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Triumph of the Will (1935)

Dir: Leni Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl’s highly controversial documentary of the Nazi’s pre-war show of power and pomp is a rare beast indeed. It is a film that is at once lauded by the great and the mighty in the film world, has been of untold influence in the way later movies (be they documentary of fiction) have been filmed and regularly rates up there as a triumph of it’s own.
And yet at the same time it is often vilified, loathed, seen as a threat (it is still banned in Germany itself outside of scholarly study), seen as a glorification of evil and even dismissed as not even being a documentary at all.

Leni Riefenstahl was asked by Hitler to record his 1934, four day conference/rally in Nuremberg and she was offered assistance and help above and beyond anything seen in a documentary before or since. Even the Luftwaffe had to lose a few searchlights to illuminate Hitler’s ranks.
And it is the fact that Hitler helped so much and that Leni Riefenstahl had much of what we see staged managed (and re-staged for multiple takes and angles of shot) that sees the call that, what has been described as the greatest documentary ever made, is not a documentary at all.

Whatever your view the technical and artistic mastery seen (often for the first time) in “Triumph of the Will” is something to be admired.
Riefenstahl’s crew of over 170 people toiled to shoot (16 camera crews were used) about 60 hours of footage with which to edit down the final, just short of two hours, print.
The use of stage managed multiple takes, multiple cameras, shooting from trenches to make the below eye-level close-ups of Hitler look more heroic, exact framing (check out the scene of Hitler delivering a passionate speech on a grand stone podium to the left of the frame with the massive eagle away in the background on the right hand side, an image certainly worth more than a thousand words), employment of a telephoto lens, Arial tracking shots and clever editing in of specific close-ups to enhance and personalise the grand spectacle are all techniques new to most movies of that time let alone documentaries. And when put together these techniques help make “Triumph” a far more potent experience, despite its subject matter having a certain powerful fascination and grandeur in itself.
One can only wonder at the majesty of these most infamous sights if the Nazi pomp and splendour had been delivered in colour.
As it is Richard Wagner provides much of the soundtrack.

Leni Riefenstahl sets up a shot.

“Triumph” opens with the only ‘narrative’ seen in the film where we are told about Germany’s (post WW1) suffering and it’s now unstoppable re-birth into a proud and mighty nation of vigour and iron will.
We are inside a plane (representing the plane Hitler is arriving on) as the first images proper unfold before us and with a graceful glide we head through the clouds to set our eyes on the beautiful Bavarian countryside and the sprawling Germanic city below.
And even this early on we see the influence the film would have decades later as we are reminded of a similar sweeping through the clouds reveal that Ridley Scott used to introduce the splendour of Rome in “Gladiator”, a full 65 years later.
This opening is blatant in it’s sensory and even spiritual manipulation as Riefenstahl offers up a sort of reversed trip to Heaven.
Instead of going up through the clouds to paradise, we go down through the clouds to paradise. The paradise of a new Nazi Germany.
Here the clouds part to reveal not the kingdom of a celestial God, but the kingdom of a far more Earthly God, eve if it is in the shape of an Austrian megalomaniac.

Adoring crowds cheer as Hitler alights from his plane. And as his staff car rides the meticulously planned route (thanks no doubt to that master of propaganda who now arrives with Hitler, Josef Goebbels) Riefenstahl shoots from the car to capture the adoring hordes that line the road (all re-staged carefully later, as she would have to retake some of the shots outside of Hitler’s car, to show him from the crowd’s view, without any cameras in sight). Women bring flowers to Hitler and even their cherubic Daughters are carried forward to meet their Fuhrer, to touch his hand and drink-in his power and strength.
All of course cynically stage managed.
But a lot of this adoration and elation is obviously not staged at all. These truly are adoring crowds who see in Hitler a chance not just to gain back self -respect, but to gain Worldly respect.
In 1934 Hitler’s ideology was firmly routed but control of press, in general, the lack of real news in the provinces and the deep routed need in the German people to come out of the smoke of the First World War with a firm, unified national identity mean that the foolishness we now know it all to be can, I think, be forgiven.
And the sheer might and majesty of the Nazi’s propaganda machine and it’s increasingly large manpower and wealth would make anyone see a bright future if they had such an edifice backing it.
When Hitler later comes to the window to give the worshipful hordes their glimpse of greatness, the sight would have even made Hitler’s hated Pope proud.

