caught one of the editing mannerisms from his show --
the little cut showing Hope savouring the laugh he was getting.


> >> mouth was the very first thing I noticed.  I also noticed that she was
> >> supposedly a great beauty and dancer in the 1920s and early 30s, but
> >> from the clips shown, I found her to be neither.
>
> >Standards have changed.
>
>   I'm a big fan of silents, and I have seen plenty of ladies of the same
> era as Riefenstahl's movies in dancing roles.  There's a difference
> between stylistic changes over the years and intense clumsiness.  Leni
> had lead feet, even slo-mo in "The Sacred Mountain" couldn't disguise
> it.
>

When I reviewed Holy Mountain, I think I described her as "Garbo
without the mystery."

Here's the review
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2003-08-28/movie_videodvd.php

John Harkness

I saw TotW about ten years ago at a campus film club showing. It's probably
important to remember that it's not so much a film of importance because of
it's deft camerawork or composition, rather of historical importance because
of the events it documents and the way that it documents the events. The
film is an important example of the use of propaganda. It is unnerving to
see how the events were orchestrated and stage managed to attempt to spin a
positive sympathetic portrayal of the Nazi party. That's what makes TotW
such a compelling film. Seems like so little has changed in seventy years.
The film was clear and unadulterated propaganda. What's probably saddest is
that we still haven't learned to see through the propaganda presented to us.

I saw "Wonderful Horrible" about six years ago when it played on TCM.
Riefenstahl was a real work, so unrepentant after all these years. Even
George Wallace renounced his earlier beliefs and actions. If nothing else,
Riefenstahl was a living example of pathological beliefs and behavior. If
Dante is accurate, I think what we saw in the record of Reifenstahl's later
life was that she was already inhabiting one of the circles of hell.

On 7/6/06 6:40 PM, "Stacia" wrote:

> I just watched "Triumph of the Will" for the first time last night,
> and finished the documentary "The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni
> Riefenstahl" today.  And I'll say right now I'm not going to reveal
> anything new or original but I thought I'd post, anyway, so there, see
> if I don't.
> I wasn't impressed much with "TotW".  Some of the camerawork was
> sloppy -- very shaky, with the subject buried in a shadow, or scanning
> across a scene too quickly.  Occasionally there were scenes which were
> evocative of silents, especially in the first half of the film which has
> little or no dialogue.
> When Hitler gets off the plane 7 minutes into the film, it's like the
> Beatles coming to America 3 decades later.  I was horrified.  Women were
> screaming like he was Elvis, waving their hankies and beaming and giving
> him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
> myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
> his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.
> And I wanted to know how anyone could possibly make this film and not
> know that they were constructing dangerous political propaganda.
> So I popped in the Riefenstahl bio immediately afterwards.  First, I
> was shocked at her physical appearance -- I have to confess her freakish
> mouth was the very first thing I noticed.  I also noticed that she was
> supposedly a great beauty and dancer in the 1920s and early 30s, but
> from the clips shown, I found her to be neither.
> One of the points the bio brought up often was the idea of Riefenstahl
> promoting a fascist aesthetic, of creating films with the ideals of
> capital-s Strength and capital-b Beauty.  She was certainly an admirer
> of the male physique, but I came away convinced she was not consciously
> crafting a fascist aesthetic.  Instead she seemed immature, like a
> little girl just discovering the male form, purposely dismissing women
> en masse as competition while viewing men as the pinnacle of humanity.
> Whether it was the lengthy scenes of half-clad soldiers in "TotW"
> wrestling with each other, the g-string-clad Olympic atheltes in slo-mo
> or the unflinching shots of nude, greased-up Nuba warriors, she was
> obviously focused on men in all of her work.  But I didn't think it was
> as much sinister as it was a retarded sexuality.
> Riefenstahl spent a lot of time denying things that obviously
> happened.  There's paperwork and photos and witnesses to prove she used
> Gypsy concentration camp prisoners as extras during "Tiefland".  How
> could she keep claiming it was a lie?
> It was continuous denial of everything that happened.  Lots of claims
> that she didn't know what was going on, claims she tried to talk to
> Hitler to change his mind (ha!), and willful ignorance on her part.  She
> insists at one point "TotW" was not propaganda, the award France gave
> her for the film proves it.  And then the doc switches to a clip of
> freakin' Goebbels giving her the award!  France didn't give her an
> award, NAZIS DID.  Who in the living hell did she think she was kidding?
> But her honesty betrayed her occasionally.  She twice said she wished
> she had never made "TotW" because of how it affected her, with
> absolutely no comment as to how it might have affected others
> negatively.  She suffered, she said, and yet did nothing wrong.  As
> though her 101 year long life of globetrotting and relative comfort was
> somehow equivalent to anything prisoners or soldiers or their families
> went through at orders of her friends the Nazis.
> Any sympathy I may have had for her vanished after watching the bio.
>
> Stacia
>

"Harkness" <caliban43@yahoo.com> writes:
>Stacia wrote:

>>   I wasn't impressed much with "TotW".  Some of the camerawork was
>> sloppy -- very shaky, with the subject buried in a shadow, or scanning
>> across a scene too quickly.  Occasionally there were scenes which were
>> evocative of silents

>Remember, when Triumph of the Will was made, the silents were not long
>gone, and Riefenstahl herself came out of a school of silents that were
>evocative, imagistic and striving to reach the viewers at an almost
>preconscious level.

