Triumph of the Will

Riefenstahl was hired by the Reich to create an eternal record of the 1934 rally at Nuremberg, and that's exactly what she does. You might not become a Nazi after watching her film, but you will understand too clearly how Germany fell under Hitler's spell. The early crowd scenes remind one of nothing so much as Beatles concert footage (if only their fans were so well behaved!).

Like the fascists it monumentalizes, Triumph of the Will overlooks its own weaknesses--at nearly two hours, the speeches tend to drone on, and the repeated visual motifs are a little over-hypnotic, especially for modern viewers. But the occasional iconic vista (banners lining the streets of Nuremberg, Hitler parting a sea of 200,000 party members standing at attention) will electrify anyone into wakefulness. --Grant Balfour

If one understands the socio-political climate of Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s, one can clearly see what sentiments the film seeks to evoke and hence recognize its significance and brilliant execution. For example, Germany was in a state of shambles because of the global economic depression and many Germans feared an inevitable collapse to anarchy or Bolshevism. The opening scene starts with a Wagnerian piece and shows Hitler in a plane peering down from high above the clouds as he arrives for the rally. The scene sought to reassure a worried public that The Fuhrer was omnipotent, omniscient, and was coming down from the heavens to save a troubled nation in a godlike fashion. When he arrives at the stadium, Hitler is shown walking with his SA escort out of the crowd and towards the podium instead from behind the podium to look down at the crowd; this was to instill the notion that Hitler wasn't just another Berlin bureaucrat from the old failed Weimar Republic coming to talk down to a broken people; it was done to evoke the sense that he was a man of the people for the peole: selflessly arising out of a worried crowd of fellow Germans to lead them to a better and safer future. This particular scene was so influential in film that George Lucas adapted it (and many other scenes) for the closing scene to the original Star Wars when Luke, Han, and Chewy are decorated by Lea. Other scenes of happy German blonde and blue-eyed youths or common laborers performing paramilitary/social tasks were intended to evoke a proud sense of unity, purpose, and safety amongst all true German "volk" in these troubled times. In the background, the narrative voice recites how all German women should should bear many children for the Fatherland; how men should unite for the Fatherland and not Godless Bolshevism; how youths should work to better their nation; etc., etc.

The mass communication techniques of Riefenstahl and Goebbels are still used today by virtually every modern government and media firm. This film is important not only as a histiorical tool in understanding the rise of Nazism and the dynamics of facism, it is a very important landmark in the development of film, mass entertainment and mass communication in general. I strongly believe that every person who seeks to better understand their world and media see this film at least once and study it.

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