We then see hundreds upon hundreds of strapping, lean, German men and boys sharing a communal wash, larking about with water hoses, holding playful wrestling matches and games of stamina and one-upmanship.
The message is a clear one. A strong, healthy, loyal, band of comrades that will not only be the bedrock of the new Germany but its way of ensuring that this new Germany will not be humiliated by anyone ever again.
There is something, with the hindsight we have, very creepy about the sight of teenage lads decked out in full Nazi ‘Brown Shirt’ regalia all raising their hands together before all bowing in unison.
The modern viewer may feel the bitter irony of the death and betrayal that has recently happened (during ‘The Night of the Long Knives’) and that which has still yet to come even in those same unified Nazi ranks and of course the feeling of horror knowing of the apocalyptic fire that would soon consume these children and their children.
But to the German audiences then Riefenstahl’s masterful use of camera, editing, sound and visual manipulation par excellence would surely in-still nothing but pride, happiness and the hope of a great and strong future to come.

We then see Rudolph Hess (soon to fall into British hands in unusual circumstances and later to become the most famous Nazi alive during his life term spent in Spandau prison) lead the rather ironic ceremony to honour the recently deceased Hindenburg, before we move inside as the conference opens and the good and the noble of the Nazi machine are rolled out to praise Hitler before more than 100,000 adoring party members and ’representatives’ of other country’s. The sight of a regal looking Japanese man signposts that most infamous of partnerships to come when the Nazi Eagle is embraced by the comforting glow of the Rising Sun.
The names of the speakers shimmer into view to slash across the black background with glowing white letters. Names of infamy that scream out lines of comradeship and solidarity with their leader “We will stand with you through thick and thin”!
We are told that Hitler will be the “Guarantor of victory and the Guarantor of peace”. How they wished they had a crystal ball.

We are then transported outside to that vast stadium where Josef Goebbels informs the crowds of the new Autobahn plans and the mass employment that the building of the new Germany will provide.
He talks of Germany’s industry and the need for strong exports. An ironic line given that in a few years Germany’s main industrial export into other lands will be her tanks and guns…hand delivered down their throats.
Shots of uniformed ‘workers’, marching with their shovels over their arm like rifles, perfectly shows the military ethic that Hitler will in-still to unite Germany. From the start the entire German people are being moulded into one kind of army or another.

From the lauding of the massed German youth, her pretty girls, her playful young boys on her green fields and her pseudo-army of workers we are given a brief glimpse of the actual army itself (a rare glimpse much to the annoyance of the Generals at the time, as cunningly Hitler knows how to keep the spotlight on himself, his cause and to keep the threats veiled) on their well groomed steeds of flesh and blood and their newly minted steeds of iron. A potent mixture of past glory and modern power.

During the night-time rally, as the dying fire in the sky is bolstered by the flickering of Nazi torches and spotlights, the camera takes in the mass upon mass of gleaming standards and swastika flags as it winds its way around the multitude of uniformed ranks as they “Sieg Heil” their leader, who himself stands proudly upon a glowing, tiered edifice with it’s gigantic Nazi eagle in the background, spreading its wings around this seeming saviour of the German people.

