Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl

by Steven Bach

Leni Riefenstahl, the woman known as “Hitler’s filmmaker,” made some of the greatest and most innovative documentaries ever made. They are also insidious glorifications of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Now, Steven Bach reveals the truths and lies behind Riefenstahl’s lifelong self-vindication as an apolitical artist who claimed to know nothing of the Holocaust and denied her complicity with the criminal regime she both used and sanctified.

A riveting and illuminating biography of one of the most fascinating and controversial personalities of the twentieth century.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Film, War, World War II, Audiobook

386 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Steven Bach was senior vice-president and head of worldwide productions for United Artists studios. In Final Cut: Dreams And Disaster in the Making of Heaven's Gate (1985), Bach chronicles his involvement in the troubled production of Heaven's Gate (1980), a film widely considered to have been the decisive reason for the financial bankruptcy of United Artists.

Bach is the author of The Life and Legend of Marlene Dietrich and Dazzler: The Life and Times of Moss Hart. He taught film studies at Columbia University and Bennington College.

His biography of the Nazi-associated filmmaker Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl (2007) overturns many of the claims Riefenstahl put forward in her self-defence regarding her contact with Hitler's regime, and was named by the New York Times as one of the most notable books of 2007.

Bach died of cancer in March of 2009. He is survived by his companion, Werner Röhr.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a book about a woman who was a German who is dead (now). Before she was dead, she was alive and a dancer when she was younger, but dancer should really be in quotes because she danced like Ed Grimley sometimes, and at other times she danced like swatting wasp colonies and at still other times she danced like scraping dog poo off shoes. If you don't believe me (about the dancing), please see her first movie, which was a mountain movie called The Holy Mountain (1926). In the silent movie era before sound was ever even invented or ears were useful, Germans loved mountains (apparently) and movies about them, just like now we love movies about urban dancing and mountains also. Some people say that the mountains that Germans loved to look at on movie screens had something to do with their fascism, and other people do not say this at all or even think of it. I'm sure there are books written from both perspectives which may be read by readers who read books about fascist aesthetics, which include eagles and columns and nude Greeks and bunting and, some say, mountains. The mountain which stars in The Holy Mountain gets second or third billing after Leni Riefenstahl who dances in quotation marks by the seashore at the beginning (alone) and later on a stage where people allegedly pay money to watch her do so and are not at all angry-looking afterward. Here is the story of that film about mountains: Leni plays a woman who dances in quotation marks by the seashore (alone) for no known reason except to kill time because if movies were fewer than one hundred minutes the people who watched them felt gypped. After she is done with doing that, she dances some more in quotation marks on a stage where people, who appear uncoerced, come to spectate her strange and uncanny movements. A young man who is named Vigo afterward appears to be in love with her and sticks a flower in her car. It is assumed he is touched as they say because he stuck a flower in her car and because just look at Leni, who is a woman with frizzy hair and cuckoo eyes and crazyways. Leni smiles at Vigo who is watching her notice a flower stuck in her car which is weird any way you slice it. She drives away to her lover who is less young and less good-looking and less adept in flower placement than Vigo is, but Vigo and Leni's lover are friends, but Vigo doesn't know that Leni is dating his friend, and his friend doesn't know that Vigo is putting flowers in Leni's car. Also there is this: the friend of Vigo is referred to only as The Friend in the film because of a reason I don't know, but I suppose that it is a very artful reason nonetheless. Vigo, you should know, is a skiier who skis very well and is German and wins a skiing race in Germany and everyone is excited and saying, 'Yay for you winning skiing race!' but in German and silently because sound is still uninvented. Leni is impressed with Vigo's skiing, and Vigo is impressed with Leni's dancing. Out in the snow Vigo throws his head into Leni's crotch area (I am not kidding about this), and wouldn't you know it, the friend comes skiing around the cabin and sees Vigo's head in Leni's crotch area and isn't happy to see this happening very much. He goes away, without screaming out, 'I see your head in her crotch area!' or anything, and begins to start plotting schemes and machinations. Later, after that time, he tells Vigo to go climb a mountain with him that very night because the mountain must be climbed right at that moment because it is exceptionally needful of having climbing done upon it! Being a good friend of The Friend, Vigo says, 'Well, okay, I guess,' but not aloud because the film is very silent. He wonders perhaps in quieter moments why the mountain is needful of being climbed upon now, because the weather is less good than at other times and because it is night and because it is a cruel mountain; cruel, meaning steep and tall and death-causing. Leni has a performance of her dancing in quotation marks again that night because the people can't get enough of it and therefore we must watch more of it or fast forward the DVD. Vigo and The Friend are supposed to attend the performance because there is nothing else to do in this place where they all are but watch Leni move around on a stage and ski and skiing should be reserved for the daytime, and this being night... 'I suppose we'll go watch that broad move around again on a stage.' Meanwhile, while dancing in quotation marks is happening on the stage, Vigo admits that he loves Leni to The Friend and then falls off the mountain but is held up by a rope by the The Friend, which is meant to show, I think, that The Friend forgives Vigo but there is really nothing to forgive because Vigo didn't even know that The Friend was seeing Leni. And why two men would fight over one Leni is beyond the limits of disbelief most suspended, especially if you've seen her. So The Friend holds up Vigo for a great long while until they are both frozen and then eventually they both just fall off the mountain and die, which ruins Leni's morning for the most part. She sticks her fist in her mouth and flails around to show us how sad she is, and it isn't much different from her dancing in quotation marks. But the man who comes to tell her that Vigo and The Friend are dead makes her feel better about things when he tells her how The Friend held up Vigo all night and that loyalty in a friendship is very important. Somehow this makes her happy even though she was only told about their deadness a minute and a half before, and I think that makes her stupid or shallow or both. (Oh. By the way, Leni Riefenstahl also did Nazi films but that's not very important right now.)