  Yes, the bio made that pretty clear.  The cinematography was
occasionally hideous, though, even for 1934; newsreels were not that
shaky nor was the film so strangely overdeveloped, for example, and I
didn't see much difference between a newsreel and "TotW" in many scenes.
  I didn't see the recent restoration though, so I suppose some of the
technical craptasticness may have been the fault of an unrestored print.

>>   When Hitler gets off the plane 7 minutes into the film, it's like the
>> Beatles coming to America 3 decades later.  I was horrified. [ ... ]

>People like to forget that Hitler was extraordinarily charismatic --
>Albert Speer, on meeting Hitler for the first time, wondered if he was
>Christ reborn, and Speer wasn't exactly a drooling simpleton. Neither
>was Riefenstahl, and she adored him.

  Oh yes, she obviously thought he was magnificent, she had trouble
hiding that in her interviews.  Interestingly, the clips of Hitler in
Leni's bio were much more dynamic and evocative of his charisma than
anything in "TotW".
  I've seen a lot of footage of Hitler.  I confess that while I
understood he was charismatic at the time, I never personally found him
charismatic, for whatever reason -- 20/20 hindsight, most likely.  What
struck me when I watched him this time were the smug little looks on his
face during his speeches, when he'd get a huge positive reaction from
the audience.  So pleased with himself.

>> mouth was the very first thing I noticed.  I also noticed that she was
>> supposedly a great beauty and dancer in the 1920s and early 30s, but
>> from the clips shown, I found her to be neither.

>Standards have changed.

  I'm a big fan of silents, and I have seen plenty of ladies of the same
era as Riefenstahl's movies in dancing roles.  There's a difference
between stylistic changes over the years and intense clumsiness.  Leni
had lead feet, even slo-mo in "The Sacred Mountain" couldn't disguise
it.

Stacia

>   I wasn't impressed much with "TotW".  Some of the camerawork was
> sloppy -- very shaky, with the subject buried in a shadow, or scanning
> across a scene too quickly.  Occasionally there were scenes which were
> evocative of silents, especially in the first half of the film which has
> little or no dialogue.

though elaborately prepared, it's still a documentary. as such, certain
spontaneity and curde were unavoidable, despite all the preparations
otherwise.

>   When Hitler gets off the plane 7 minutes into the film, it's like the
> Beatles coming to America 3 decades later.  I was horrified.  Women were
> screaming like he was Elvis, waving their hankies and beaming and giving
> him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
> myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
> his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.

this is because you've been conditioned by the liberal/leftist
academedia.  not that hitler wasn't a scumbag which he was in spades.
but, you've been conditioned like a pavlovian dog to feel sick whenever
you see him. also, he's been made out to be such a symbol of evil that
it's even harder to admit that he was human and wasn't ALL bad.  we
want him to be totally evil, as we've been conditioned to see him as
devil incarnate.
when confronted with the far more complex reality, we don't know how to
process the information and just feel sick.   you've been conditioned
thru countless classroom sessions, PBS documentaries, articles which
always describe hitler as 'rabid' 'virulent', etc, etc.  not that he
wasn't, but it's been drummed into us day in and day out.
we aren't so conditioned regarding lenin, stalin, mao, or others like
him so when we see footages of them, we don't react as violently.

also, hitler did stand for peace and social equality--for germans. he
was a racist-socialist. he hated the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy.
he wanted all 'aryans' to have equal access to opportunities, wealth,
and power.  indeed under the nazis, there was a great deal of social
mobility and the best health care for all germans--the best in the
world.  and though he waged war, his ultimate goal was peace--on his
terms. the german-ruled european empire.
but, i unnerstand. you've been conditioned by the leftwing jew media to
hate, hate, hate hitler. he should be hated but you can't see anything
good or human about him.
you've been told that he's sooooo bad that you can't understand why
germans loved him. or why even you might see something positive about
him.
you've been brainwashed to be a good goy girl shikse, dimwittedly
toeing the line of the leftwing jews who, by the way, have neatly
covered up, denied, or suppressed all their hideous crimes; or
scapegoated others. for example, leftwing jews forced communism on
russia. but, because stalin outmanuevered them, stalin has been blamed
for EVERYTHING that went wrong in russia, as though jews had NOTHING to
do with it.  the old art of scapegoating. jews have often been
scapegoated by lowlife goyim. but in the 20th century, jews have
scapegoated stalin and slavs for their great crime against the russian
people. stalin was evil but he only carried out the evil of marx,
lenin, trotsky, zinoviev, bukhariin, and other scum leftwing jews.


