Olympia: Fest der Volker & Olympia: Fest der Schonheit
GER 115m/85m Dir: Leni Riefenstahl
Olympia is a documentary about the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, directed by Leni Riefenstahl, consisting of two parts entitled Festival of Nations and Festival of Beauty. The games themselves were intended to be a demonstration of the power of Germany under the Nazi regime and the two-part film was a piece of Nazi propaganda, made by the same woman who made Triumph of the Will about the Nazi Party Conference.
Part One opens with a fantastic sequence glorifying the Olympic games, starting at Athens and using the torch relay to bring it across Europe to Berlin. We then see the procession of athletes and it feels deeply uncomfortable to see pretty much every country other than the UK and USA doing Hitler salutes. Context is important though- at this point whilst unsavoury, the Nazis' hadn't really committed atrocities. The film won many awards until suddenly falling out of favour after Kristallnacht when the true colours of the Nazi Party were revealed to the wider world.
The rest of the part one is the highlights of the track and field events whilst part two shows the events that took place outside the stadium. Whilst techniques have been refined, equipment has improved and health and safety introduced, on the whole most events are still very recognisable.
There are a couple of exceptions including the high jump as this was some time before the famous Fosbury Flop technique. One of the more notable differences is the fact that competitors in the equestrian and modern pentathlon were all officer from their countries armies (this was the case until the 1950s) and a large number of them fought and many died in World War II only a few years later.
Riefenstahl shoots the events, especially the field events, in an artistic way rather than attempting to capture clear footage of the sports. Though a handful of moments are probably staged, it's still a hugely impressive feat to display the artistry and skill of these athletes. Riefenstahl used unusual camera shots and even had tracking shots, a technical feat that was pretty much unheard of at the time. She even manages to shoot underwater to the diving and swimming which seems is hugely impressive for the 1930s.
It's quite hard to conclude whether this is pure propaganda or a documentary- it feels like somewhere in between. There is a focus on the German athletes but then again many Germans won medals so that's only realistic of what happened. The Germans athletes do get huge cheers but that's only normal from any home Olympic crowd and actually other winners get well supported by the crowd too. There's even a moment when a German women's relay team are in the lead and embarrassingly drop the baton which doesn't exactly feel like a triumphant moment. Often when German athletes are doing well we see a shot of Hitler in the crowd which kept taking me away from the sport. When you think about it though they always show celebrities in the crowd on TV and Hitler was by far the most famous person present so it's natural they'd focus on him. Part Two doesn't show Hitler at all and most of the Nazi ideology is largely in the background.
The film feels some distance away from Nazi ideology when it shows Jesse Owens, especially him winning gold medals in the 100m and long jump. Owens gets enormous cheers from the crowd and the film depicts him as a sporting hero, which of course he was. He was clearly the Usain Bolt of his day who was just an utterly astounding athlete that audiences loved and it's to this film's credit that it shows how great he was.
It may have been commissioned as a piece of propaganda but this feels more like an excellent documentary. The Nazi symbolism and the presence of Hitler himself leave a sour taste but actually the focus is on the sports themselves. Riefenstahl uses incredible and pioneering film-making techniques to show Olympic athletes for the sporting heroes they are and few people have been able to depict them quite so well since.
Comments
Post a Comment