[Sketchbook · Rating 1 out of 5]

"What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art." -- Saint-Gaudens

Author Steven Bach, who presided over the failure of United Artists (he just wasnt smart), brings his malicious pen to smear every aspect of That Monster, in his view, Leni. Of course, iggynorunts, of which there are many, know nothing of her -- except what the crackpot emotionalists scream -- and they get messy orgasms. Be advised.

Leni was an obsessive, self-centered and, yes, a demented cineaste who'd do anything to make a movie. Pauline Kael calls her, "One of the dozen creative geniuses who ever worked in the medium." This was the 1930s. There was only one woman director in the Hollywood cesspool -- Dorothy Arzner, who was blackballed because she was lesbian. 90 years later, how many femme dirs today? Jolie is a bad joke.

Leni made a 1934 film abt a Hitler rally, "Triumph of the Will" -(Kael : "the outrage is that she could make a great film of it") and then the "Olympiad" of the 1936 Olympics (Kael: "a great lyric spectacle".) Post-war2 she was - though declared innocent of anything wrong - banned from ever making a movie again. And thus she entered mythology.

"How was I to know Hitler would lead the world to destruction?" she asks, most reasonably. In 1934 everyone was still courting Hitler. In his Diaries, Harold Nicholson writes, March 10, 1936, "Long talk with Ramsay Macdonald...On all sides one hears sympathy for Germany." You see? ~~ Keep events in perspective of their time & place. Joseph Kennedy, by late 30s, openly anti-semitic, was recalled by the great booby FDR as US ambassador to England (1938-40).

Post W2, the Commies and lefties had a mission ; it was an easy one : destroy Leni Riefenstahl. Commie writer Budd Schulberg made this his mission. A striking woman, she was an easy target. Meantime, the US grabbed up every Nazi scientist around to enrich our post war space program. Former Nazi's were snatched to become spies on the east. Um. ~~ Leni had made 1 film, but never joined the Nazi Party. Go to YT. You can see scads of Nazi propaganda films that were released throughout the 30s. She had nothing to do with them. What's up ? The artist must always pay the price. The artist must take "the fall."

Author Bach faults Leni for going after Power. (So what?) He faults her for wanting to conceal trivia that she was seen semi-nude in an early movie (So what?) ~~ That Leni was very naive, if not daft, is demonstrated when she went to Hollywood in late 30s and expected (!) the moguls to embrace her for "Olympiad." Only Walt Disney received her. The others, who usually asked for oral sex -- snubbed. If, if, if- she had remained in America : what would have happened to her career? Nothing! The moguls would have sidelined her to a teaching school. That is the reality.

Susan Sontag, who always goes where someone can butter her stale bread, wrote praise of Leni; later, when seeking funds for one of her schlock pix, she recanted. That's Sontag morality -- watch out !

Do governments influence movies? Uh, DUHHH ! Govs we approve of, like US, Uk, Israel, do it all the time....still do...And filmmakers go along. I bet you arent aware of "Mission to Moscow," starring Walter Huston, 1943, Ehh? This was a direct FDR request to Warner's, which everyone later wanted to forget. It's a passionate plea to embrace Commie Russia as a dear comrade ag the Nazi peril. Stalin is presented as your fav Unkie. During HUAC in 1947, Jack Warner hurled writer Howard Koch to the wolves. ~~ My point : Leni could never ever work again in film. Her pic did not start W2....Warner, FDR, and Joseph Kennedy danced on & on.

