As usual, Bob, you've managed to express what I'd say much more eloquently than I could have.
However, one final note (promise, really): Marnie, I can separate art from the artisit. And, although the artist's personal life or views may affect my view of their art, if it's good art, I'll appreciate it regardless. Wagner was a rabid anti-semite, but that doesn't make me not like his operas - truth is I don't like ~anyone's~ operas, but that's a whole other kettle of fish... <vbg> OTOH, if one's political views are present in their work, it's hard to ignore. Take Lewis Hine and his photographs of child labourers in cotton mills. They're incredibly powerful images in their own right. Does it add anything to them to know that Hine was a social worker, and that his documenting those children was in part, due to his desire to bring about anti-child-labour legislation? It does for me. I don't know for sure what Reifenstahl was thinking when she made Triumph of the Will. Was it merely "a commission" as she says? Or, even if she wasn't officially a party member, did some of what I suspect was her enthusiasm for what the party stood for, come through in the film? Whatever the case, the film in and of itself is political. So maybe it's the politics of the film that bother me, not hers. Pretty hard to figure out which politics is which, after a while. And, now that I think of it, the whole "it was just a commission" thing is a load of crap, isn't it? I'd like to think that if the Aryan Nation, or some other neo-nazi group called me up and said, "Hey, frank, we've seen your work on PUG, and we like it. We hear you're a struggling photographer, working at a dead end job, and that you'd like to make a bit more money from your photography. Well, we'll pay you to photograph us at rallies and the like. Hang out at our meetings, document what we're up to - you'll have free access to everything we do. We know you aren't a white supremecist, but that's okay, we're confident that as a Professional Photographer, you'll be able to take our money, and produce the type of photos we want." I think I know what I'd say. And, knowing you a little bit as I do, I think I know what you'd say, Marnie. Problem is, Leni didn't say what we would have... That's it, my last word on this!! All subsequent responses will be off-list, I promise! cheers, frank Bob Walkden wrote: > Hi, > > Tuesday, September 16, 2003, 4:19:17 PM, you wrote: > > > I'll add one more comment. Frankly, I don't care if Reifenstahl was a Nazi or > > not -- her film, like all art work can stand alone, independent of the > > creator. > > Her work is so recognisable as being of that time that I don't believe > you can separate the 2 and see the work as something isolated, or fail > to consider Riefenstahl's position in this. She was perhaps naive when > she first became involved. Maybe she thought Nazism was much the same > as a great big Busby Berkeley musical, all camera angles and > synchronised high-kicking. Somehow I doubt that, and I don't think > you can really view them in the same way you'd look at stills from a > Busby Berkeley review. > > > And her propaganda did not significantly increase Hitler's power, the > > events she shot he was doing anyway. He was already a master of propaganda without > > her. I heard way back when in my film class that the problem was, "she did her > > job too well." I tend to agree with that. Thus it makes it hard to see what > > her own stand was or might have been independent of what she produced. But like > > I said previously, no one else gave us a such a powerful visual record -- an > > insight into the times and the thinking -- as close to insider glimpse of a > > turbulent and very strange time in history as we are likely to ever have. We'd > > be poorer, much poorer, without it. > > It is certainly a powerful record, and I appreciate it as much as > anybody, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's an inser's > view. If she was an insider then she must take her share of the > responsibility for events. She claimed she was not an insider. Her > pictures and movies are not in any way fly-on-the-wall stuff; they are > all rehearsed and cannot possibly be treated as documentary in any > modern sense of the word, so I don't see what glimpse we are getting > of this time. > > Where is the insight in her photographs & films? They are extremely > shallow. She saw only the surface of things. Look at what she has > influenced: advertisements for Calvin Klein; James Bond films; Annie > Leibovitz's celebrity portraits. Flashy, exciting, emotive, but > trivial with no depth. She was ahead of her time. > > > But then I've always tended to think that "art" can stand and be judged > > independent of the artist. Good thing, since many famous painters have been real > > assholes in real life. > > In my opinion you can gain more from the art by knowing about the > artist's life. Knowing that Picasso was Spanish certainly adds to the > power of 'Guernica', for instance. > > -- > Cheers, > Bob mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- "Hell is others" -Jean Paul Sartre
