"Olympia I, II" Lenny Riefenstahl wrote in his diary excitedly on November 24, 1937: "I finally saw this "Olympia" movie-it's wonderful and beyond description. The pictures and expressiveness are exciting, and some of the details are very touching. Lenny is well controlled. It is a great work. I am encouraged. Lenny must be very pleased." Joseph Goebbels. After watching this film, I wrote my first impression as a critic. The propaganda minister of Nazi Germany always personally censored all kinds of news films, literary and artistic films and feature films, and strictly checked the films before they were released. He also often requires filmmakers to report to him on a regular basis, and follow his instructions to revise or remake the film. Although Goebbels praised the film, Lenny claimed to the public that Goebbels made every effort to make the film difficult. The actual situation is that two days later, Goebbels’ diary appeared more beautiful words: “I reported to the head of state about the movie "Olympia". The head of state was very happy and was greatly encouraged by the success of this film. Appreciation. We are considering giving Lenny a small honor. She deserves it, although she has always been so indifferent to fame and fortune and unknown." Before Christmas, he mentioned again: "Two "Olympics" "Asia" is scheduled to be screened together in February next year, and there will be a grand premiere."
After that, he came up with a better idea. April 20, 1938, happened to be Hitler's 49th birthday, and the premiere of "Olympia" was selected on this day, and it was launched as a gift film. On the same day, the two films named "National Festival" and "Beautiful Festival" held their grand premieres in Berlin. The shooting and production of "Olympia" took two years. A total of 400,000 meters of film material was shot, and finally two films were edited, each with a length of 6,000 meters. During the Berlin Olympics, there were as many as 40 full-time photographers in the film crew of Lenny Riefenstahl, and a dedicated "Hindenburg" airship was used for aerial photography. The production company that appears in the credits is not a private film company, but a shadow company that has a close relationship with the Nazi Propaganda Department, which Lenny once again denied. Because Riefenstahl always regards this film as a self-fulfilling work, and he believes that he is a filmmaker who is not affected by political factors, and has repeatedly emphasized the performance of power and beauty in the work. Her photographs in the Ruba region of Sudan also express this idea. Compared with the banning of a series of Nazi propaganda films she made, "Olympia" was allowed to be screened in 1952 after editing, because the non-political factors embodied in the film gained everyone's approval.
The aesthetics of "Olympia" is not as good as people think. Whether it is the first ``Festival of the Peoples'' or the second ``Beautiful Festival,'' the prologue stage is just a form of expression that breaks through the neoclassical aesthetics to show the homosexual metamorphosis advocated by Nazism. Aesthetics, such as the statues of Arnold Blake and Joseph Torak with Nazi colors. It now appears that these two long prologues deliberately created by the director have become a perfect irony of the failure of Nazism. The first to appear on the screen are the ancient temples, pillars and arches, and tall walls, up to the Acropolis, guiding the audience into the world of Olympia. Then, the camera turned and switched to the classical statue. It is obvious that Riefenstahl is deliberately pursuing the effect of the light beam. Even in the foggy background, the light is not weakened at all, creating a brilliant scene of the subject rising in the smoke.
Next is the fascist aesthetics of Gurifenstahl that the naked athlete statues want to express. Riefenstahl made four films for Nazi Germany, whether it is praising the Nazi Party Congress, the Wehrmacht, or the sports meeting, the theme is They all preach that individuals and collectives are rejuvenated under the leadership of the British head of state. Nazism films are about the victory of the common will, catalyzing ordinary life with psychedelic drugs, and letting people fall into a state of self-control and annihilation of humanity. In the final analysis, they are all about the victory of power. Susan Sontag represents the essence of the Olympic spirit: "A healthy body contains a healthy soul." Such a prologue expresses a good wish-the opening ceremony of the main venue of the Berlin Olympic Games also carries such a hope. The long-distance runner holding the Olympic flame brings the essence of ancient thought to today. Deliberately emphasizedJing Juzhong and the use of biaxially symmetrical lenses give the Berlin Stadium a religious connotation. Next, a series of footage focused on Hitler, recording in detail the whole process of his speech for the opening of the Olympic Games. These scenes were processed in slow motion dissolve in post-production. This kind of deliberately created spectacular scene still seems naive and ridiculous today. There is nothing innovative about Olympia.
William Prager used the classicist picture as the background to highlight the theme in the sports documentary film "The Road to Power and Beauty" shot in 1925. The film was broadcast in the evening program, advocating a new sense of human aesthetics, and it set off a wave of craze in the 1920s. Lenny Riefenstahl is like a naked female slave, servilely waiting for her master to bathe in an ancient Roman bath. This is the impression of her early works. From the structural point of view, "Olympia" is just a repetition of the propaganda film "Victory of Will" (19341935) she once filmed for the Nazis. In that film, Hitler's techniques of creating gods appear more adept. "It is impossible to freeze the top-down people's movement as a piece of history, or to provide a good formula for social development. A free society has to wait for a period of time to solve these problems, and various viewpoints are like a distillation flask. It’s the same.” Susan Sontag, a film critic at the end of the year, commented that she advocated to look at the problem in two ways, setting aside Riefenstahl’s Nazi background and rediscovering her films. True value. The controversy over Lenny Riefenstahl has been protracted, and her films have long been exaggerated.