(Who asked that "Zero Dark 30" be made, kids??)

[Fátima Linhares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ela nasceu Helene Amalie Bertha Riefenstahl a 22 de Agosto de 1902, em Wedding, um bairro de trabalhadores poluído pela fuligem, nos arredores industriais de Berlim.

Esta biografia fascinou-me, assim como acredito que Leni Riefenstahl tenha fascinado muito gente nos seus tempos áureos que, para o bem e para o mal, coincidiram com a ascensão de Hitler ao poder e, subsequentemente, a um dos períodos mais negros da história da humanidade.
Nesta biografia Leni é retratada como uma pessoa megalómana, egoísta e com um ego do tamanho do mundo. Todas as contrariedades que se lhe apresentavam eram vistas como afrontas, inveja, perseguição. Virou costas e recusou dar créditos a pessoas de origem judia, e mesmo a não judeus, que contribuíram para a feitura dos seus filmes. Negou saber da existência dos campos de extermínio, mesmo tendo usado para um dos seus filmes ciganos que mais tarde tiveram como destino os referidos campos. Tentou relançar a sua carreira de realizadora depois do fim da segunda guerra mundial, mas a sua ligação ao terceiro Reich nunca foi esquecida, e mesmo quando parecia que era, havia sempre alguém que fazia questão de o relembrar, mesmo que no fim dos julgamentos de Nuremberga tenha sido considerada "companheira de viagem", o penúltimo dos cinco graus de cumplicidade.
Mesmo nos seus trabalhos posteriores, em que retratou os Nubas, e dos quais recebeu boas críticas, notava-se que continuava a ser uma pessoa cheia de soberba e com uma personalidade difícil.
Os seus filmes "O Triunfo da Vontade" e "Olympia" são vistos como obras de arte e com técnicas inovadoras para a época, fazendo de Leni uma boa realizadora, mas pode-se dissociar a arte do tema?

«Dizer "lamento" é muito pouco», disse Leni a Muller quando este a confrontou com a sua aparente falta de remorsos quanto às consequências do seu trabalho para outras pessoas para além dela. «Mas não me posso dilacerar nem destruir-me. É terrível. Sofri mais de meio século e isto nunca acaba, até eu morrer.» Perante a indicação de Muller de que ela era vista como «irredimível», respondeu: «Isso lança uma sombra tão grande na minha vida que a morte será uma abençoado alívio.»

Foi uma excelente leitura esta biografia de uma pessoa tão controversa e geradora de sentimentos tão díspares.

[Carol Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant but petty and cruel -- but unfortunately that's the author, not the subject!

Not since Albert Goldman's ELVIS has a dense, full length biography of a sexy, glamorous larger than life legend been written with such sadistic relish, such delicious malicious bitchery and pure venomous guile.

There's no question that Leni Riefenstahl, the stunningly beautiful German woman who made hypnotic propaganda films for the Nazis, was guilty of moral cowardice and hypocrisy, if not during the war, then certainly afterwards. She persisted to the end of her life in wanting to have it both ways -- saying in effect "I didn't know," and at the same time "I was too scared to stop Hitler -- too scared that I would be next." She claimed to have legions of Jewish friends before the war, but she never tried to help them when things got bad, even though she had lots of Nazi influence and power. And she always seemed weirdly out of touch with the human results of Hitler's evil deeds.

The problem is, Steve Bach doesn't know when to quit. He sneers at Leni Riefenstahl not just for the big things -- not strangling Hitler with her bare hands, the way he seems to imagine he would have done -- but for the little things too. The book is full of catty little remarks like, "Leni was always conscious of her hypnotic effect on men" or "Leni didn't mind having handsome, powerful men buy her presents" or "Leni's fearless mountain climbing only made her feminine allure more overpowering to the distinguished male cinema artists who indulged her every creative whim."

It's hard to tell whether Bach hates Leni for being heartless and callous or for being beautiful, talented -- and very knowingly seductive.

There is a much more serious issue here than the hissy ALL ABOUT EVE style bitchery of a jaded Hollywood insider. Bach insists on judging a German film maker by a far more rigorous standard than he would ever apply to the film industry in Hollywood today -- or seventy years ago, for that matter. When Leni goes to Hollywood he brags that the left-leaning Hollywood of 1938 treated the lovely German visitor with scorn -- but how did they treat Margaret Mitchell when she came to town the very next year? Bach has nothing to say about why those same "leftists" failed to prevent the making of a racist epic like GONE WITH THE WIND.

