The lack of humanity after worshiping beauty and gods

Dahlia 2022-04-19 09:03:11

(A short essay on the history of foreign films)

German female director Leni Riefenstahl became famous for her documentary "Triumph of the Will". Triumph of the Will chronicled the "unprecedented pomp" of the 1934 Congress of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDPA), becoming one of the most important documentaries in history and considered the most successful political propaganda piece. In the film, Riefenstahl used moving footage to shoot news material, and used theatrical dialogue to create a unique artistic feature.

As Riefenstahl said in his subsequent interview documentary: "[In Triumph of the Will] there is nothing else but Hitler and the crowd", the film starts from the clouds, shooting Hitler's plane, the plane Passing through Nuremberg, the appearance of a Nazi eagle was displayed on the ground, fully implying Hitler's self-positioning - the "God" from the clouds who saved the German people. Most of the shots of Hitler in the film used a high-angle looking up lens, using the sky as the background of the picture, trying to shape Hitler into a towering statue. Shooting Hitler alone on a glorious stage with a long shot shows Hitler's supreme power. In this way of expression, the image of Hitler is deified. He is no longer a real human being, but more like a symbolic noun or a form of emptiness in consciousness. In the deification of the individual image, in addition to the deification of Hitler in "Triumph of the Will", it is also reflected in Riefenstahl's subsequent work "Olympia" series of documentaries. The "Olympia" series records the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games and the postures of the athletes. The film begins with a close-up of the athletes' body curves and muscles in slow motion. When focusing on the discus thrower, the athletes' figures slowly fade out, and the The statue work "Discus Thrower" overlaps. In such a transformation, a weakening of the athlete's humanity is formed, and the audience is unconsciously guided. People involuntarily assimilate the athlete with the statue, an inanimate individual. Compared with the deification of Hitler's image in "Triumph of the Will", in "Olympia", Riefenstahl used photography technology to deify many athletes, and even formed the gods on Mount Olympia in Greek mythology. As a result, the athletes standing on the podium were given laurels, just like the mythical sun god Apollo. The symbolic nature of the deified characters is far greater than the story, and becomes a container carrying "beauty" - Hitler becomes consciousness and spirit, athletes become muscles and appreciation objects, adhering to Riefenstahl's aestheticism.

In addition to the deification of the individual image, we can also see the individuation of the collective image in Riefenstahl's work. In "Triumph of the Will", there are a large number of long-range shots of huge crowds. Thousands of soldiers are individualized as a collective term such as "army", and can be materialized as "tools of war". After processing, the "men in the military" have been dehumanized. Looking at Hitler's fanatical followers, with their arms waving with no other emotional expression, we have no idea what the story is and what lies behind the shell of the slogan "One nation, one leader, one empire, Germany!" Individual thinking, people lose their names, lose their initiative, and become a tool of political and artistic expression. Riefenstahl abandoned the expression of individual self while advocating collectivist aesthetics under the patriotic trend of thought, lacking individual perspective after grand narrative, and pursuing order in the framework. The crowd was also applied to the subject of the filming, using the emotions of onlookers to bring out the real effect of the filming, the iconic salute and high spirits of Hitler fanatics can reflect the high popularity of the Nazis, Olympic spectators waving the national flag , record results, and cheers are enough to see the fierce competition and the superiority of the players. This expression can also be seen in post-production. In Riefenstahl's later interview, she talked about cutting Hitler's two-hour speech into five minutes according to the effect of the crowd. In addition, Riefenstahl also shoots the beauty of group portraits. The neat and spectacular procession is highly normative and orderly, showing Nazi aestheticism, using beauty and artistic packaging to promote non-beauty and inhumanity.

Although Riefenstahl stated that she is not interested in politics, we can also feel a strong ideology in her pursuit of beauty. The emphasis on very individual characters in her works and the weakening of the individual's self-awareness in group images can be related to the socialist ideology that Germany pursued at that time to create a cult of personality and refuse to pursue personal interests. In addition, in Riefenstahl's aesthetics, even though she wants to achieve the purity of beauty as an artist, the beauty she shows is not pure, the music in "Triumph of the Will" is the battle song, the soldier's body Beauty is the strength of the warriors, the orderly ranks are the military capital, and the art of uniforms has also become a tool for mechanized human beings. In "Olympia", although the Olympic Games are called "beautiful festivals", they also show political meaning everywhere. The number and strength of the athletes show the situation of a country to a certain extent, making this competition a national competition. In the arena, Korean players from the Japanese occupation period can only play on behalf of Japan. When Riefenstahl and Hitler rode in the same car, passing through the streets crowded with fanatics on both sides, she had no disgust, no chills, no excitement, and she went about her work as always, terribly calm, one could even say a lack of emotion.

From the perspective of future generations, Riefenstahl's creations during the Nazi period were politically seditious, but we cannot put the cart before the horse, that is, we should not criticize the Nazi rule but excessively investigate the individuals under the Nazi period. However, at that time, a message In the era of scarcity, what cannot be ignored is the media role of film as a creative form. Artists must assume corresponding social responsibilities. The pursuit of "beauty" requires a humanitarian boundary, and necessary thinking and romantic thinking are required when creating. The rationality of the betting object of the feelings, and the subsequent social significance of the work. No artist can create "beauty" in the "Utopia of Beauty". "Beauty" is social and epochal. If it cannot be created from a human perspective, then the work will be out of human nature and full of controversy.

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Extended Reading

The Triumph of the Will quotes

  • Adolf Hitler: The German people are happy in the knowledge that a constantly changing vision has been replaced by a steadfast pole!

  • Adolf Hitler: There is always a part of society that sets themselves apart and more is expected from them than from the millions of national comrades. For them, it is not enough to simply pledge 'I believe', but rather the affirmation 'I fight'!

    [Thunderous applause]