"If you see this film again today, you ascertain that it doesn't contain a single reconstructed scene." So says Riefenstahl in her film's defense in the Muller documentary. What does she mean by "reconstructed"? Certainly we would not think the massed "march-bys" would be reconstructed. But what of such scenes as the Workers' Brigade, where the men chant in unison, presumably to Hitler, that they labor in the swamps, in the fields, etc., and then, in response to the barked question, "Where are you from?" individuals answer with the names of their towns or districts. They could not have all heard the question; each answer would have been a separate set-up.
There are also questions of spontaneity. During one Hitler speech, he is interrupted bysieg heil!exactly six times, as if there were an applause sign to prompt them when to begin and end, and we note that throughout the film, there are no scatterings of individual voices at the start or finish ofsieg heil!Only a single massed voice, in unison. I found myself peering intently to observe other moments of the film revealing its mechanism. Although Riefenstahl used 30 cameras and a crew of 150, only one camera appears to be visible on screen; during the outdoor rally before three gigantic hanging swastika flags, you can see the camera on an elevator between the first and second, its shadow cast on the second. And in a shot of a man who has climbed up a pole to get a better view of a parade, she cuts back to him giving the right-arm salute; I reflected that he could not hold on without both hands, and realized that his left foot is out of frame in both shots -- standing on a support, undoubtedly. Among minor details: Everyone on screen seems to have a fresh haircut.
That "Triumph of the Will" is a great propaganda film, there is no doubt, and various surveys have named it so. But I doubt that anyone not already a Nazi could be swayed by it. Being a Nazi, to this film, means being a mindless pawn in thrall to the godlike Hitler. Yet it must have had a persuasive effect in Germany at the time; although Hitler clearly spells out that the Nazis will be Germany's only party, and its leader Germany's only leader for 1,000 years to come. At the end, there is a singing of the party anthem, the Horst Wessel Song; under Nazi law, the right-arm salute had to be given during the first and fourth verses. We see a lot of right-arm saluting in "Triumph of the Will," noticing how Hitler curls his fingers back to his palm before withdrawing the salute each time, with a certain satisfaction. What a horrible man. What insanity that so many Germans embraced him. A sobering thought: Most of the people on the screen were dead within a few years.
Note:See also "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl" and "Downfall" (2005), with a haunting Bruno Ganz as Hitler during his last days.
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