If Leni Riefenstahl shares any part of the guilt for Auschwitz -- and I agree that she does -- then David O. Selznick is equally responsible for the murder of Emmitt Till, the bombings in Birmingham, and all the other hate crimes perpetrated in the Jim Crow south. Bach is in a big hurry to compare Leni to the Stalinist film maker Eisenstein -- arguing in a feeble and half-hearted way that Eisenstein "probably" rebelled at what he was doing. But why not compare Leni Riefenstahl to D.W. Griffiths, or Margaret Mitchell, or David Selznick? All of them dealt in racial hate. They looked the other way while helpless people were tortured and murdered, too. But mentioning America's poisonous history of racial hate would reflect badly on Bach's own milieu. Bach's beloved Hollywood elite never questioned the racial status quo in the Jim Crow south -- at least, not until long after blacks had begun risking their lives to bring the horror of their situation to national attention.

What's really going on here is not genuine, humanistic outrage, but elitist hypocrisy. Bach hates Leni Riefenstahl because he knows that, for all their tiresome liberal cant, just about everyone in Hollywood (and the book world, and the world of leftist Manhattan politics) has the same rat-like survival instincts that Leni had. None of the liberals who demonstrate their courage by hating her guts now ever had to look Hitler in the eye. But they know who would have blinked first. And they know themselves too well to ever show mercy to someone just like them.

[Jeb Inge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such interesting content that is often tainted by the author's suffocating agenda. History itself lends judgement, but here is obfuscated when guided by this writer's subjective opinions.

[Gremrien · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for everyone who has already read Leni Riefenstahl’s memoirs and now needs more objective information about her )). Regardless of whether you were enchanted by Leni or were left deeply doubtful and suspicious, you now need to read Steven Bach’s book in order to understand how things were FOR REAL. Because you definitely know that Leni was not truthful (enough?), right? Although you most probably underestimated the extent to which she was untruthful exactly, as her memoirs are very detailed and seem very sincere, even regarding those aspects of her life that many other people would not elaborate publicly. At least I myself was under impression that she wrote quite an honest and diligent memoir, only avoiding to talk about her real relationships with the Third Reich and Hitler — probably not even lying about something but “omitting” some important details and nuances and representing herself more like a hard-working genius who simply did not notice or did not reflect much upon some crucial things, which is a quite plausible “excuse” (after all, we all often do not notice or do not reflect much upon some crucial things, until it is shamefully too late, right?). Of course, even from her memoir, you can spot some “inconsistencies” here and there, and if you know the basic history of the respective time period and society, you can be sure that she lied about something and concealed or misrepresented something else, but you cannot quite catch her “red-handed” in most cases.

Well, this book is extremely helpful and illuminative in this regard, and it should be read immediately after the memoirs, so you can reconsider all your impressions about this extraordinary personality quickly and efficiently. I actually believe that if some country publishes Leni Riefenstahl’s memoirs, it should obligatorily also publish Steven Bach’s book as a necessary “companion book” to her memoirs. Reading them together is an excellent “lesson in history” and an exciting (and somewhat humiliating) exercise in the trust to “an unreliable narrator” (and to unrepentant Nazi sympathisers, Hitler-lovers, and propagandists, of course).

Basically, Steven Bach is retelling us the story of the life of Leni Riefenstahl — exactly as she did herself, only now objectively. He not only methodically shows us the real facts and episodes of her life but constantly compares her own words about the same facts and episodes (written by her in the memoirs and/or voiced by her in various interviews, films, at public events, etc.) with what was in reality (based on the evidence of other people, available documents, and other sources of information). Turned out that Leni Riefenstahl was indeed a “hard-working genius” but her greatest talent was not in movie-making or other spheres of art; first of all, she was a fascinating myth-maker about herself; a person who was extremely self-conscious about her public image from an early age and who started to manipulate reality not for political resons but just because she was too vain and ambitious to allow something not unflattering about her to linger somewhere. Even before her involvement into the Nazi propaganda (which, by the way, was not an accident but a logical development of her arrogance and ambitions, as it was her “golden hour” of receiving so much money, opportunities, and attention, while all the decent people recoiled in horror and fled the country), she was very careful and “picky” with the things she wanted to be “left to posterity” about her. She was a diligent collector of clippings about her from newspapers, magazines, etc., and this is why she was able to quote them profusely in her memoirs, but you should understand that she quoted only “good” parts of them )). There were even such ridiculous examples as quoting just the first couple of sentences from some review that praised her and omitting the next sentences that said something “Unfortunately, all this was a pretty bad performance, totally devoid of anything original, etc., etc.” )). Similarly, she later represented all the trials as “won” by her while in reality the things were much more “nuanced” (i.e., she quoted only those aspects of the trials where somebody confirmed her words and declined the accusations against her, even if it was just due to a technical aspect, and she “omitted” to mention everything unpleasant for her from the trials themselves and the verdicts).

