Reviews for Twenty-Five and Under: Photographers

The average rating for Twenty-Five and Under: Photographers based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-06-16 00:00:00 Tristin Walerko Reading this biography was very interesting and enjoyable. Of course, Leni Riefenstahl was a woman whose life was full of gigantic events and daredevil endeavours which played at a highly visible level and, moreover, in a setting that was very controversial and, in hindsight, despicable. Still, you have to admire her enormous drive and artistic achievements. Reading this book, I concluded that she must have been the one and only real Uebermensch in the highest top level of Nazi Germany. Look at Hitler, Goering and Goebbels, they are not specimen who are legible for the nomination! Goebbels hated her guts and was always trying to trip her up and scheming to have her fail, but she was such a gutsy lady that she approached Hitler directly and to complain about him time and again and Hitler never failed to reprimand Goebbels in turn, loving it to sow discontent and anomosity among his closest companions. Hitler obviously admired Leni and loved her bravery and extreme physical prowess. It is known that he was crazy about her movies even before he met her. He probably saw her perform as a solo dancer too. She had a dance performance in the same fashion as Isadora Duncan before she started her movie carreer. Leni seems to have been a totally obsessed character and so blinded by her artistic ambitions that she hardly paid any attention to what was happening in the world around her. Many people, who had known her personally, all declare that she had a clear vision how her documentaries and movies should look and there was nothing that she would allow to distract her. Indeed, as someone remarked, it was as if she had blinders and saw only her way forward to the exact picture she had in her mind. She was very tough on herself and her crews, camping out on gletschers and even in Greenland on icebergs to get the exact effect she envisioned. The iceberg movie almost cost her life, as she fell from a tumbling iceberg and got seriously ill. Being so far from civilisation, it took months to get her back to a proper hospital. Severe accidents happened to her throughout her life, but she always recuperated and continued. As an Uebermensch would! In her mountain movies, the equipment was hauled up on the backs of the whole crew, the actors included, so she picked mountaineering professionals to play the main parts, herself playing the main female role, as she was unafraid to climb steep walls, hanging on ropes to climb gletschers and high mountains. You have to admire her. She really was insanely brave. After the war, Leni Riefenstahl went through endless investigations, house arrests and accusations for a long time and the accusations went on even when she was officially declared innocent by court order of any war crimes or membership of the fascist party. For example, the French government refused to return her confiscated film material to her and did so only after a court order in 1952. Having been a person so close to the nazi top and so visible in public life, she was picked as an easy scapegoat, while real nazi's escaped and continued to live without any harrassment. While her movies continued to be viewed as fascist in intention and imagery, other people filming or photographing the same subjects did not get the fascist stamp in any way at all. Riefenstahl's filming is described as 'fascist aesthetic', i.e straining after an ideal, ecstacy in victory and submission to a stern leader, even in the face of death. Even if we accept that Riefenstahl was blind to the propaganda implications when making the Triumph of the Will, the end result was certainly a propaganda work and one that has become the standard by which all later propaganda productions are measured. At the same time, it is a very artistic film and that produces difficulties in appreciating it. Leni herself protested against the notion that it was a propaganda movie on the naive ground that it had been awarded the gold medal at the World's Fair in Paris in 1937 by the French Prime Minister. She was convinced that such an honour would not have been given if it had been a work of Nazi propaganda. Leni Riefenstahl pursued many different projects when it was clear that she could not realistically hope to be a successful movie director anymore. She choose different paths, photographing vanishing tribes in Africa, learning to dive and study sea life, preferring long absences from Germany. Finishing the biography, Leni Riefenstahl remained a mystery to me. Her friends declared that she was a true and dependable friend and a very pleasant companion for fun and adventure. Some say that she protected them during the war by making up jobs on her crews. It says something very profound about her that she never became a member of the nazi party and that, in itself, I think was a feat of tremendous bravery in the close circle of Hitler's companions. On the other hand, the woman was obviously supremely disinterested in what did not involve her personally and she never developped a critical mind. It left her ignorant of political events and their consequences. After the war, she had a hard time getting used to the idea that her beloved leader was a monstrous man. From her point of view, he was the charming man who gave her the opportunity to pursue her dreams. She died at a very old age at 101. I imagine she was too busy to die. I wholly recommend this biography. It was really one of the most interesting biographies I ever read.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-11-24 00:00:00 Artin Nazarian I'd seen "The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl", and was intrigued enough to want to pick up this biography. What a fascinating read, and a fascinating woman. If you can put the Nazi connection aside for a moment (and the author paints a believable portrait of a woman who seemed more drawn to rubbing elbows with important, poweful people, than someone who subscribed to the idealogy of the Nazi party), it is difficult to not be impressed by the this woman's achievements as an artist. As a very young woman she decides that she wants to be a dancer - so with no training to speak of, off she goes and becomes a famous dancer in the style of Isadora Duncan. That under her belt, she becomes interested in film, so becomes afilm actress (teaching herself to be an expert rock climber in order to star in one film - in which she climbs IN BARE FEET). Bored with acting, she decides she wants to direct - and does that too. Many years after WWII, when it is clear that she will not be able to make another film, she decides to pick up sticks and go live in an African village, where she takes amazing photgraphs of the Nuba people. Then at the age of 70-odd, she decides to become an underwater photgrapher, masquerading as a 50-something (and gets away with it easily) so she can learn to scuba-dive. If I had read a fiction novel where the protagonist led the life of Leni Riefenstahl, I would have said "This is too much." The fact that Leni really lived this life made this book a great read.