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BERLIN (AFP) - Leni Riefenstahl (news), whose electrifying documentaries for Adolf Hitler made her one of history's most celebrated and reviled filmmakers, has died at the age of 101, the mayor of the town where she lived said.
Rainer Schnitzler told AFP the legendary director and photographer had died late Monday at her home in the Bavarian town of Poecking.
Riefenstahl's longtime companion Horst Kettner, 40 years her junior, said she had died in her sleep.
"Her heart just stopped beating," Kettner told the online edition of lifestyle magazine Bunte.
One of the last surviving personalities of the Nazi era, Riefenstahl had just celebrated her 101st birthday on August 22, recovering in bed from a cancer operation.
Though widely admired as one of the world's great filmmakers, Riefenstahl remained deeply controversial because her two major works were funded by, and intended to glorify, Hitler's regime.
They were "Triumph of the Will" in 1934 which all but deified Hitler, and "Olympia" in 1936, a record of the Olympic Games staged in Berlin that year.
The works were unprecedented in their content and technique, recognized then and now as near-perfect masterpieces documenting the force and beauty of the human figure.
Their daring genius won admirers the world over, even as they showcased the Aryan physical ideal, goosestepping soldiers and throngs of enraptured Nazi followers.
Federal culture minister Christina Weiss said Riefenstahl's life stood for "a German artist's fate in the 20th century -- in her artistic-revolutionary clear-sightedness as well as in her political blindness and delusion."
The director of collections at the Berlin Film Museum, Werner Sudendorf, said Riefenstahl was along with the late actress Marlene Dietrich (news) the most important woman in German cinematic history.
Sudendorf described them as "two sides of the same coin" -- while Dietrich turned her back on Nazi Germany and even entertained Allied troops during World War II, Riefenstahl "served the regime".
Nevertheless, her place in film history was undeniable.
"There is no documentary that was not influenced by Riefenstahl," Sudendorf said.
Last year Riefenstahl won an official judicial inquiry against her for alleged incitement to racial hatred based on her work in the Third Reich.
The probe had been launched following a complaint by the German gypsies' association Rom over the fate of gypsies taken from concentration camps to be used as extras for her 1940 film "Tiefland."
She had long disputed that any of them were killed after they appeared in the film, but was later forced to admit that she did not in fact know the fate of some of them.
Born in 1902 into a lower middle-class family in Berlin, the diminutive blue-eyed beauty embarked on a career as a dancer over the objections of her family.
An injury made her switch to acting, but it was not long before she took a shine to directing and in 1932 released her first acclaimed film, "The Blue Light," in which she also starred.
Among its many admirers was Hitler, who won power in 1933 and quickly commissioned the ambitious propaganda films.
Although Riefenstahl acknowledged in her autobiography that she believed Hitler had "desired me as a woman," she denied ever having an affair with him.
Often branded a Nazi sympathizer, Riefenstahl was shunned in Germany after World War II and was briefly detained by the Allies for "de-Nazification" but later released.
"I regret meeting Hitler 100 percent, that he interfered with my fate," she said in a 2002 interview.
"All my suffering after the war came as a result."
After avoiding the public eye for decades, she turned her attention to the Nuba tribesmen in Sudan in the 1970s.
Although the photographs were widely praised for their striking aesthetic richness, critics accused her of dehumanizing her subjects.
Riefenstahl took up diving at the age of 71 -- telling her instructor she was 20 years younger -- and launched a new phase of her career, depicting underwater life on some 2,000 dives over 25 years.
Although those films were also well received, the temperamental artist often complained in interviews that her work had been reduced to the few years she worked for Hitler.
Asked before her 100th birthday what title she would give any film about her centenary, she said: "Loved, persecuted and unforgotten."
A funeral is scheduled for Friday in the southern city of Munich.
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| moy |
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| Doxa |
Do I remember right that she was a sort of adviser or consult in "let's Spend the Night Together" -movie?
She seemed to be in good terms with Mick.
Doxa
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| Moonisup |
that last picture is really scary |
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| JaggaRichards |
Leni was probably Hitler's Monica too!
Her afterlife should be very warm indeed! |
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| Maxlugar |
It's about time God handed her over to Satan.
I don't care how great her films were.
OJ was damn good running back too.
MACKY! |
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| marcus aurelianus |
One of the greatest film directors ever . |
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| jb |
Absolutely correct max....I hope this nazi bitch burns in hell .... |
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| sirmoonie |
She got what was coming to her in the end. She had to spend the last moments of her life in Germany surrounded by Germans. |
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| jb |
Moonie, I apologize for comparing you and nanker to letterman in terms of hair. |
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| sirmoonie |
I apologize for calling you a hybird of George Michael and the guy who delivered the mail on LA Law. |
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| steel driving hammer |
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| nankerphelge |
Also see that Edward Teller, the father of the H-bomb died today as well!
I'm not talking kiloton-yeild fisson devices people.
No sir -- Teller gave us the Megaton fusion device -- he put the "thermo" in thermonuclear!!
Plus he had some great eyebrows -- if I had his eyebrows, I'd let them grow real long and do a comb-over!! |
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| sirmoonie |
Josh, I'd like to further apologize for disclosing that e-mail you erroneously sent me when you were drunk that was all about that one time you went to that one bar a bit tipsy and met that one guy who's name you can't remember (Brad you thought it might be) but who left a lasting impression on you because of his shoes and his slender, tanned hands and the way he gestured to you with them when you guys were inconspicuously leaving the bar a few minutes apart and how you lost him in traffic and then you pulled over to an abandoned lot and banged your head on the steering wheel with tears in your eyes and said "Why??? Why must it be be so complicated to live like this??? I'm sooooo alone!!"