Almost every aspect of her life, even the littlest one, is commented on by Steven Bach in terms “she refused to admit it all her life,” “she vehemently denied this in all her interviews,” “she always claimed that she had never seen such a person,” and so on. It was funny and “educative” regarding how a person can construct a totally alternative personality and her own life story from the mostly truthful events using very careful and painstaking manipulations. And yeah, her personality is not so “enchanting” anymore, even in the aspects for which you were ready to praise her “regardless of everything else.” Well, I am not even talking about an immensely important for us today case of “how some people can hide and deny their affiliation with the most abominable criminals in history and propagate the art-beyond-politics principle.” We, Ukrainians, can learn a lot from this book, and I would be happy if the book is published in Ukraine, but it is unlikely, I suppose…

Will all this, the book is surprisingly “calm” and impartial, as much as possible. I had difficulties imagining an author who would refrain from mockery and derisive comments about Leni after discovering so many untruthful and shocking things about her, but Steven Bach is very “scholarly” in this regard.

Unfortunately, I cannot quote anything, as I listened to the book on audio, and apparently, no e-book exists (except for the audiobook, there is only an option of buying a paper book), but believe me, it’s a hilarious and extremely interesting reading. My highest recommendations!

(By the way, Steven Bach is an interesting person himself, “an American writer and lecturer on film and a former senior vice-president and head of worldwide productions for United Artists studios; he was responsible for highly successful films.” In addition to the biographical book about Leni Riefenstahl, he also wrote a biographical book about Marlene Dietrich, who was the main “antagonist” of Leni in the general historical context. He died just two years after the publication of “Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl,” so we are very lucky that he managed to do it in his lifetime.)

[Liz B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure if I would've been able to finish this if it weren't summer break...it was fascinating and slow at the same time. But because it was summer break, I could spend big chunks of time reading, and I'm glad I did. What an interesting woman...not admirable...but smart, strong, visionary, stubborn. Zero empathy, though, and in my opinion responsible for horrors. The verdict of "fellow traveller" was mistaken. But she is fascinating nonetheless.

This was a good read and I'm glad I spent the time.

[Jill H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author pulls no punches here as he dissects the amazing life of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's most effective propogandist. She denied her role and involvement in the Third Reich throughout her 101 year life but one has only to read this book and see even snippets of her films to realize that she was the consummate apologist for her own behavior. Bach has done considerable research and quotes from Riefenstahl's letters and Goebbles' diary which put paid to her denials and evasions.

There is no doubt that this woman had a great talent for capturing images in a manner that had never before been seen on film. Her masterpieces, "Triumph of the Will", and "Olympia", are amazing pieces of history and Bach includes several stills from those films. The author also covers her career as an actress in the "alpine" films of the 1920s and early 30s and her sexually hedonistic life style. He paints a picture of an exceptional artist who put her talents to use for the most despotic government in world history. He is no fan of Ms. Riefenstahl but gives credit to her talent and her groundbreaking filmaking techniques. I would recommend this book to any reader who is interested in the films of Ms Riefenstahl. It recognizes her genius but also clears up any doubts you may have about her motives and her position in the Third Reich.

[Kimba Tichenor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steven Bach, a former UA studio executive, offers an unflinching account of the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl, paying particular attention to her postwar efforts to control and rewrite her relationship to the Nazi regime. In doing so, he raises important questions about the relationship between form and content, between art and morality, and between aesthetics and politics that have relevance well beyond the more specific question of Leni Riefenstahl's troubling relationship to Nazism. For as Steven Bach notes in the closing passage: "The films will survive. Susan Sontag for all her perceptions got one thing wrong, 'Nobody making films today alludes to Leni Riefenstahl,' she had written. That was true, of course, if you discounted everything from George Lucas's Star Wars to the Disney Company's The Lion King to every sports photographer alive to the ubiquitous erotically charged billboards and slick magazine layouts to media politics that everywhere in the world remain both inspired and corrupted by work Leni perfected in Nuremberg and Berlin ..." It is the implication of this corruption for current day political aesthetics that we would do well to give more thought.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed but not tedious; revealing but not unkind; well written and serious; not the least glib or “cute.” Good info on the films as well as Leni’s life.

[Paul Hyde · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very full life with lots of interesting work during the Hitler and WW2 days. Book style was very hard to read and could have been a higher rating if the writing had been less confusing.

