In my Image and Communications class we watched this film which is a propaganda film chronicling the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremeberg (thanks Wikipedia!). Leni Riefenstahls cinematography was quite forward thinking at the time…moving cameras (dolly), telephoto lenses, aerial photography, music within the film (thanks Wikipedia!).
The film mainly consists of footage of the arrival of the Nazi party in Nuremberg parading through the streets, waving hello to their fans (and I do mean fans), speeches made to various assemblies of people (the youth, the Labourers, Party members, etc.) and overall documentation of the a day in the life of the Nazi party going through town.
While I can say that I wasn’t blown away by the cinematography because I’ve seen it all before considering the techniques have been replicated many times over, I was blown away by various other aspects of the film.
*Note that I don’t know a lot of cold hard facts about the Nazi Party and WWII. So if I mix up something, go ahead and let me know.*
The fact that I was watching a piece of history documented before WWII was quite strange. Here was a film about a political party who was rising to power in Germany and hoped to bring Germany back to grandeur…back to the times before the first World War. It was a simple black and white film with minutes upon minutes of filming a parade down the street and of people raising their arms in salute of Mr. Hitler and company driving through the streets. The people seemed happy…it was probably a good time in Germany.
Once in awhile, the National Socialist party would stop in and make a speech. These were intriguing as they were very similar to speeches I’ve seen over the years…general comments about how the country will be strong again and it’s people will be powerful and they will not bow down to failure. This could be any politician’s speech when you think about it. It’s only because we know of what happens afterwards that we may look at it with a little fear. Heck, I’m sure I heard President Obama talk about how their nation needs to rise up and become powerful again.
But it’s the little things near the end of the film that become a little haunting. The final speech says “The Party is Hitler – and Hitler is Germany just as Germany is Hitler!” Those are some pretty powerful words. It shows how fanatical his followers were becoming.
It’s strange to watch a film like this and remember the fanaticism during Trudeaumania, or what is happening now down in the United States of America with President Obama. Am I trying to say that these politicians are all comparable? Heavens no! But the devotion to their political leaders is comparable…at least in the beginning as seen in this snapshot from 1934.
A sidenote about some of the scenes…there was one part filmed in Nuremberg where there were 160,000 soldiers lined up while Hitler, Himmler and Lutze walk down a path between them all. This is a very powerful and iconic image. I immediately thought of the scene in Star Wars where the Emperor walks amongst the storm troopers. Lo and behold, not one minute after I made this comment did Adolf Hitler refer to his soldiers as Storm Troopers! That was a surprise to me.
I must admit that there were a lot of parts of this film which dragged on. Twenty minutes of a parade is a little mind-numbing. But overall I was excited to see this piece of film history. I think the most interesting part of it was seeing Germany in 1934 before all hell started to break loose. What am I saying? This was clearly the genesis of hell breaking loose and it’s captured on film. Haunting.