>   And I wanted to know how anyone could possibly make this film and not
> know that they were constructing dangerous political propaganda.

same reason bruce springsteen sings hosannas to stalinist pete seeger.
same reason godard made 'weekend', training film for the khmer rouge to
kill all 'bourgeosie'.
same reason we don't face up to the evil of rap music which calls for
murder, rape, and denigration of women.
same reason the media went along with farrakhan's million man march.
farrakhan is surely black hitler but the media seemed to have forgotten
that. indeed, the ONLY reason media sometimes beat up on him was due to
his anti-semitism.
same reason hollywood is making a pro-che guevara movie... by leftwing
jew soderbergh.
same reason warren beatty made reds which celebrates the movement that
killed 25 million slavs and came to kill up to 100 million.
same reason michael moore lies like a tard but is loved by so many
leftists.
same reason why dovzhenko made 'earth' which glorifies collectivization
which claimed millions of lives.  and notice how NO movie scholar ever
calls that movie a disgusting lie.
same reason why people were ecstastic about battleship potemkin though
it was historically bullshi* and a hate film against christianity.

also, you have to see the film in the context of the time.  democracy
didn't work in germany. to be more accurate, it wasn't allowed to work
cuz of the great depression and national humiliation and such.  up til
1934, all the great crimes had been committed by commies.  even by
1939, mussolini had killed maybe a 1000, if that.  hitler had killed
less than a 1000, hard as it is to believe.  by 1939, USSR had killed
15 million at least.
meanwhile, democracies were all crumbling under malaise and depression.
 so in 1934, hitler didn't seem so bad. yes, he talked alot of shi* but
no one took it too seriously.  besides, conservatives thought they
could control him. also, they argued that if radicals are brought into
the process, they would naturally mellow.
this is the argument in favor of working with hamas or castro.  accept
them and do business with them and they will mellow.  yeah, hugo chavez
is really mellowing as we buy gazillions of oil from him, aint he?

also, hitler wasn't the only racial bigot during that period.  britain
ruled over a great world empire where natives were subjects of the
queen whether they wanted to be or not.  french were also imperialists,
mean nasty ones, forcing africans and vietnamese to eat croissants.
america was built on anglos wiping out injuns and enslaving blacks.
teddy roosevelt had once said only good injun is a dead injun.  US had
segregation. US had anti-yellow policy to isolate asiatics in ghettos
and forbid any asian ho's immigrating cuz chinee might multiply like
cockroaches.
and though hitler had dreams of lebensraum, of taking land from
russkies, americans had taken land from injuns and a huge chunk from
the beaners. japs only attacked pearl harbor but it was US that
swallowed it whole and made it a US state. and australia and new
zealand were built on whiteys wiping out much of the native population;
as they were savages, it was prolly justifiable somewhat.  and so on.
so seen in the context of the time, hitler wasn't totally out of line
or all that extreme.  he talked alot of tough shi* and such talk was so
prevalent that no one really thought that he really really meant it as
in really carrying out all his policies to the hilt.


>   So I popped in the Riefenstahl bio immediately afterwards.  First, I
> was shocked at her physical appearance -- I have to confess her freakish
> mouth was the very first thing I noticed.  I also noticed that she was
> supposedly a great beauty and dancer in the 1920s and early 30s, but
> from the clips shown, I found her to be neither.

same here.  she was at best, okay. but, maybe germans like that kind of
sturdy big look. look at dietrich. not a real beauty. still, dietrich
had a certain charm.  rief just looked tall, lanky, and clumsy as young
ho.
but, she's no uglier than lilian hellmann, betty friedan, andrea
dworkin, bela abzug, and other hideous leftwing jewesses.

>   One of the points the bio brought up often was the idea of Riefenstahl
> promoting a fascist aesthetic, of creating films with the ideals of
> capital-s Strength and capital-b Beauty.  She was certainly an admirer
> of the male physique, but I came away convinced she was not consciously
> crafting a fascist aesthetic.

fascist aesthetics is a monumentalization of beauty and strength.  you
seem to think fascist aesthetic is just thuggery. hardly. thuggery is
animalism as in rap; savage power in the name of gangsterism and
criminality. fascist conception of power is that power must be wedded
to and must serve higher principles that uphold civilization.  nazis
went funny with this notion, but they had a very narrow understanding
of civilization. their great crime was they didn't appreciate the
greatness of other cultures--that they too have a fascist reason to
survive and thrive.

>  Instead she seemed immature, like a
> little girl just discovering the male form, purposely dismissing women
> en masse as competition while viewing men as the pinnacle of humanity.

it's more like nazis emphasized male power and she had to work with
what was put before her.  also, as a woman, she was more likely into
men than women. similarly, alot of male directors are nutty about
women.

> Whether it was the lengthy scenes of half-clad soldiers in "TotW"
> wrestling with each other, the g-string-clad Olympic atheltes in slo-mo
> or the unflinching shots of nude, greased-up Nuba warriors, she was
> obviously focused on men in all of her work.  But I didn't think it was
> as much sinister as it was a retarded sexuality.

i don't think the NUBA community had a chapter of NOW.  it was a fierce
male dominated tribe and rief shot what was most striking about that
culture. same would apply to most primitive tribes.
most 19th photos of indian tribes are of chieftains and warriors, not
squaws and kids. is that sexually retarded?