[CiderandRedRot · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a rare thing, to go into reading a biography thinking not entirely positive things about its subject ('Leni Riefenstahl: Nazi propagandist' being something of a kicker) and yet to come away thinking even worse of them. Usually a biography humanizes even the stoniest of subjects ('He was a mass murdering fuckwit, but he really loved his dogs/wife/grandkids, y'know?'), but Bach's well-researched chronicle of the life and times of Riefenstahl has the opposite effect: with the cumulative facts of her life comes an inability to overlook her inherent ghastliness. However, one could almost feel a flickering of sympathy given Bach’s bitchy misogyny, which colours the entire text.

Riefenstahl lived a dramatic, colourfully long life. Her admirable points are examined at length and, even allowing for Leni's own hyperbole, Bach doesn't hesitate from crediting her with being an innovative filmmaker who pioneered techniques that the modern industry still uses. Although never one to shy away from sounding her own trumpet, Riefenstahl was indeed something of the auteur she claimed to be: a dancer (although Bach throws a few well-placed contemporary side-eyes at her competence), actress (ditto), director and photographer. Less palatably, she was also one of the few women to have any sort of influence within the Third Reich boy's club which is...good? Bach’s focus on Leni’s seductive powers, on how she used her feminine charms to win power and influence, isn’t a revelatory concept, but he conveniently overlooks both the times she was living through and how harshly her crimes were judged in comparison to her male contemporaries. The unspoken epithet of ‘Nazi Whore’ hangs heavy over the text; Riefenstahl gave herself enough rope to hang herself during her one-hundred-and-one years, she does not need Bach’s little digs to blacken her name.

And herein lies the real meat of the Riefenstahl mythos: whether the woman, a fantastical liar and a despicable shit, can and should be separated from her body of work. Leni ascribed to the 'if I say it loud enough, enough times, then it becomes the truth' school of logic. Despite working nestled within the protective bosom of the Third Reich, despite flying the Nazi flag literally and figuratively abroad, despite being regularly featured in Goebbels' social diary, despite using Sinti (gypsy) extras bound for Auschwitz as unpaid extras in her movie Tiefland, despite that very same movie being personally financed by the Führer, Riefenstahl still swore to the end of her days that she was a political naïf, clueless as to the ways of the big, bad Nazi death machine. She was in it for the art you see. The art was all that mattered.

As to the narration of this audiobook: bizarre in the extreme. Henrietta Tiefenthaler sounds like a public school girl reading a class assignment. Her pacing, inflection and volume control is odd, but what renders her narration truly amateurish is her inability to pronounce basic words. ‘Tryst’, ‘abyss’ and ‘libel’ were only made comprehensible by context, but honestly, I can’t tell if she was being funny or clueless by pronouncing ‘money’ as ‘moe-nay’ several times.

[Berna Labourdette · Rating 4 out of 5]

imposible no sacarse el sombrero a esta biografía de la reina de la autoconstrucción de su imagen, la cineasta Leni Riefenstahl. Bach, logra ser imparcial al describir todos los juicios que emprendió Leni para deshacerse del estigma de su pasado nazi y confrontarla con los dichos de quienes la conocían como Albert Speer. No deja de ser admirable el esfuerzo de Bach por retratar a una figura que hizo de la reescritura de su vida su mejor obra. Imposible quedar indiferente a su esfuerzo y no dejar de admirar la fuerza de voluntad que tenía Leni. Ese fue el verdadero triunfo de la voluntad. Lo leí en la edición de Circe.

[Majorslayage · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating and spellbinding account of what happens when one tries to divorce content from execution, especially in hindsight. unforgiving and highly critical of Riefenstahl, this biography nevertheless presents a deeply flawed, ambitious and unsatisfied woman who may have been a great filmmaker if not for her complicity in the third reich's horrors, or perhaps is only relevant because of that association.

[Saša Potisk · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Umetnost je moralna, dokler prebuja" (Thomas Mann)

"Česa se kriva?" (Leni Riefenstahl)

