The title of the film is "The Triumph of the Will", which clearly expresses the attitude that the power of the spirit is greater than that of the material. What does the party rely on? It's not just the beauty of money, the promise of promotion, or the greater power that comes with it. The Nazis were also an ideological party.
The will here is not Christianity. Although the Nazis did not oppose Christianity in name and were still using Christianity, the "will" of the Nazis was far from the spirit of Christianity. The Lutheran revolution had long since left foreign churches behind. If you come to communicate with God yourself, it doesn't matter what God is like. The "will" of the individual and the nation is increasingly important to the Germans.
The Nazi "will" conveyed in the film includes individual and collective honor, proud identity, sacrifice, and the German tradition of heroism. The whole symphony, marches, spontaneous cheers, neat queues, and speeches of bigwigs emphasize this "will" all the time.
Of course, the Nazis are only authoritarian and centralized, not totalitarian, and have not yet reached the point where "the army and the people are united as one, try to see who can be the enemy in the world". However, the Nazi system emphasized subjectivity, left a certain space for individuals to think and choose, and left an opportunity to express their will, so this system was more dynamic.
The speech of Joseph Goebbels in the film is not as "inspiring" as other bigwigs, but it is more bewitching: "May the fire of passion never go out, it gives warmth and light... Seizing power with a rifle may be a A good way, but a better way is to win the hearts of the people." According to Goebbels, a lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth, not to mention a lie mixed with facts. This method of master Goebbels is not only used in the field of propaganda, but the concept behind it is so profound that many "wise men" bow to the ground and become the guiding light for their own lives.
Some people say that the director is not a Nazi, has no position, but is just a pure artistic creator. If this is the case, then I don't know where to put the radical Jiang Qing. Maybe it's just that Jiang Qing's model drama is not attractive, or the model drama is not very suitable for the taste of the 21st century literary and artistic youth.
Art and politics cannot be separated. There is no purely "documentary" film, and no purely "artistic" perspective. Talking about this film from an aesthetic point of view is a bit self-deceiving, or a bit self-comforting. There are many kinds of "beauty", and correspondingly there are many kinds of aesthetic methods. To appreciate this beauty, or that beauty - is politics in itself. The difference between Beethoven and Mozart is not necessarily smaller than the difference between the two political parties. The utensils unearthed in different dynasties are rough and delicate, heavy and frivolous, not to mention the more demagogic arts such as audio and video.
During the Nuremberg Trial, some war criminals said that I was just a soldier or a member of the bureaucracy, I just obeyed the orders of my superiors, and I couldn't blame the guns for hurting people, so "I'm not guilty." However, if the guns are conscious, "they" may secretly worship and admire the gunman, and secretly enjoy the thrill of killing. The idea of sanctifying and legalizing the profession of killer is quite postmodern. This is the same as making the artist very detached and making art worthless. Win or lose, the Anglo-Saxon culture has always disliked the "will to power" of the Germans, so this film has been banned in the West.
With the defeat of the war, Hitler and Goebbels all went to Yellow Springs. The party congress was held in high spirits, but it was also in Nuremberg that Hess, Goering and others who spoke so generously were put on trial. The "will" has been withdrawn, and the director who promotes the will is about to win first.
View more about The Triumph of the Will reviews