There is of course much amusing irony to be had listening to the SA leaders shrieking out how they will follow and fight for Hitler and the new Germany.
A line they really had no choice in taking as only a few months before Hitler and Himmler had ruthlessly purged their increasingly arrogant, libertine, independent, thuggish and quite frankly superfluous ranks during the aforementioned ’Night of the Long Knives'. Murdering their leader Ernst Rohm and roughly 85 others, if not more.
In fact an earlier documentary that featured Rohm was later destroyed…to be replaced by “Triumph of the Will”!
Hitler makes indirect mention of this purging during one of his speeches as he tells the remaining SA that they had nothing to do with the recent “shadow” that had fallen on the Party and that of course everyone is now more united than ever.

As the morning dawns we can see the true scale of the massed ranks.
Thousands upon thousands of regimented troops, and party members standing in strictly defined squares, each holding a swastika flag. A veritable multitude of the faithful that must have spread to the German people and to the outside world everything Hitler wanted such a sight to spread…admiration, a feeling of true power, wariness, respect and of course fear.
A feeling of power and admiration from those German people unable to attend this grand event, wariness and respect from world leaders at just how powerful this jumped up little Austrian had become and fear to those who knew the truth and saw the writing on the wall.
Quite frankly all the things any work of extreme, political propaganda needs to do.

Away from the actual rally the next biggest sequence is the marching of the soldiers through the town as block upon block of armed troops, black clad SS brigades, military bands and standard bearers parade along streets thronged with saluting, waving, cheering crowds and where every house has people hanging out of its windows. A perfect visual mixture of the ordinary citizen, the soldier and the political elite coming together in a unified shout of pride and togetherness as Germans.

The film ends with the famous end of rally conference where Hitler is surrounded by his entire group of infamy, including the newly empowered Himmler who would see his beloved SS dominate not only the horrific tales of the battlefield but also, along with the Gestapo, the everyday lives of German themselves as well as the lives (or lack thereof) of those in the soon to be conquered lands.
"The Party is Hitler - and Hitler is Germany just as Germany is Hitler!" screams out Hess during one of the more famous moments. A description that Hitler will take to heart during the closing days of the war , as he turns away any idea of a surrender to save Germany any more pain, as he decrees his death will be Germany’s death.
Around 150,000 SS and SA members fill this massive building, itself a sort of cathedral to National Socialism, to listen to Hitler’s speech about German power, Nazi solidarity and strength , the iron will of the German people, the newly found strength in the recently purged ranks and the desire to spread National Socialism to all the German people (and let’s bare in mind the fateful truth that Hitler considered many people outside of the borders of Germany itself to be truly Germanic people).

It’s certainly sobering to know that this self-confidence, exaltation, arrogance and unbridled hope and joy would in less than 10 years be on the brink of ruin and desolation and surrounded not by the massed ranks of the glorious Nazi soldier but by the massed piles of rotting German dead as an entire corrupted generation is shovelled into the gaping maw of total war by their deranged and delusional Fuhrer…the same Fuhrer that they now applaud as their saviour.

As the film ends, with the faithful singing out that damn catchy standard of Nazi power "Horst-Wessel-Lied" (“Raise High the Flag”, itself to become a fixture in many movies featuring the Nazis in power) we can openly think of what was to come. Even more so that what has just passed before us.
Much like we can only imagine what it must have been like coming to Hitchcock’s “Psycho” knowing absolutely nothing about what will happen, we can only imagine what it must have been like for people, before any war had happened, watching “Triumph of the Will”.
As such we can’t truly judge the film in that way, with it’s original place in history untainted by its future to be. A future that will become one of the darkest parts of our history.

Riefenstahl claimed that she was naïve about the Nazis, Hitler and what National Socialism really meant for Germany when she made “Triumph” and swore she had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal policies. Whatever the truth, her film will forever be seen as the biggest, proudest, grandest and most skilful glorification of one of mankind’s greatest evils.
But hopefully studied with our now more sober eyes and minds it can also be seen as not only a stunning achievement in audience manipulation, technical wizardry and artistic flourish but in cinema itself.
And moreover, perhaps the best damn Nazisploitation film ever made come to that!