Leni Riefenstahl je bila nadvse uspešna ženska… Izhajajoča iz revne družine v weimarski republiki je po osem mesečni plesni karieri v zgodnji mladosti poiskala svoje priložnosti v nastajajočem filmu kot plesalka in igralka (npr. Der Heilige Berg - Sveta gora, 1926). Izkoristila je vzpon nacizma in nesrečo mnogih, zlasti židovskih, akterjev takrat zelo močne nemške filmske industrije (UFA) ter se s svojim "Tega človeka moram spoznati!" umestila v samo jedro Tretjega reicha - postala je Hitlerjeva varovanka in tesna Goebbelsova sodelavka z neverjetno stopnjo neodvisnosti. S svojimi nacističnimi filmi (Der Sieg des Glaubens - Zmaga vere, Triumph des Willens - Triumf volje…) je erotizirala in estetizirala Moč in Lepoto zločinskega režima in še posebej glorificirala Hitlerja, ki ga je do smrti oboževala. Njen največji dosežek poleg Triumfa volje je Olympia - film o olimpijskih igrah v Berlinu 1938 v dveh delih Festival narodov in Festival lepote. Po vojni se je na denacifikajskih procesih nekako izmuznila in postala zgolj simpatizerka (Mitläuferin) nacizma. Delala je do smrti 2003, nikoli se za svojo vlogo v vojni ni opravičila ali kako drugače sprejela odgovornosti.
Njena pot do uspeha je bila brezobzirna in totalna. Sredstev ni izbirala - bila je seksualni predator in je koristne moške konzumirala po tekočem traku, prijatelje je izdajala in jih po potrebi ponovno navajala kot zglede svoje nedolžnosti, moralno kontaminirana ni mogla (ali želela) razumeti propagandne razsežnosti in posledic svojega dela. Bila je briljantna v fotografiji, estetiki podobe, montaži… vendar pa je težko sprejeti to - vsekakor občudovanja vredno umetnost - ločeno od vsebine njenih filmov, ki vrhunsko estetizirajo nacizem skozi vse njeno življenjsko delo; pa naj bo skozi zgodnji gorniški film, nürnberške filme ali celo kasneje v fotografijah in filmu o Nubah, kjer se ponovno časti golo izklesano telo ter objektivizira človeka, ki stoji za to podobo.
Leni Riefenstahl je kot umetnica problematična, vendar daje dober zgled za premislek o relacijah Življenje - Umetnost, tehnično - vsebinsko, Umetnik - Človek ipd. in brutalno jasno prikaže, da ne glede na erotičnost in zapeljivost njenega dela manjka zelo odsotna človeška moralna komponenta in resnica. Umetnost ne more biti v drugi službi kot same sebe - … v poduk vsem novodobnim umetnikom, ki tudi zasledujejo zapeljevanja napačnih umetniških bogov - politike, odločevalcev na ministrstvih, komisij v kulturnih domovih, denarja, kritikov, všečnosti povprečni publiki, lajkom na družavnih omrežjih itd. izkoriščajoč nacionalistične, politične, klientelistične, koruptivne ali druge "zveze in poznanstva". V resnici v teh primerih ne gre več za umetnost, temveč za samopropagando, ki naj polni neskončno frustracijo lastnega pohlepa, slavohlepja in samoljubja.
To je bistveno sporočilo življenske zgodbe Leni Riefenstahl.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I appreciate that the author is not an apologist and makes no excuses for Leni’s close ties to the Third Reich, I also found his writing to be heavy-handed and unfair. He gives as much coverage to her real and rumored sexual relations as he does to her career, a fact that reveals more about him than about her. I don’t imagine a biography of a male filmmaker or male Nazi propagandist would list every person he ever slept with. This is just what women are subjected to in the retelling of their lives through male eyes. He goes so far as to even describe her relationship with someone she clearly did not have sexual relations with through the lens of her sexual prowess (does he have no other lens with which to view her relationships?)

“Stowitts was a Riefenstahl acolyte, the kind of quietly worshipful, compliant man she often took as a lover, and he might have played that role had he been heterosexual.”

— so with nothing sexual to speak of in this relationship, the author still couldn’t help himself. He had to make up and add in his own presumptions. Feels ridiculous.

Aside from the authors constant ridicule of Leni, I did find a lot of valuable information here. I am glad that he unearthed so much proof of her complicity with the regime so as to make her lifelong claims of innocence feel obviously false.

Overall I think she’s a very interesting subject for a book. I think it’s amazing how much life she lived and also horrifying the life that she lived. It’s hard to discern what is true and false about her life - there seem to be more lies than truths told about her (and many of those lies came from her own mouth). What seems clear is that her ambition was much stronger than her moral compass.

[Raistlin Skelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you strip away her career, her films, her photobooks, all the way back to her debut as a dancer and get down to the nitty-grit of her as a person, she was horrible. Narcissistic, manipulative, abusive, arrogant, selfish, spoiled, shallow, insincere and duplicitous. Just as an everyday person, she was, by all reports, a pill, at best. That's before she ever gets to Dr. Fanck and his Alpine films or even reading Mein Kampf.

Everything she does while championing and praising Hitler (for decades, until somewhere around her deathbed and even then she only admitting regretting getting involved with the Reich not Hitler) was really just the cherry on top, as far as things go. She was not responsible for the war or the Reich's actions, but for what she was responsible for she never admitted, despite documented evidence to contrary of her statements and her protestations.

