The sadness of powerful bodies

The lovely young woman, dressed in the fashion of the 30s, slowly rises along the front staircase and stops in front of high doors. We see her from the back, but it is still clear that the woman is beautiful, and it is still noticeable that she is very excited and at the same time full of triumph. The heavy doors open, and suddenly from somewhere above, from the doorway, a stream of bright golden radiance begins to pour out towards it. The flickering light douses the figure of a woman, it becomes brighter, more and more unbearable, and in the end absorbs it entirely, and it is not entirely clear whether it enters the door or disappears, dissolving in a luminous stream.

This is an episode from the film " Lily Marlene " Rainer Werner Fasbinder . The film tells of the singer of a stagnant cabaret, by the will of the case ascended to the tops of the German pop (and to the top of the Reich), and the fate of the Kabatsky Hell, which rose to the national symbol of Germany during the Second World War. This episode is about one of the decisive moments in the career (and, as it becomes clear further, in life) the performer of the song "Lily Marlene" - about her acquaintance with the Fuhrer. Hitler himself is not shown in the film, and his name is not pronounced, but it is clear from the context that the heroine rose to him, worried and triumphantly, along a high front staircase.

We do not know, one way or not (most likely, not so), Hitler and Leni Rifenshtal , but this is not important. A brilliant (in every sense) directorial reception captured the emblem of the triumph, a moment of the ascent of the woman of art - singer, actress, prima - to the heights of the Third Reich.

As you know, Leni Rifenshtal was such a prima. The rising star of the ballet, and then the rising star star, the competitor of Marlene Dietrich , during the years of Nazism, she shot several masterpieces of documentary cinema: in 1934 - “Triumph of will” (about the congress of the Nazi party), in 1938 - “Olympia” (about the 1936 Olympics in the Nazi Berlin), both films - according to personal films - according to personal The request (that is, by order) Hitler, who favored Rifenstal. Films immediately after the release were awarded all possible awards at international film festivals and were recognized as a classic of cinema. Olympia received the main award of the Venetian Biennale of 1938, pushing to the second place, by the way, Disney Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. Hollywood then already set the tone in the world film industry, and for the European film it was a world success; In order to finally fix it, Rifenshtal with his Olympia went on an American tour.

When she got to America, a crystal night happened in Germany . American journalists immediately asked Rifenstal to comment on what was happening in her homeland - and she, fascinated by Hitler, said with ardor that all this could not be true! The influential anti -Nazi Hollywood League, which is natural, was alarmed - the Boycott campaign unfolded in the newspapers, and many proposals sent to her were hastily recalled. Among the few publicly welcoming Rifenstal was Walt Disney (although it was he who had personal zealous reasons to treat her unequilledly). In general, the tour did not take place. She returned to Germany bewildered - and immediately went to the periphery to shoot the historical film "Valley", wanting to be as far as possible both from the capital and from the events taking place in the country. Goebbels really hoped for cooperation with her, but laziness, as she later told, rejected all the proposals.

Still, Rifenshtal began to understand what Nazism is, only during the war - when she went to the front as a military reporter and on the first day in the Polish town of Croons, Jews were shot in her eyes. She ran away from the front in horror, realizing that she could never be a military reporter, and then at all costs avoided participating in the creation of military or propaganda films . Many times after that, she said in an interview: "I was in the despair that I lived at that time and that I experienced it. It was a collapse forever. I will never fail that horror that I experienced then."

After the Second World War, the press was often accused of Refenshtal of aiding fascism (accusations have not yet been removed), her paintings were removed from the rental and from the textbooks on the history of cinema, and until the end of her life (and Rifenshtel lived for almost 60 years!) She no longer managed to shoot a single film.

The book of Audrey Salkeld is primarily trying to answer the question - what was the degree of her participation and the share of her responsibility in the case of Nazi propaganda, part of which films made by Leni Riffenstal are still considered?

True, Rifenshtal led her to the work of Rifenstal. Initially, Audrey Salkeld was delighted with romantic films about mountaineering, mountains and glaciers - the so -called "mountain films" that were shot in Germany between the two wars. Rifenshtal played there a decisive and strong climber, along with men overcoming the difficulties of the highlands. There are traces of this admiration in the book - most of the story was given to the adventures of the "athletic body" (as they said in those days) the heroine.