>   Riefenstahl spent a lot of time denying things that obviously
> happened.  There's paperwork and photos and witnesses to prove she used
> Gypsy concentration camp prisoners as extras during "Tiefland".  How
> could she keep claiming it was a lie?
>   It was continuous denial of everything that happened.  Lots of claims
> that she didn't know what was going on, claims she tried to talk to
> Hitler to change his mind (ha!), and willful ignorance on her part.  She
> insists at one point "TotW" was not propaganda, the award France gave
> her for the film proves it.  And then the doc switches to a clip of
> freakin' Goebbels giving her the award!  France didn't give her an
> award, NAZIS DID.  Who in the living hell did she think she was kidding?
>   But her honesty betrayed her occasionally.  She twice said she wished
> she had never made "TotW" because of how it affected her, with
> absolutely no comment as to how it might have affected others
> negatively.  She suffered, she said, and yet did nothing wrong.  As
> though her 101 year long life of globetrotting and relative comfort was
> somehow equivalent to anything prisoners or soldiers or their families
> went through at orders of her friends the Nazis.
>   Any sympathy I may have had for her vanished after watching the bio.
>

i agree. she was an inveterate liar. indeed, the worst kind of liar;
one who believes in one's own lies.  i think she was a vain, petty,
shallow, contemptuous, pompous, bogus, doltess.  still,  she was
talented.
but, i think her main flaw was't ideological but personalitical.  she
was born with a lying, bullshi* personality.  there are people like her
everywhere, in the arts, politics, etc.
the exception was she was forced to face up to her past while most are
not.  dovzhenko was never forced to face up to his past. no one has
pressed godard to come clean for supporting maoism. indeed, he's still
worshipped by his minions.
chantal ackerman, that lowlife skankass slut lesbian leftwing jewess,
has made 'to the east' a movie that grieves over the fall of communism.
never mind that her leftwing jew kind imposed a system on slavs that
killed millions. she feels no shame, no guilt, no nothing. she's not
sad because communism killed millions; only because it failed.
same with sally potter, another lying, lowlife leftwing jew bitch who
sings hosannas to communism in 'yes'.  they've never faced up to the
reality of communism.
yes, rief was a scumbag. a bitch, a liar. but, i'd say she was no worse
than godard, akerman, dovzhenko, eisenstein, and so many others.
but, being associated with the right, the liberal/left dominated
academedia has picked ONLY on her(and griffith).
you can deny the gulag in europe and teach at a top university in
europe.
raise questions about the holocaust and you end in jail like david
irving.

anthead wrote:
> >   I wasn't impressed much with "TotW".  Some of the camerawork was
> > sloppy -- very shaky, with the subject buried in a shadow, or scanning
> > across a scene too quickly.  Occasionally there were scenes which were
> > evocative of silents, especially in the first half of the film which has
> > little or no dialogue.
>
> though elaborately prepared, it's still a documentary. as such, certain
> spontaneity and curde were unavoidable, despite all the preparations
> otherwise.
>
> >   When Hitler gets off the plane 7 minutes into the film, it's like the
> > Beatles coming to America 3 decades later.  I was horrified.  Women were
> > screaming like he was Elvis, waving their hankies and beaming and giving
> > him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
> > myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
> > his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.
>
> this is because you've been conditioned by the liberal/leftist
> academedia.  not that hitler wasn't a scumbag which he was in spades.

How was he a scumbag? If it wasn't for Hitler and the holocaust,
there'd be no United Nations and there'd be no political Israel. The
Jews would not be as popular in entertainment and elsewhere, they would
still be in their ghettos. The holocaust was the biggest love letter by
a gentile ever sent to the Jews, and according to Rabbi Harry Waton,
Hitler was the best gentile for them since Baleem. The only reason they
have a "Holocaust industry" is so they can express their thanks in the
backwards and inverted way that is their style, else they would have
written every Holocaust book and movie in Hebrew, instead of gentile
tongues and images. Hell, even Triumph of the Will wouldn't be so
popular and well-preserved if it wasn't for the so many Jews that love
the movie so.

