> I saw Triump of the Will in college in film class and thought it was > masterful. A incredibly masterful piece of propaganda, > meaning talent had gone into > it.
I don't think anyone denies her talent. She's probably one of the best film directors ever - up there with D W Griffiths and others. She is arguably _the_ best female film director (how many other women film directors can people name instantly?). It's the use she put it too, and her consistent failure to acknowledge her part in Hitler's success, that are so controversial. She was also very unethical in the way she dealt with the Nuba people she filmed and photographed. Susan Sontag drew a connecting thread between her pre-Nazi mountain films, her films for Hitler and Goebbels, and her self-commissioned work with the Nuba. Sontag claimed it showed a 'fascist aesthetic' in her worship of the body beautiful. I'm not sure that it can be called a fascist aesthetic, but the thread is certainly there. Her images are certainly beautiful and very powerful, but when I look at them I don't find myself yearning for a black uniform and a parade ground. > > I know nothing about Susan Sontag or Annie Leibovitz, but > when I did a > google search on Leibovitz, seems she's been shooting > celebrities for a long time, > regardless if she has done earlier and more serious work. > Annie Leibovitz is extremely talented, and has more or less always been a portraitist. I first became aware of her in the late 70s through a book she shared with Mary Ellen Mark called The Photojournalist, published in 1974 in the Masters of Contemporary Photography series. At the time she was the photographer for Rolling Stone magazine. Most of the photos in the book were quite straight and ungimmicky, although in some you do see a hint of the trickery that she makes so much of nowadays, and which has gone right over the edge with these Disney photos. There's too much surface gloss in much of her celebrity portrait work now, and it isn't used as any kind of commentary - she seems to have bought into that world. On the other hand, when she steps away from celebrity she is a superb photographer, portraitist and journalist. -- Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On [...] > Anyway, while googling around for more about Leibovitz and > Riefenstahl > I stumbled upon the following monstrosities from Leibovitz's camera. > Don't look unless you have a strong stomach: > > http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/index?name=Gallery&; > bhcp=1 > > I don't know which is the greater crime against good taste, that or > Triumph of the Will. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
