Sarah Jilani
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And so my cameraman took roller skates to make this with roller skates, moving.
And that gives it life.
And later, in my cutting room, it was the most difficult work of my life.
And I was 18 years...
hours, day and night, to think always what I can do that is interesting.
It took Riefenstahl seven months to edit the two-hour film.
The result was Triumph of the Will, a title apparently suggested by Hitler.
In 1972, the BBC's Keith Dewhurst asked Riefenstahl about their relationship.
Oh, look, I wasn't afraid.
He was very natural.
He spoke like another person to me.
and only about my work.
So it was not difficult to speak with him.
He had never spoken about things that I don't understand.
And naturally, in this time, he was for me a very important person, and I was proud that he had such confidence in me.
But the film was deeply controversial.
While some admired the artistry, it was also condemned as glorifying a regime that would go on to be responsible for millions of deaths and for portraying a genocidal dictator as a godlike saviour.
Here's the academic George Steiner, who escaped the Holocaust, speaking in 1992.
She was an eye that was both a mirror of the horror and a creator of its veneer.
The criticism was put to Riefenstahl by Dennis Chewy on the BBC in 1976.