That was improper of me to do that and I'm sorry. |
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| jb |
Apology accepted...just please, I beg you, don't discuss the "hot-iron" episode. |
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| Jumacfly |
she's Michael Jackson 's auntie hum?? |
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| steel driving hammer |
I think Joey called in sick this morning... |
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| nankerphelge |
I think he said he has a meeting with the Board of Directors today.
Maybe he's been fired!!!
Carly had it in for him ever since he and jb started their little tryst!!
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| sirmoonie |
Ooooohhhhh what a feeling, when I'm pissing on the ceiling! |
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| Helmut |
quote:
sirmoonie wrote:
She got what was coming to her in the end. She had to spend the last moments of her life in Germany surrounded by Germans.
I'm German and I hate nazies, there's more nazies outside Germany than those few in Germany |
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| sirmoonie |
Helmut, I would like to apologize to you for calling you a German. |
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| sirmoonie |
I mean apologize for calling you a Nazi. Sorry, I got all mized up on semantics there. |
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| L&A |
quote:
sirmoonie wrote:
She got what was coming to her in the end. She had to spend the last moments of her life in Germany surrounded by Germans.
 ...please don't start that kind of racist comments again, Monnie |
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| Joey |
" Also see that Edward Teller, the father of the H-bomb died today as well!
I'm not talking kiloton-yeild fisson devices people. "
H-Bomb ?!?!?!?!
Did you say , H- Bomb ?!?!?!?!?!
Now THAT makes me break out into song -- Oh My God !!!!!!! Poem alert !!!!!! Go Joey ...NOW !!!!!!!!! :
Athena, I had no idea how much I'd need her
In peaceful times I hold her close and I feed her
My heart starts palpitating when I think my guess was wrong
But I think I'll get along
She's just a girl - she's a bomb
Athena, all I ever want to do is please her
My life has been so settled and she's the reason
Just one word from her and my troubles are long gone
But I think I'll get along
She's just a girl - she's a bomb
Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
She's just a girl
Athena, my heart felt like a shattered glass in an acid bath
I felt like one of those flattened ants you find on a crazy path
I'd of topped myself to give her time she didn't need to ask
Was I a suicidal psychopath?
She's just a girl - she's a bomb
Consumed, there was a beautiful white horse I saw on a dream stage
He had a snake the size of a sewer pipe living in his rib cage
I felt like a pickled priest who was being flambed
You were requisitioned blondie
She's just a girl - she's a bomb
I'm happy, I'm ecstatic
Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
Just a girl just a girl
She's just a girl
**** Here comes the Petey Part *****
Look into the face of a Joey
Measure how long you smiled
Before the memory claimed
How long would Joey remain
How long would Joey remain
Athena, you picked me up by my lapels and screamed "leave her"
It felt like waking up in heaven on an empty meter
And now you're stuck with a castrated leader
And I hate the creep, I didn't mean that
She's a bomb
I just said it
She's a bomb
I didn't mean it, please
She's a bomb
Athena, I had no idea how much I need her
My life has been so settled and she's the reason
Just one word from her and my troubles are long gone
But I get along
She's just a girl, she's a bomb
She's just a girl, she's a bomb
-- Thank You
The Joey , Established 1999 and providing quality posts like this on a daily basis .
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| icydanger |
101
brilliant artist
such energy
she made films for her governement...... |
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| sirmoonie |
I would like to apologize to you L&A for making such comments. After all, Germany has so much to be proud of and the people are all so nice, considerate and well-mannered.
Still though, can you imagine a worse way to go than ole Leni? I mean other than the poor slobs who appeared in her Nazi movie and later died in concentration camps that the guy she made her finest movie about told the whole world he was going to establish long before she seized the opportunity to jump on his propoganda machine and ride it a blitzkrieg to national fame, wealth and glory? Other than those guys, I think she suffered plenty for her sins at the end. May she rest in piss. |
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| Moonisup |
I don't want to be rude, but after the war, the US and Britain flew all the scientist that created the V-2 rockets, and where busy developping the A-bomb to their researchcentres and these people where a few months earlier busy with killing the london citizenS!
So please don't say that ALL germans are bad, ALL Americans, dutch and the rest also have some bodies in the closet.
rik |
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| Joey |
" May she rest in piss. "
You make Joey sniggle ! |
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| FPM C10 |
Hey, I'm not glorifying her nazi-related past, just her art. And not just her nazi art, but the stuff she did afterwards. And especially the fact that she DID continue to work even though she knew none of her work was going to be accepted or released. The fact that she took up skin-diving at 71 and was still filming manta rays at the bottom of the ocean at age 90. But basically, I think, I'm fascinated by the dichotomy of her life and the lessons it holds.
A lot of Nazis with crimes far more serious than movie-making were allowed to continue living and working after the war- Werner von Braun is a prime example, and most of the German industrialists.
I'm not comparing Bush to Hitler, but I wonder if, when it's proven that he deliberately lied and misled a nation, and started a war which killed thousands, whether the people who cheered him on will expect forgiveness for being misled, or whether we should blame them for the deaths to the end of their days. I mean, sure we should hang Bush, Cheney and Condoleeza Rice, but should we hang the dweebs at Fox News and Maxy too?
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| Joey |
" So please don't say that ALL germans are bad, ALL Americans, dutch and the rest also have some bodies in the closet. "
We Americans killed Four Million Vietnamese in a losing effort ...............Thus , we are better than the Germans because they killed Six Million Jews in a losing effort ( not to mention Twenty Million Russians , tons of Poles and Fins , a couple of Czechs here and there , etc ...... )
JACKY !
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