Can Leni Riefenstahl Be Forgiven?

Marek Hendrykowski

Abstract

Leni Riefenstahl’s films need to be reread in the context of their place in the history of documentary. The author does not negate the fact that these films belong to the canon of the cinema of the 1930s. However Hendrykowski critiques the way they were analysed and interpreted in the context of history of the cinema as belonging to the category of film art. If by a documentary we mean a mechanical recording of reality in front of the camera, then The Victory of Faith, Triumph of the Will and the Olympia gain the status of fully-fledged documentaries. The problem is that – according to the classical definition of Aristotle – the ethos is synonymous with credibility. By removing the ethical perspective and the category of truth from the reflection on documentaries, we thoughtlessly open the way to falsehood on screen and limitless manipulation of the message. Hendrykowski raises the question of whether a film historian can completely ignore the ethical perspective of the work discussed, thus placing it in the sphere of the tradition of film and cinematography without any reflection on its (un)reliability. The author believes that research instruments and the chosen type of description, analysis and interpretation integrally combine methodological and ethical questions that a film historian has to face.