Apparently, from the earliest years for Rifenshtal, this was the most important artistic impulse - a thirst for plastic expression, following the voice of the body, the search for a plastic language, which the body can only convey the languid life of the soul. Her first experience was pantomime, dance, ballet. Leni studied dance art with a German student of Isadora Duncan - her school of expressive dance then conquered Europe. The beginning of a brilliant ballet career was interrupted by her foot injury during one of the performances, and Rifenshtal was forced to leave the scene for a while (as she thought).

The random poster (captured by a frame from a mountain film) on a random half -land struck her imagination - and Leni found the director of the film and convinced him that she should certainly play in his next picture ... Then filming, novels with partners on the set , new ascents - Alpine peaks, Greenland Glacier. (Here, the author of mountaineering is very fond of and reports a lot of interesting and useful information - for example, about the climbing of the “double Christie”, about the features of the passage of crevice and traverses of the dolomite Alps, about the packing ice and about the “Munich School of Climbing”. The reader is a fan of climbing, which overcame these difficulties of the highlands, will be rewarded - then everything is further more dynamic and interesting.)

She was in a sense of Nietzschean superman. The book has many episodes, where Leni appears to be an extraordinary creature - super -humorous, super -resistant, superpower . Often she was not only the director herself, but also the illuminator, the rack of the tricks, the editor and the "public relay". This is what the permanent operator of her film group says:

"... no one saw this woman to sleep. Her mind is always in charge. You know such a thing on a horse? Sun is on her. In the sense that she looks only in one direction, namely, in which the project is moving. ... The people around are deadly tired, and at least she huts ... she reminds me of Nero. I respect her very much, but it was difficult to work with her ..."

From the "working" line, the plot "Rifenshtal and Men" is scooped (and intertwined with it) - a variation of the general theme of "Body Travel". It seems that in her youth she was guided by the principle: "Know one thing - that you will soon become old. The rest, baby, forget." The old one, however, never became - her most constant life partner met when Leni was 60, and was almost 40 years younger than her. They lived together for several decades.

Love victories were lazy easily (as well as refusals - according to legend, among the famous "refuseniks" were Hitler and Goebbels) - but in general the author represents Rifenshtal as the side injured in relations with men. Why so?

Once Leni Rifenshtal was asked why she had no children. She replied: because never in my life I have met a man from whom I would like to have a child. In her memoirs, she asks a question (as the author of the book comments “melancholy”): why the heroes of all the novels that had any meaning in her life were moderate, carefree, loving fun of men, and not those who “succeeded in social, political or artistic life”. “Her poor mother ,” says Audrey Salkeld, “ felt that thanks to her talents, she could win anyone she likes, any smart person with the position,“ and could not understand the modest requests of her daughter. ”

Leni Rifenshtal was inherent in the highest degree of gift of conquest (no matter what: mountain peaks, men, spectator hearts). She liked to compete with men - on the Greenland glacier, in the Alpine Mountains, on the set of German film studios. There is reason to assume that it was also characteristic of her in private life. But after all, the spirit of rivalry is not the basis on which you can build happy family relationships.

She seemed to be not aware that the woman’s strength was in her weakness. That a man can only feel like a man when there will be a woman next to him who will protect himself.

However, maybe sometimes I guessed. In one interview, she said that how not a single poet and playwright loves Henry von Kleist . She was going to shoot - according to his drama in verses - the historical epic “Pentesile”, about the great and tragic love of the Queen of the Amazons of Pentesilea for Achilles; I was preparing to play a major role in it, I thought this was the main thing of my life, hoped that this would help her renounce both documentary and “mountain” films. (She did not happen to carry out this plan - when Rifenshtal had already left for Lebanon, where it was supposed to be shooting, it became known that an order was issued in Germany to universal mobilization - on this day the war began.)

The choice of "pentiselei" unexpectedly explains a lot in our heroine. Naum Berkovsky, the author of remarkable labor about German romanticism, believed that the drama Kleist is "a woman’s tragedy, a tragedy of femininity and love, and through them the romance itself." "The special impact of Kleist’s tragedy follows from her style, bodily, plastic. The scene is full of moving, tensely living bodies ..." Penti -Penti -"Clayste is the sadness of powerful bodies ... If you look for topical comparisons, it looks like an expressive and quick report from a sports field." Rifenshtal, who has just completed the exhausting three -year work on a documentary about sports, apparently felt this in the drama of Kleist with particular acuteness.