> but, you've been conditioned like a pavlovian dog to feel sick whenever
> you see him. also, he's been made out to be such a symbol of evil that
> it's even harder to admit that he was human and wasn't ALL bad.  we
> want him to be totally evil, as we've been conditioned to see him as
> devil incarnate.
> when confronted with the far more complex reality, we don't know how to
> process the information and just feel sick.   you've been conditioned
> thru countless classroom sessions, PBS documentaries, articles which
> always describe hitler as 'rabid' 'virulent', etc, etc.  not that he
> wasn't, but it's been drummed into us day in and day out.
> we aren't so conditioned regarding lenin, stalin, mao, or others like
> him so when we see footages of them, we don't react as violently.
>
> also, hitler did stand for peace and social equality--for germans. he
> was a racist-socialist. he hated the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy.
> he wanted all 'aryans' to have equal access to opportunities, wealth,
> and power.  indeed under the nazis, there was a great deal of social
> mobility and the best health care for all germans--the best in the
> world.  and though he waged war, his ultimate goal was peace--on his
> terms. the german-ruled european empire.
> but, i unnerstand. you've been conditioned by the leftwing jew media to
> hate, hate, hate hitler. he should be hated but you can't see anything
> good or human about him.
> you've been told that he's sooooo bad that you can't understand why
> germans loved him. or why even you might see something positive about
> him.
> you've been brainwashed to be a good goy girl shikse, dimwittedly
> toeing the line of the leftwing jews who, by the way, have neatly
> covered up, denied, or suppressed all their hideous crimes; or
> scapegoated others. for example, leftwing jews forced communism on
> russia. but, because stalin outmanuevered them, stalin has been blamed
> for EVERYTHING that went wrong in russia, as though jews had NOTHING to
> do with it.  the old art of scapegoating. jews have often been
> scapegoated by lowlife goyim. but in the 20th century, jews have
> scapegoated stalin and slavs for their great crime against the russian
> people. stalin was evil but he only carried out the evil of marx,
> lenin, trotsky, zinoviev, bukhariin, and other scum leftwing jews.
>
>
> >   And I wanted to know how anyone could possibly make this film and not
> > know that they were constructing dangerous political propaganda.
>
> same reason bruce springsteen sings hosannas to stalinist pete seeger.
> same reason godard made 'weekend', training film for the khmer rouge to
> kill all 'bourgeosie'.
> same reason we don't face up to the evil of rap music which calls for
> murder, rape, and denigration of women.
> same reason the media went along with farrakhan's million man march.
> farrakhan is surely black hitler but the media seemed to have forgotten
> that. indeed, the ONLY reason media sometimes beat up on him was due to
> his anti-semitism.
> same reason hollywood is making a pro-che guevara movie... by leftwing
> jew soderbergh.
> same reason warren beatty made reds which celebrates the movement that
> killed 25 million slavs and came to kill up to 100 million.
> same reason michael moore lies like a tard but is loved by so many
> leftists.
> same reason why dovzhenko made 'earth' which glorifies collectivization
> which claimed millions of lives.  and notice how NO movie scholar ever
> calls that movie a disgusting lie.
> same reason why people were ecstastic about battleship potemkin though
> it was historically bullshi* and a hate film against christianity.
>
> also, you have to see the film in the context of the time.  democracy
> didn't work in germany. to be more accurate, it wasn't allowed to work
> cuz of the great depression and national humiliation and such.  up til
> 1934, all the great crimes had been committed by commies.  even by
> 1939, mussolini had killed maybe a 1000, if that.  hitler had killed
> less than a 1000, hard as it is to believe.  by 1939, USSR had killed
> 15 million at least.
> meanwhile, democracies were all crumbling under malaise and depression.
>  so in 1934, hitler didn't seem so bad. yes, he talked alot of shi* but
> no one took it too seriously.  besides, conservatives thought they
> could control him. also, they argued that if radicals are brought into
> the process, they would naturally mellow.
> this is the argument in favor of working with hamas or castro.  accept
> them and do business with them and they will mellow.  yeah, hugo chavez
> is really mellowing as we buy gazillions of oil from him, aint he?
>
> also, hitler wasn't the only racial bigot during that period.  britain
> ruled over a great world empire where natives were subjects of the
> queen whether they wanted to be or not.  french were also imperialists,
> mean nasty ones, forcing africans and vietnamese to eat croissants.
> america was built on anglos wiping out injuns and enslaving blacks.
> teddy roosevelt had once said only good injun is a dead injun.  US had
> segregation. US had anti-yellow policy to isolate asiatics in ghettos
> and forbid any asian ho's immigrating cuz chinee might multiply like
> cockroaches.
> and though hitler had dreams of lebensraum, of taking land from
> russkies, americans had taken land from injuns and a huge chunk from
> the beaners. japs only attacked pearl harbor but it was US that
> swallowed it whole and made it a US state. and australia and new
> zealand were built on whiteys wiping out much of the native population;
> as they were savages, it was prolly justifiable somewhat.  and so on.
> so seen in the context of the time, hitler wasn't totally out of line
> or all that extreme.  he talked alot of tough shi* and such talk was so
> prevalent that no one really thought that he really really meant it as
> in really carrying out all his policies to the hilt.
>
>
> >   So I popped in the Riefenstahl bio immediately afterwards.  First, I
> > was shocked at her physical appearance -- I have to confess her freakish
> > mouth was the very first thing I noticed.  I also noticed that she was
> > supposedly a great beauty and dancer in the 1920s and early 30s, but
> > from the clips shown, I found her to be neither.
>
> same here.  she was at best, okay. but, maybe germans like that kind of
> sturdy big look. look at dietrich. not a real beauty. still, dietrich
> had a certain charm.  rief just looked tall, lanky, and clumsy as young
> ho.
> but, she's no uglier than lilian hellmann, betty friedan, andrea
> dworkin, bela abzug, and other hideous leftwing jewesses.
>
> >   One of the points the bio brought up often was the idea of Riefenstahl
> > promoting a fascist aesthetic, of creating films with the ideals of
> > capital-s Strength and capital-b Beauty.  She was certainly an admirer
> > of the male physique, but I came away convinced she was not consciously
> > crafting a fascist aesthetic.
>
> fascist aesthetics is a monumentalization of beauty and strength.  you
> seem to think fascist aesthetic is just thuggery. hardly. thuggery is
> animalism as in rap; savage power in the name of gangsterism and
> criminality. fascist conception of power is that power must be wedded
> to and must serve higher principles that uphold civilization.  nazis
> went funny with this notion, but they had a very narrow understanding
> of civilization. their great crime was they didn't appreciate the
> greatness of other cultures--that they too have a fascist reason to
> survive and thrive.
>
> >  Instead she seemed immature, like a
> > little girl just discovering the male form, purposely dismissing women
> > en masse as competition while viewing men as the pinnacle of humanity.
>
> it's more like nazis emphasized male power and she had to work with
> what was put before her.  also, as a woman, she was more likely into
> men than women. similarly, alot of male directors are nutty about
> women.
>
> > Whether it was the lengthy scenes of half-clad soldiers in "TotW"
> > wrestling with each other, the g-string-clad Olympic atheltes in slo-mo
> > or the unflinching shots of nude, greased-up Nuba warriors, she was
> > obviously focused on men in all of her work.  But I didn't think it was
> > as much sinister as it was a retarded sexuality.
>
> i don't think the NUBA community had a chapter of NOW.  it was a fierce
> male dominated tribe and rief shot what was most striking about that
> culture. same would apply to most primitive tribes.
> most 19th photos of indian tribes are of chieftains and warriors, not
> squaws and kids. is that sexually retarded?
>
> >   Riefenstahl spent a lot of time denying things that obviously
> > happened.  There's paperwork and photos and witnesses to prove she used
> > Gypsy concentration camp prisoners as extras during "Tiefland".  How
> > could she keep claiming it was a lie?
> >   It was continuous denial of everything that happened.  Lots of claims
> > that she didn't know what was going on, claims she tried to talk to
> > Hitler to change his mind (ha!), and willful ignorance on her part.  She
> > insists at one point "TotW" was not propaganda, the award France gave
> > her for the film proves it.  And then the doc switches to a clip of
> > freakin' Goebbels giving her the award!  France didn't give her an
> > award, NAZIS DID.  Who in the living hell did she think she was kidding?
> >   But her honesty betrayed her occasionally.  She twice said she wished
> > she had never made "TotW" because of how it affected her, with
> > absolutely no comment as to how it might have affected others
> > negatively.  She suffered, she said, and yet did nothing wrong.  As
> > though her 101 year long life of globetrotting and relative comfort was
> > somehow equivalent to anything prisoners or soldiers or their families
> > went through at orders of her friends the Nazis.
> >   Any sympathy I may have had for her vanished after watching the bio.
> >
>
> i agree. she was an inveterate liar. indeed, the worst kind of liar;
> one who believes in one's own lies.  i think she was a vain, petty,
> shallow, contemptuous, pompous, bogus, doltess.  still,  she was
> talented.
> but, i think her main flaw was't ideological but personalitical.  she
> was born with a lying, bullshi* personality.  there are people like her
> everywhere, in the arts, politics, etc.
> the exception was she was forced to face up to her past while most are
> not.  dovzhenko was never forced to face up to his past. no one has
> pressed godard to come clean for supporting maoism. indeed, he's still
> worshipped by his minions.
> chantal ackerman, that lowlife skankass slut lesbian leftwing jewess,
> has made 'to the east' a movie that grieves over the fall of communism.
> never mind that her leftwing jew kind imposed a system on slavs that
> killed millions. she feels no shame, no guilt, no nothing. she's not
> sad because communism killed millions; only because it failed.
> same with sally potter, another lying, lowlife leftwing jew bitch who
> sings hosannas to communism in 'yes'.  they've never faced up to the
> reality of communism.
> yes, rief was a scumbag. a bitch, a liar. but, i'd say she was no worse
> than godard, akerman, dovzhenko, eisenstein, and so many others.
> but, being associated with the right, the liberal/left dominated
> academedia has picked ONLY on her(and griffith).
> you can deny the gulag in europe and teach at a top university in
> europe.
> raise questions about the holocaust and you end in jail like david
> irving.

