The Many Names of Leni Riefenstahl

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Biographies, , language: English, abstract: Leni Riefenstahl has been, and still is, a much-discussed person. She has been called many things, and given many labels. She has been called a liar, a man-eater, a Nazi, an extraordinary talent and a genius. She was an actress, director, dancer, filmmaker and photographer. In her career, she has done everything between making Nazi propaganda films, to taking photos of Mick Jagger, to photograph unknown tribes in Africa. Leni had many talents, but her great passion, and what she is best known for is her great filmmaking. She was the brain behind the masterpiece of propaganda films Triumph of the Will [1935], which she made for Hitler and the Nazi Party before World War 2. She was a close friend to Hitler before and during the war, and as described in Bach (2007 p.388) she is probably best known as 'Hitler's Filmmaker'.