1. The document analyzes Leni Riefenstahl's photography work and films, arguing they promoted fascist aesthetics and ideals of physical perfection, community, and submission to an irresistible leader. 2. It asserts Riefenstahl's biographical details and claims about her relationship with the Nazi government are untrue and that she was in fact a key propagandist who directed propaganda films for the Nazis. 3. The document discusses fascist aesthetics as focusing on displays of physical perfection, sexuality converted into magnetism for leaders, and the idealization of violence and total power over others.

1. S usan
ONTAG
Fascinating Fascism
Text Interpretation By Xiren Wang, Sciences-Po, Paris, 19 April 2010

2. I II

3. First Exhibit
A book of 126 splendid colour photographs by Leni Riefenstahl
THE LAST OF THE NUBA. Photographs Dated From 1927-1972.

4. ‘‘
...and each of them shows some version of an ideal
presence, a kind of imperishable beauty... that only
gets gayer, more metallic and healthier-looking with old age.
’’

6. ‘‘
And here is a biographical sketch of Riefenstahl on
the dust jacket ... - full of disquieting lies.
’’

7. ... and soon she was
herself making - and
starring in - her own
talkies, such as ...
The Mountain film
1929

8. ‘‘
Mountain climbing in
Fanck’s films was a visually
irresistible metaphor for
unlimited aspiration toward
the high mystic goal...
...both beautiful and
terrifying, which was later
to become concrete in the
Führer - worship.
’’

9. Riefenstahl herself
directed 6 films, the first
of which was another
mountain film...
allegorizing the dark
themes of
Longing,
Purity,
& Death.

10. ‘‘
The facts, denied by R.
since the war, are that she
made Triumph of the Will
with unlimited facilities
and unstinting official
cooperation.
(there was never any
struggle between the
filmmaker and the German
minister of propaganda)
’’

12. Modern Day Influences
Throne March scene, Star Wars

13. ‘‘ is that
The truth
Olympia was
commissioned and
entirely financed by the
Nazi government.
(a dummy company was set
up in Riefenstahl’s name
because it was thought
unwise for the government
to appear as the producer)
’’

14. LIES
1. P. 74 «a biographical sketch ... full of disquieting
lies»
2. P. 75 «The facts are, of course, inaccurate or
invented...no such film exists.»
3. P. 77 «The next film Riefenstahl directed after The
Blue Light was not ‘a documentary on the
Nuremberg Rally in 1934’»
4. P. 77 «R. made four non-fiction films, not two»

15. LIES - continued
5. P. 78 «Except for the bit about her having once been
a household word in Nazi Germany, not one part of
the above (bio) is true.»
6. P. 80 «even the plausible-sounding legend of
Goebbles objecting to her footage of...Jesse Owens
is untrue.»
7. P. 80 «More lies: ...»
8. P. 81 «R. prefers to give the impression that... but
the truth is that 4 of the 6 films she directed were
documentaries made for and financed by the Nazi
government.»

16. LIES - continued
9. P. 81 «...no evidence supports R’s persistent claim
since the 1950s that Goebbels hated her...»
10.....

17. ‘‘
Because of her unlimited personal access to Hitler, R. was
precisely the only German filmmaker who was not responsible
to the Film Office of Goebbel’s ministry of propaganda.
’’

18. ‘‘
...it was not her ‘acquaintance’ with the Nazi
leadership but her activities as a leading
propagandist for the Third Reich that were at issue.
’’

19. ‘‘
It (The Last of the Nuba) was the final rewrite of the
past ... confirmation that she was always a beauty
freak rather than a horrid propagandist.
’’

20. ‘‘ are
...if the photographs
examined carefully... it
becomes clear that they
are continuous with her
Nazi work.
[It] is about a primitivist
ideal: a portrait of a people
subsisting in a pure harmony
with their environment,
untouched by ‘civilization’
’’

21. ‘‘
All four of R’s commissioned Nazi films... celebrate
the rebirth of the body and of community, mediated
through the worship of an irresistible leader.
’’

22. ‘‘ are tales
The Alpine fictions
of longing for high places,
of the challenge and ordeal
of the elemental, the
primitive;
they are about
the vertigo of power,
symbolized by the majesty
and beauty of mountains.
’’

23. ‘‘
The Nazi films are epics of achieved community, in which
everyday reality is transcended through
ecstatic self-control and submission; they are about
the triumph of power.
’’

24. Fascist Aesthetics
egomania vs. servitude

25. Fascist Aesthetics
‘‘
The fascist dramaturgy centers
on the orgiastic transactions
between mighty forces and
their puppets, uniformly garbed
and shown in ever swelling
numbers...
Fascist art glorifies
surrender, it exalts
mindlessness, it
glamorizes death
’’

26. ‘‘
Fascist art displays a utopian aesthetics - that of
physical perfection.
’’

27. Utopian Aesthetics
‘‘ implies an
...utopian aesthetics
ideal eroticism:
sexuality converted into the
magnetism of the leaders and
the joy of followers.
The fascist ideal is to
transform sexual energy into a
«spiritual» force, for the benefit
of the community.
’’

28. ‘‘is always present as a
The erotic (that is, women)
temptation, with the most admirable response being
a heroic repression of the sexual impulse.
’’

29. There is a general fantasy about
Uniforms
‘‘ SS?
Why the
Because the SS was the ideal
incarnation of fascism’s overt
assertion of the
righteousness of violence,
the right to have total power
over others and to treat them
as absolutely inferior.
’’

30. Sadomasochism
‘‘ and
Between sadomasochism
fascism there is a natural link.
«Fascism is theatre»...as is
sadomasochist sexuality.
Sadomasochism is to sex what
war is to civil life:
the magnificent
experience.

31. The End
...to which all sexual experience tends... is defilement, blasphemy.
‘‘
The fad for Nazi regalia indicates
something quite different: a
response to an oppressive
freedom of choice in sex, to
an unbearable degree of
individuality;
the rehearsal of enslavement
rather than its reenactment

32. Conscious Aesthetics
‘‘
Sadomasochism has always been
the furthest reach of the sexual
experience...
The colour is back,
the material is leather,
the seduction is beauty,
the justification is honesty,
the aim is ecstasy,
the fantasy is death.