Customer Rating:  
Summary: Entertaining but somewhat narrow in viewpoint
Comment: Steven Bach's book is an entertaining read, perhaps more so for those with little previous knowledge of Riefenstahl, the events leading up to the second world war and the fate of other Germans who supported the Nazis, benefitted from their collaboration with the Third Reich and then had highly successful careers in their chosen fields after the war. While the book appears to be well supported by a long list of references, it is unfortunate that Bach has a tendency to use comments from interviews with third parties to refute statements in Riefenstahl's own Memoirs while at the same time citing statements from her Memoirs when those statements support the conclusions he has already made about her. Bach also seems to feel it necessary to repeat certain facts several times during the book, almost as if a single mention were insufficient: for example, he refers twice to Riefenstahl's having given a Hitler salute at the showing of one of her films and mentions twice that Guzzi Lantscher and his brother were both devoted Nazis. This kind of repetition is unnecessary given that Riefenstahl herself admitted many times she supported Hitler. Perhaps rather than repeating what has already been established about Riefenstahl, Bach might have better devoted some time to comparing her fate with that of other prominent artists of the Third Reich such as Elizabeth Schwartzkopf who joined three different Nazi organizations and continued to deny this for decades. This is not to suggest that Riefenstahl should have been let off the hook - rather, that there were others that got away with far more than she did.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating portrait of twisted genius
Comment: Of all the existing books on Leni Riefenstahl--and there are a lot of them out there, including Riefenstahl's own self-exculpatory memoirs--Bach's treatment is in my opinion the most lucid, judicious, and detailed. Unlike many film enthusiasts who try to excuse away Riefenstahl's work for Hitler and the Nazi party, Bach bears down hard on this period in Riefenstahl's oeuvre, situating it in the context of world history, film history, and Riefenstahl's personal development. Riefenstahl is one of those insoluble artistic paradoxes: her best, most creative films were done in the service of one of the most evil ideologies ever invented. Bach is at his best dealing with this material. He spices things up with a few too many details of Riefenstahl's romantic adventures, which are ultimately unedifying and completely irrelevant to any assessment of her importance as a historical figure. Nonetheless, Bach has produced a stunning book which deserves to become the standard account of the subject.
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Summary: Riefenstahl biography: a multi-faceted conundrum
Comment: Riefenstahl biography reveals a multi-faceted conundrum. The sexually-charged and Nazi-friendly female filmmaker in a man's time (1930s-40s) , place (Nazi Germany), and business (movie making, especially as a director and producer) made two of the greatest movies ever made-- or denigrated. "Triumph of the Will" recorded and glorified the 1935 Nazi party rally in Nuremburg and Olympiad (actually a pair of movies focusing on the nationalistic results and the athletic beauty of the competition) documented the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, at which Hitler and Nazi racism were spectators if not headline participants.
For these, Riefenstahl was rightfully praised as a film maker and rightfully castigated then and later as a propagandist for Hitler's Aryan racist regime. Riefenstahl was an insider whose work was funded and assisted directly by Hitler, Goebbels, Speer, and Bormann, but in the post-war settling of accounting claimed to be either blissfully unaware of the atrocities or outspoken against them--neither likely given her intelligence and her sponsorship.
But "LR" had a life before and after Hitler, which Bach's book covers well. Interestingly she started her career in front of the camera, and finished her career as a pariah from the mainstream because of her questionable political history and her insatiable egotism which made her impossible to work with.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Shame
Comment: There have been many attemps to stain Riefenstahl's image along the years, and this one is not the most successful at all. It serves little purpose to the academic bunch. It ashames those that search for objectivity. It ashames those that perceive that Bach has waited for Leni's death (102 years old) to publish this piece of propaganda.
Bach fails on piercing the German mindset that prevailed in the pre-Shoah years. From Triumph of the Will (1935) to the final solution (1942) there are 7 years that searchers will keep on investigating otherwise than in this failed book. Years that can't be blamed on Leni.
Mr Bach, Leni Riefenstahl is a victim of her time. Don't try to bury her merits as an artist into this pile of ordure you have written. The reasons for the Shoah have to be sought somewhere else.
Look for Fiendlander's works for example and leave Leni aside. That's too cheap and un-academic. It's 2008 now and we don't need Leni's head to be cut off to please the masses. She was an artist. We need a deeper insight. The kind of insight that explains how such a German cultivated country faced a cultivated Jewishness in such a violent, deranged manner as to lead to a Shoah. And for that, Mr Bach, Leni's influence plays little relevance.
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Summary: Good Intro to Leni
Comment: After reading Jurgen Trimborn's admirable but somewhat inaccessible biography of Riefenstahl, I sought out this book in hopes that it would be friendlier to a Riefenstahl novice such as me. It certainly is an easier read and a much better starting place.
Steven Bach, of Final Cut fame, writes from the standpoint of a motion picture enthusiast. He also has a POV where Riefenstahl's Nazi associations are concerned and he doesn't hide it. For Bach Riefenstahl is the living version of Klaus Mann's Mephisto, a careerist willing to do anything and associate with anyone to advance her "art." He also makes the case (clearly building on Trimborn's work, among others) that Riefenstahl not only had no problem with anything Hitler did or said, she likely agreed with most if not all of it.
Bach's style is that of a gossipy Hollywood bio, which is fine by me, but he's no fan magazine hack. He knows the power of the snide observation and, best of all, how damning Leni's own words were. At times Riefenstahl comes across as downright delusional about her artistic abilities and men's lust for her. To hear her tell it no man so much as entered the same zipcode as Leni Riefenstahl without falling madly in love with her.
Some may have disagreements about Bach's assessment of Riefenstahl's artistic contributions. I've only seen clips of her work so my own opinion is somewhat limited. Bach does make a good case the Riefenstahl either stole the ideas of others or took credit for their work. Bach doesn't buy the argument that the art is more important than the character or actions of the artist. He also doesn't buy that Riefenstahl was much of an artist.
This is no love letter to Leni. It is an entertaining read. Gossipy, slightly bitchy (as one reviewer here has aptly noted), and full of telling details and quotes, this is a easy entry into the myths and controversy that make up Leni Riefenstahl.
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