Monday, March 01, 2004
Remembering
I had no idea that the Academy honored Leni Reifenstahl in the "In Memorandum" piece. There's a huge discussion about it here, and while I read LGF daily, I wouldn't recommend checking it out. (For the uninitiated, Leni was Hitler's greatest propagandist, making, most notably, Triumph of the Will*). The comments are on fire in a desperate attempt to stamp out anyone saying that they can respect her work, but still hate the message.
While I'm just as disgusted about anyone when it comes to Nazism, what everyone who's not in the Film Industry doesn't understand is that Leni's work was groundbreaking when it came to directing and cinematography. I hate what Triumph stands for, but what a lot of people don't realize is that the infamous shot in Lion King of Rafiki holding Simba up in the air on top of Pride Rock is based entirely on Leni's work. The academy honored (and it hurts me to say that) her work because her techniques are used in films to this very day. It's honoring her work, not her politics, which is something that I think not only the Actors get wrong (See also: previous post), but evidently so do a lot of people watching the Oscars.
*Appropos of nothing, the banner ad at IMDB at the top of the page when I clicked on Triumph was for Shindler's List. I don't know if it's cosmic karmic coincidence, or if it's threaded marketing.