Matthew D. wrote:
> anthead wrote:
> > >   I wasn't impressed much with "TotW".  Some of the camerawork was
> > > sloppy -- very shaky, with the subject buried in a shadow, or scanning
> > > across a scene too quickly.  Occasionally there were scenes which were
> > > evocative of silents, especially in the first half of the film which has
> > > little or no dialogue.
> >
> > though elaborately prepared, it's still a documentary. as such, certain
> > spontaneity and curde were unavoidable, despite all the preparations
> > otherwise.
> >
> > >   When Hitler gets off the plane 7 minutes into the film, it's like the
> > > Beatles coming to America 3 decades later.  I was horrified.  Women were
> > > screaming like he was Elvis, waving their hankies and beaming and giving
> > > him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
> > > myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
> > > his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.
> >
> > this is because you've been conditioned by the liberal/leftist
> > academedia.  not that hitler wasn't a scumbag which he was in spades.
>
> How was he a scumbag? If it wasn't for Hitler and the holocaust,
> there'd be no United Nations and there'd be no political Israel. The
> Jews would not be as popular in entertainment and elsewhere, they would
> still be in their ghettos. The holocaust was the biggest love letter by
> a gentile ever sent to the Jews, and according to Rabbi Harry Waton,
> Hitler was the best gentile for them since Baleem. The only reason they
> have a "Holocaust industry" is so they can express their thanks in the
> backwards and inverted way that is their style, else they would have
> written every Holocaust book and movie in Hebrew, instead of gentile
> tongues and images. Hell, even Triumph of the Will wouldn't be so
> popular and well-preserved if it wasn't for the so many Jews that love
> the movie so.

