Film for Friday 14 March 2008

TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
Friday 14 March 2008

---

Triumph of the Will is probably the most celebrated, even notorious, documentary of the 20th century. Directed by German filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, the film dramatizes the 1934 Nuremberg rallies of Hitler's Nazi Germany.
    Using every cinematic means available, including careful staging, choice of camera angles, variation of scale, massed geometric formations, tracking shots, sky shots to express innocence and purity, musical scoring (mostly from the German composer, Richard Wagner's operas), and editing by a montage of attractions (that is, contrasts of scale or angle), Riefenstahl glorified Hitler's Third Reich as well as the new militaristic German nation. Though her film got her in trouble with the Allies after the war ended, there's no doubt it's a great work of art and one of the key films of the century. Its influence continues to the present day and can be seen in films as diverse as Star Wars and Gladiator.
    A special elevator was built for the many aerial shots in the film, and special tracks were laid down to facilitate (ease) her low-angle shots and, in one case, a stunning long backward dolly shot past a long geometric formation of German troops (see slide show, top left). A less spectacular but equally effective shot is the simple tilt from the reflections in a lake to the bridge above it (right).

---