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Ray Müller’s ‘The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl’ (1993) begins with a noble but problematic statement – that it will approach its protagonist “without preconceptions”. The viewer is immediately presented with an indefensible claim to impartiality, balance and hence objectivity. Müller divides his film evenly into the four artistic epochs of Riefenstahl’s adult life. Roughly equal screen time is given to her mountain films, her associations with the Nazi party, her experiences with the extinct Nuba tribes and, most recently, her underwater photography. The sections are not neatly divided with one following on from the other; Müller returns to certain points in Riefenstahl’s life as new revelations inform earlier observations. This gives the film a literal balance of content, but also a veneer of objectivity which ostensibly justifies the claim of being “without preconceptions”. But the realities of documentary production are never so straightforward and transparent.
From the abundance of comments and opinions permeating the internet, it seems that the pervading question for most viewers of ‘The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl’ is to what extent Riefenstahl was complicit with Hitler’s regime and whether or not she was a Nazi or an anti-Semite herself. In ‘Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens)’ (1935), Riefenstahl created for the Nazi party what is considered the most successful propaganda film of all time, but proof of her complicity with Nazi policy or sympathy with Nazi ideology is sparse and unconvincing. Even though Müller does subject Riefenstahl to on-camera interrogation about her involvement with Hitler personally and Nazi ideology generally, I do not believe this is Müller’s most urgent consideration; in fact, it’s the predictable question that rises above a superficial reading of Müller’s film. ‘The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl’ is better approached as a character-study, rather than as a biography; it is an artistic product, not a TV-style historical document. Take the scene where Riefenstahl is mortified at the request that she walk and talk at the same time - such a scene has no place in a biography. Covering the life span of its vibrant 91-year-old protagonist (at three hours running time) and the complexities and contradictions of character, demands the skill and intelligence of an expert craftsman. While such revelatory material may aid in positing an answer to that first question, it is certainly not its primary purpose. Its function (and its reason for inclusion by Müller) is to expose deeper character traits – those that the media-savvy Riefenstahl would prefer to lie unused on the cutting room floor. Such an approach to the construction of documentary is deceptively rich in point of view. It would be ridiculous to make the assumption that Muller shows Riefenstahl’s aggressive temper and controlling instincts because he is implying that she was a Nazi. Her attempts to control aspects of the film’s production are more likely to reflect the mark of a perfectionist or an aesthete, rather than a fascist. Nevertheless, Müller’s decision to include these scenes contains some important implications for the film’s objectivity.
Müller’s mastery of his craft is exemplified nowhere better than in his treatment of the ‘gypsy extras issue’. He lays the information matter-of-factly in front of us. Riefenstahl, in need of extras with a Mediterranean appearance for her film ‘Tiefland’, apparently used a group of gypsies from a near-by Nazi concentration camp. I immediately thought - what proof does Müller have for claiming this? We are promptly shown an apparently legitimate document containing the list of names. My instinct was then to think that perhaps Riefenstahl, as a filmmaker wrapped up in the artistic process, had not been privy to the gypsies’ origins when they arrived on set. However, in a scene some minutes later, Riefenstahl herself raises the issue and ridicules the idea that it ever happened. She is offended that the notion of using condemned men and women for a film should be applied to her and her reaction is typically aggressive. This time, unlike with the Goebbels diaries earlier in the film, Müller does not confront Riefenstahl directly with the contradictory evidence, i.e., the list of names. It is entirely unnecessary and would most likely lessen the dramatic impact. If Müller had reversed the sequence, placing Riefenstahl’s dismissal of the event before showing the list, he would have achieved a revelatory effect that would have surprised and shocked the viewer; but this approach would have been too conventional for Müller. The effect he does achieve is to show that Riefenstahl is at best delusional, at worst a downright liar and probably in complete denial. Müller allows the viewer to make judgements if they feel the inclination to, but his technique in this case is convincingly balanced despite the fact that it is anything but. This, in my opinion, is true film craft.
Film critics, scholars, and the conscientious viewer aside, the general documentary audience believes that what they see in documentaries is objective fact; that it is a mirror passively and innocently reflecting reality. But documentaries, like fiction films, are designed and crafted – as Riefenstahl herself is acutely aware. The viewer is misled into believing that the reality they see in documentary is the reality of the world in which they live, and that representations of character are truthful, faithful, and accurate. The filmmaker, like any media practitioner, has an arsenal of tools and techniques at their disposal with which to communicate ideas to their audiences. Choice of subject alone is a supremely important decision which conveys all manner of subtle information about the filmmaker, their character, and motivations. Weaved delicately into the construction of their films, they can direct attention to relevant areas of a scene or topic and omit elements that they do not deem important. The scenes of Riefenstahl giving advice to Müller on camera placement and aesthetics did not end up in the film accidentally; they did not slip by unnoticed by Müller. Even Vérité filmmakers make extensive decisions and choices during the editing phase. Editing shots in specific sequences, for example, imbues them with alternative meanings and invariably changes the context of the original reality. These seemingly innocuous decisions are cunningly loaded with suggestions and insinuations so that the viewer ultimately observes reality mediated through the expression of the filmmaker. In other words, even with the most honourable intentions the documentary subject is always presented and seen from the filmmaker’s point of view. As indicated by the film’s title, the only explanation for Müller’s apparent even-handedness with Riefenstahl as a subject is that he himself is undecided about her true character. There are “wonderful” traits, and there are “horrible” traits but, keeping check on moralistic judgements, in exactly what proportion can only be speculated upon.
This is complicated during the process of interpretation. Social science theory suggests that people do not perceive an objective reality, meaning that interpretation by the viewer further distorts the filmmaker’s expression of a subject, so that little, if any, of the original reality remains. Interpretations of specific characters, scenes or shots can vary depending on the viewer and often beyond the intentions of the filmmaker. Taking into account my previously sparse (but nevertheless extant) knowledge of characters and events in Muller’s film, my interpretation of and reaction to Riefenstahl will be different to the next person’s. I am unlikely to approach the film with the same frame of mind as, say an anti-Semite or a victim of the Nazi regime. Muller, nor any other filmmaker, can sincerely expect all viewers to shed their prior knowledge and preconceptions before watching his work; if he did the film’s value as an educational or informative tool would be drastically compromised. Documentary film is not concerned with learning; it’s about re-learning and viewing something from a new perspective, i.e. the filmmaker’s. Therefore, no matter how desirable it may be, an objective representation of the truth is impossible to achieve.
That is not to imply that there is an absence of insight in Muller’s film. The viewer must simply be made aware that they are watching a version of reality – one representation of infinite potential versions. While it appears as though Müller is presenting a balanced case, he is in fact overtly showing us that Riefenstahl is an intriguingly complex character and THAT is what is of ultimate importance to the film. Perhaps if the Nazi’s had triumphed militarily, Riefenstahl would have exploited her position as Hitler’s pet filmmaker further, rather than spending a lifetime trying to distance herself from him. Regardless, through Muller we gain insight into Riefenstahl’s history and personality and that is a far superior approach to a naïve, arrogant pretension to staunch truth-telling. True, Müller does not succumb to casting judgments on Riefenstahl; he, like his filmmaker subject, assumes the position of the disinterested artist, creating a portrait full of perspective without answers or resolutions. The documentary filmmaker is not in the business of dishing out neat conclusions and by resisting any attempt to do so Müller has created a documentary colossus displaying all the mastery of his craft.
Country: France/UK/Germany/Belguim
Budget: £
Length: 180mins
Filmography:
Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens)’, 1935, Leni Riefenstahl, Leni Riefenstahl-Produktion
Pub/2008
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