Or Balaam, I mean. Whatever.

Stacia wrote:
> "Matthew D." <stalepie@comcast.net> writes:
> >anthead wrote:
>
> >> > him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
> >> > myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
> >> > his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.
> >>
> >> this is because you've been conditioned by the liberal/leftist
> >> academedia.  not that hitler wasn't a scumbag which he was in spades.
>
> >How was he a scumbag? If it wasn't for Hitler and the holocaust,
> >there'd be no United Nations and there'd be no political Israel. The
> >Jews would not be as popular in entertainment and elsewhere,
>
>   Ah, the smell of Usenet in the morning.  Smells like... runny llama
> shit.
>   This is a new record for me.  I've never killfiled one of my own
> threads so quickly.
>
> Stacia

YOU didn't do it.  it was the leftwing jew pulling the strings as
you've been brainwashed.

still, i agree that the above poster is dead wrong and silly.  hitler
did favor to the jews ACCIDENTALLY and only cuz he failed. he was scum,
like leftwing jews like marx and lenin. all radicals.

anthead wrote:
> Stacia wrote:
> > "Matthew D." <stalepie@comcast.net> writes:
> > >anthead wrote:
> >
> > >> > him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
> > >> > myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
> > >> > his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.
> > >>
> > >> this is because you've been conditioned by the liberal/leftist
> > >> academedia.  not that hitler wasn't a scumbag which he was in spades.
> >
> > >How was he a scumbag? If it wasn't for Hitler and the holocaust,
> > >there'd be no United Nations and there'd be no political Israel. The
> > >Jews would not be as popular in entertainment and elsewhere,
> >
> >   Ah, the smell of Usenet in the morning.  Smells like... runny llama
> > shit.
> >   This is a new record for me.  I've never killfiled one of my own
> > threads so quickly.
> >
> > Stacia
>
> YOU didn't do it.  it was the leftwing jew pulling the strings as
> you've been brainwashed.
>
> still, i agree that the above poster is dead wrong and silly.  hitler
> did favor to the jews ACCIDENTALLY and only cuz he failed. he was scum,
> like leftwing jews like marx and lenin. all radicals.

:P

"Matthew D." <stalepie@comcast.net> writes:
>anthead wrote:

>> > him flowers.  Hitler looked unendingly pleased with himself and I felt
>> > myself put up an imaginary wall as a defense mechanism.  Coupled with
>> > his speeches later which preached social equality and peace, I felt ill.
>>
>> this is because you've been conditioned by the liberal/leftist
>> academedia.  not that hitler wasn't a scumbag which he was in spades.

>How was he a scumbag? If it wasn't for Hitler and the holocaust,
>there'd be no United Nations and there'd be no political Israel. The
>Jews would not be as popular in entertainment and elsewhere,

  Ah, the smell of Usenet in the morning.  Smells like... runny llama
shit.
  This is a new record for me.  I've never killfiled one of my own
threads so quickly.

Stacia

anthead wrote:
<snip>
>
> also, hitler did stand for peace and social equality--for germans.

Is that why he led them into a world war ?

>he
> was a racist-socialist. he hated the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy.

Is that why he loved wining and dining with them ?

> he wanted all 'aryans' to have equal access to opportunities, wealth,
> and power.

And to end up in a ditch covered in petrol ?


>indeed under the nazis, there was a great deal of social
> mobility

As under all gangster regimes.

>and the best health care for all germans--the best in the
> world.

All Germans ? Try again.

>and though he waged war, his ultimate goal was peace--on his
> terms. the german-ruled european empire.

Anyone who claims to know what a politician really thinks/thought is
either a propagandist or naive.


><snip>

unglued wrote:
> anthead wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > also, hitler did stand for peace and social equality--for germans.
>
> Is that why he led them into a world war ?

moron

>
> >he
> > was a racist-socialist. he hated the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy.
>
> Is that why he loved wining and dining with them ?
>
> > he wanted all 'aryans' to have equal access to opportunities, wealth,
> > and power.
>
> And to end up in a ditch covered in petrol ?
>
>
> >indeed under the nazis, there was a great deal of social
> > mobility
>
> As under all gangster regimes.
>
> >and the best health care for all germans--the best in the
> > world.
>
> All Germans ? Try again.



>
> >and though he waged war, his ultimate goal was peace--on his
> > terms. the german-ruled european empire.
>
> Anyone who claims to know what a politician really thinks/thought is
> either a propagandist or naive.
>
>
> ><snip>

anthead wrote:

> still, i agree that the above poster is dead wrong and silly.  hitler
> did favor to the jews ACCIDENTALLY and only cuz he failed. he was scum,
> like leftwing jews like marx and lenin. all radicals.

