Leni Riefenstahl

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890- 1945". Pages 952-957. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.

Her first dancing performance followed in 1923. After performances at home and abroad her ambitious intention to devote her life to the dancing was finished because of a knee injury.

When she saw the movie Der Berg des Schicksals (1924) in the cinema, she became involved completely in the world of the mountains. She wanted to experience this sight personally. She met the actor Luis Trenker and director Arnold Fanck who was interested in Leni Riefenstahl. As a result he wrote a script called Der heilige Berg (1926) in which Leni Riefenstahl impersonated her first leading role.

After Der heilige Berg (1926) Leni Riefenstahl became an in-demand actress. She wasn't oversensitive and found her way in the rough scenery of the cold mountains extremely well. She climbed peaks, was skiing and defied the most adverse circumstances. The mountain movie became her great domain.

In the 1930s, she directed Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia, resulting in worldwide attention and acclaim. Both movies are widely considered two of the most effective, and technically innovative, propaganda films ever made. Her involvement in Triumph des Willens, however, significantly damaged her career and reputation after the war. The exact nature of her relationship with Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler remains a matter of debate. However, Adolf Hitler was in close collaboration with Riefenstahl during the production of at least three important Nazi films, and a closer friendship is claimed to have existed.

For The Blue Light (1932) she directed a movie for the first time, a field where she should go down in history during the time of the National Socialists.

She directed her first documentary Der Sieg des Glaubens (1933) in 1933. It followed Triumph of the Will (1935) about the Nuremberg party conferences of the NSDAP and finally her masterpiece "Olympia" (36-38), in which she spellbound the audience with impressive pictures and slow-motion shots.

She says she read Ernest Hemingway's "Green Hills of Africa" (1935) in 1955 and prepared immediately to visit the Sudan, which she did the following year, was accepted by and lived with the Nuba people for several months. She wrote three books, mainly photographic essays documenting the vanishing beauty of African people and cultures, from 1972 to 1997. Those are possibly her best refutations of accusations of her racist philosophy as the director of Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations (1938).

Robert Dassanowsky considers Lowlands (1954) to be Riefenstahl's cinematic statement on her rejection of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

She photographed the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, and rock star Mick Jagger along with his wife Bianca for The Sunday Times. Years later, Riefenstahl photographed Las Vegas entertainers Siegfried & Roy.

Ms. Riefenstahl lied about her age in 1973 to be passed an official licence to go deep-diving in the Pacific Ocean. She started collecting images of the underwater beauty then, and she did not stop when a shark showed his appreciation of her by head-butting her 3 times, as documented on a TV documentary in 2002.

Riefenstahl's books with photographs of the Nuba tribes were published in 1974 and republished in 1976 as Die Nuba (translated as "The Last of the Nuba") and Die Nuba von Kau ("The Nuba People of Kau"). While heralded by many as outstanding colour photographs, they were harshly criticized by Susan Sontag, who claimed in a review that they were further evidence of Riefenstahl's "fascist aesthetics".The Art Director's Club of Germany awarded Riefenstahl a gold medal for the best photographic achievement of 1975. She also sold some of the pictures to German magazines.[.

She was guest of honour at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada.

In 1993, Riefenstahl was the subject of the award-winning German documentary film Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl (1993), directed by Ray Müller. Riefenstahl appeared in the film and answered several questions and detailed the production of her films. The biofilm was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, winning in one category. Riefenstahl, who for some time had been working on her memoirs, decided to cooperate in the production of this documentary to tell her life story about the struggles she had gone through in her personal life, her film-making career and what people thought of her. She was also the subject of Müller's documentary film Leni Riefenstahl: Her Dream of Africa (2003), about her return to Sudan to visit the Nuba people.

In early 2000, the 97 year old Riefenstahl spent several weeks recovering in hospital after suffering broken ribs and lung injuries after being involved in a helicopter crash whilst filming in Sudan.

In 1978, Riefenstahl published a book of her sub-aquatic photographs called Korallengärten ("Coral Gardens"), followed by the 1990 book Wunder unter Wasser ("Wonder under Water"). In her 90s, Riefenstahl was still photographing marine life and gained the distinction of being one of the world's oldest scuba divers. On 22 August 2002, her 100th birthday, she released the film Impressionen unter Wasser ("Underwater Impressions"), an idealized documentary of life in the oceans and her first film in over 25 years. Riefenstahl was a member of Greenpeace for eight years.

(August 22, 2003) Married for the 2nd time to her boyfriend of 35 years Horst Kettner on her 101st birthday and just 2 weeks before her death.

Riefenstahl was referred to in the series finale of the television show Weeds (2005) when Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) questions Andy (Justin Kirk) for naming his daughter after a Nazi, to which he replies, "she was a pioneer in film-making, I don't believe in holding grudges".

In April 2007, The Guardian reported that British screenwriter Rupert Walters was writing a movie based on Riefenstahl's life which would star actress Jodie Foster. The project did not receive Riefenstahl's approval prior to her death, as Riefenstahl asked for a veto on any scenes to which she did not agree. Riefenstahl also wanted Sharon Stone to play her rather than Foster, which ultimately resulted in the cancellation of the project.

Riefenstahl's filming merits are discussed between characters in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds (2009).

In 2011, director Steven Soderbergh revealed that he had also been working on a biopic of Riefenstahl for about six months. He eventually abandoned the project over concerns of its commercial prospects.

Riefenstahl was portrayed by Zdena Studenková in Leni, a 2014 Slovak drama play about her fictional participation in The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962).

In the short film Leni. Leni. (2016), based on the play by Tom McNab and directed by Adrian Vitoria, Hildegard Neil portrays Riefenstahl preparing to give an interview in 1993. In her dressing room she is "visited" by herself as a young woman portrayed by Valeriya Kozhevnikova at three stages/turning points in her life: as a dancer (1924), an actress (1929) and a director (1940).