Steven Bach managed to wrangle this woman's detestable life and personality into an engrossing and entirely entertaining book. I truly enjoyed every page of it, despite the content.

Will definitely seek out more of his work in the future. It is unfortunate that he's dead.

A fantastic book about a horrible human being.

Like Lolita.

[David Allwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

It can be quite difficult to appreciate a biography of an appalling person. And this is resoundingly true of ‘Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl’. Although she was, in many ways, fascinating, clever, and highly ambitious, she was also a Nazi supporter, a Hitler confidante, and a liar. Her work as a film maker for The Third Reich demonstrated great skills and innovation, but the horrible subject matter and her close friendship with Hitler make her output completely abhorrent. Of course, after the war she inevitably distanced herself from the regime through a web of lies and she had other subsequent successes, but it can never be overlooked exactly what she was. The author Steven Bach tells her story comprehensively and honestly but perhaps a little too sympathetically. Regarding Leni Riefenstahl we should never forget, and never forgive.

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leni as seen through the eyes of Steven Bach.

There are many books on Leni Riefenstahl's life and work. They vary in degree of information and spin. This is Leni as Steven Bach, a former United Artists studio executive, sees her. On the side, we get to know the environments and people of the time.

This is a review of the paperback book ISBN: 9780349115535. There are three sections of black-and-white photos to accompany the writing; however, Steven Bach writes well enough that you do not need them. You feel that you are there to the point that this could be a travel log in time.

I have a collection of Leni films and he describes them well. Remember that you are buying this book for a different view as if someone is telling you that your shoe is untied.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cautionary tale about ambition and darkness. Striking a deal with the devil, this woman established herself as a great cinematographer. I have seen some clips of her films with the pot smoke and low angle shots to make people look like gods. The silhouettes of divers suggest an absence, a hint of beauty and death at the same time. I don't believe she was clueless. She was supporting a maniac and a death regime and conveniently left her Jewish colleagues in the dust when it became too 'inconvenient'. A strange life and a woman who could never be honest with herself or the world...

[Dorothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinarily awful human being who had an eye for illusory magic. An opportunist, careerist, narcissist, willing fascist, sexually promiscuous, morally bankrupt, a user of people, without empathy, compassion and no evident sense of humor. An icon indeed of the Third Reich if unintentionally so. A woman without a soul.

A female Trump but with talent.

A scathing biography of a very ugly human. If there were an antonym for hagiography this biography would own it.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it if you are a profane on Leni Riefenstahl or if you are more knowledgeable with a great interest for average biographies.

The facts are great and interpreted with professional care. Everything around the difficult times of 1933-1945 are poorly written by the author who just uses as “sources” what other historians have written - sometimes relying on other historians’ “sources”. There is a lot of hearsay or low value quotes from partial sources.

[Bob Koelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story that had to be told, because her greatest gift was being a fabulist. Frequently, the author tells you what happened, then tells you how Riefenstahl described it, in her memoirs or somewhere else. One might be tempted to wonder if she's mis-remembering out of shame or the fog of time, but her relentless defensiveness betrayal her, much like all the archives released in the last 25 years or so have done the same.

[Michael Padilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Leni" By Steven Back is an autobiographical book about the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl. Born a jew she grows to become a truthful character, filmmaker, and women's activist.

[D Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent biography. It is well researched and very well written. It is probably the best biography of Riefenstahl yet written.

[vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took an extra long walk and extended my tram ride because I was so into this audiobook!

A solid biography– central to the story are questions of genius, emancipation, opportunism, the role and politics of art, propaganda and the seduction of facism.

To be quite honest, I still haven’t made up my mind about how I see Leni Riefenstahl, but there sure is a lot of room for controversy and her whole life is just so interesting! This woman was born in 1902 and died in 2003 at the age of 101. She lived through all the major shifts of the century, yet was reduced mainly on her role as chief film maker during the Third Reich. She revolutionized and perfected the use of film as a propaganda tool. I may believe she started it all with purely artistic intentions, but she quite obviously struggled with the immensity of the system whose privileges she enjoyed and downplayed her part in all of it in the aftermath of destruction. At the core, it’s a story about values versus glory, taking responsibility and that history is not as linear and obviously black/white as we would like it to be.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very solid book about a controversial and extremely interesting person.

[John Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting biography about an interesting person. Difficult to ever separate her from her film subject.

[José Carlos Figueiredo · Rating 3 out of 5]

O autor relata a vida e obra de Leni, mas evidencia a sua opinião pessoal depreciativa ao longo do relato.

[igobyini · Rating 5 out of 5]

objective and straight to the point. bach holds almost no opinions when it comes to riefenstahl and argues both perspectives when the time is right.