What do you mean by leftwing jews?

i am not gonig to attack you in response, i just wanted to know if you
had something to say that i couldn't predict

Matthew D. wrote:
> anthead wrote:
>
> > still, i agree that the above poster is dead wrong and silly.  hitler
> > did favor to the jews ACCIDENTALLY and only cuz he failed. he was scum,
> > like leftwing jews like marx and lenin. all radicals.
>
> What do you mean by leftwing jews?
>

we must make a distinction between jews and leftwing jews(radical
marxists and their allies).  most jews are good people seeking a decent
life, but leftwing jews are radical know-it-all haters who think they
have the right to rule over all of us.  they wanna force
'egalitarianism' on all of us and rid us of all our 'superstititions'.
so what did leftwing jewish ideology do in the slavic nations? kill
millions and millions.

consider the russian revolution.  tsar was overthrown. kerensky was in
a power. a decent man.  a social democrat committed to parliamentarism
and also a patriot who wanted to defend his nation against the germans.
but, what did leftwing jewish bolsheviks do? they undermined democracy,
national unity and resolve, and betrayed the nation and led it to
defeat and why??  simply to bring down kerensky and to set up a
totalistic system where they could wipe out all opposition.
and, these fanatics and psychos had supporters all over the world,
mostly leftwing jews.

similarly, we must make a distinction between german and nazi
germans(and nazi-sympathizing allies).  we mustn't blame all germans
for nazism. and we mustn't blame all jews for marxism. but, leftwing
jewishness is a pathology inherent in certain aspect of jewish culture
as nazism was an extreme manifestation of a latent pathology in german
culture.  all cultures have latent pathologies. when they spread and
infect the whole body, you have serious trouble.

but, we must stress the evil of leftwing jews and not target all jews
because any honest look at german history will prove that most german
jews were patriotic, loyal, and decent people.  hitler's targeting all
the jews was a great crime, and he must be remembered as sicko scumbag.

anthead wrote:
> Matthew D. wrote:
> > anthead wrote:
> >
> > > still, i agree that the above poster is dead wrong and silly.  hitler
> > > did favor to the jews ACCIDENTALLY and only cuz he failed. he was scum,
> > > like leftwing jews like marx and lenin. all radicals.
> >
> > What do you mean by leftwing jews?
> >
>
> we must make a distinction between jews and leftwing jews(radical
> marxists and their allies).  most jews are good people seeking a decent
> life, but leftwing jews are radical know-it-all haters who think they
> have the right to rule over all of us.  they wanna force
> 'egalitarianism' on all of us and rid us of all our 'superstititions'.
> so what did leftwing jewish ideology do in the slavic nations? kill
> millions and millions.

Well doesn't the Bible say that Israel is supposed to rule the nations?


>
> consider the russian revolution.  tsar was overthrown. kerensky was in
> a power. a decent man.  a social democrat committed to parliamentarism
> and also a patriot who wanted to defend his nation against the germans.
> but, what did leftwing jewish bolsheviks do? they undermined democracy,
> national unity and resolve, and betrayed the nation and led it to
> defeat and why??  simply to bring down kerensky and to set up a
> totalistic system where they could wipe out all opposition.
> and, these fanatics and psychos had supporters all over the world,
> mostly leftwing jews.

ok

>
> similarly, we must make a distinction between german and nazi
> germans(and nazi-sympathizing allies).  we mustn't blame all germans
> for nazism. and we mustn't blame all jews for marxism. but, leftwing
> jewishness is a pathology inherent in certain aspect of jewish culture
> as nazism was an extreme manifestation of a latent pathology in german
> culture.  all cultures have latent pathologies. when they spread and
> infect the whole body, you have serious trouble.
>
> but, we must stress the evil of leftwing jews and not target all jews
> because any honest look at german history will prove that most german
> jews were patriotic, loyal, and decent people.  hitler's targeting all
> the jews was a great crime, and he must be remembered as sicko scumbag.

Yes, I guess so. I think Jews are fine. I think Nazis are fine. They're
both terrific.

anthead wrote:

> but, we must stress the evil of leftwing jews and not target all jews
> because any honest look at german history will prove that most german
> jews were patriotic, loyal, and decent people.  hitler's targeting all
> the jews was a great crime, and he must be remembered as sicko scumbag.

Gentiles need scapegoats too, and what better a scapegoat, what more
eternal, than the filthy Jew? Werner Herzog said the Jews are
invincible, and Stanley Kubrick said Hitler was right about everything.

Matthew D. wrote:
> unglued wrote:
> > anthead wrote:
> > <snip>
> > >
> > > also, hitler did stand for peace and social equality--for germans.
> >
> > Is that why he led them into a world war ?
>
> moron

That's me, it's probably hereditery, my grandfather put his life on the
line fighting the nazis so pencil dick leather fetischists 60 years
later could hold forth and say Hitler was misunderstod and the victim
of a bum rap, instead of staying at home, taking care of his young wife
and babies, minding his business and amassing a small fortune like the
weasels and the traitors. Definately a bad career move.

>
<snip>