And then Berkovsky says things even more important. To understand the drama of Rifenshtal - through the drama of Kleist. Here, for example:

"The independence of the Amazons, in fact, is a special type of their subordination to male ideals and norms ... The female is suppressed in them. And this is the root cause of the tragedy. The kingdom of the Amazons and the charter of their kingdom arose for the protection of the female personality and the feminine. The defense kills its clients." "Let ... Pentselet does not want to, and she, so preoccupied with the rights of her own personality, for the first time became a person only now, in view of Achilles." "In the frantic and wild pentesile there is something girl, semi -children's ... The development of the tragedy is that power is only forced development for Pentesilea ... the power of a warrior ... which she imitates with such zeal, as much as she does not need. Pentesilea does not dare to be herself, does not dare to be a woman. ... In essence, the utopia of the kingdom of amazon is a kind of smooth The gender and sexual differences.

The book of Audrey Salkeld, unfortunately, is not enough and somehow casually tells about the important - the travels of the "athletic spirit" Leni Rifenstal. Only in one place Salkeld mentions "the strongest effect that folk tales and legends have always had on the Teutonic soul." The artistic genesis of Rifenstal can be said much more.

"A young girl ... living in a mountain village. ... A child of nature, dressed in rags, expelled by society ... The harsh bowls of the peasants ... These peasants drive the unfortunate in the narrow village streets, throwing stones at it ... Here is a bridge, here is an echo of vengeful cliches, reflected from mountain walls ..."

Does this quote not remind you? This is similar to an episode from the “scarlet sails” of Green - if the words “mountain village” are replaced with the “Primorsky village”. In fact, the “blue fire” of Leni Rifenstal (1931) - her first “non -rustic” film begins.

This is a mystical film. It is based on the story of a young girl, which fellow villagers consider Journal and who alone in the whole village can find inaccessible mountain crystals burning in the full moon with the magical blue . At the end, Junta dies, being powerless to protect the blue light - according to the logic of the film, reality kills both the dream and the dreamer. According to Rifenshtal, "Junta is the only one who can get to blue light, because it is pure in heart." The films of Rifenshtal in Russia could have a deeply sympathetic viewer - Alexander Green. Green of “ scarlet sails ” (written eight years before the “blue light”), but especially Green “ running along the waves ” and other mystical and more gloomy works.

In other films and planes (on which there is no way to dwell here) it is clear that Leni Rifenshtal's work was nourished by the same ancient German myths that inspired Wagner's Muse (and it is very natural that the music for Olympia was written by a Wagnerian composer). There is that gloomy German genius who captivated the block . If he lived to the era of sound cinema, "Blue Fire" would make a strong impression on him, one must assume. But the block did not live to live to the silent film "Nibelung" Fritz Lang - the most famous and cash German film of his time (it was based on the same ancient German epic).

Hitler loved mountains and mountain films (in one of them he saw Rifenshtal). “In reality, his love for the mountains was rather Nietzschean,” the author of the book believes. The Fuhrer could attract a lot to Rifenshtal - both the “truly Aryan” appearance and the physical “athletism” (in Sokurov’s film about Hitler Eva Brown is also an “athletic girl”, friends with sports gymnastics, bars and rings), and of course, her mystical aspiration to the mountain peak. It may well be that Hitler delighted in this “superhuman girl” that which was inaccessible to himself.

Maybe something is explained if we recall that one of the ideological sources of fascism was Buddhism, the Wehrmacht leaders were looking for sympathy and support in Buddhist mountain monasteries and organized expeditions for Pamir in search of Shambhala.

At the same time, in his rhetoric, Nazism appealed to the ancient German myths, even the barriers of the Nazis were called mystically - "Siegfried Line". Hitler, like Odin’s god, descended from heaven to earth in the “Triumph of will”. "Isn't it the Messiah that will save Germany?" - Like many Germans, Rifenshtal thought, for the first time hearing Hitler. (By the way, the translator of the book noted that a similar technique was used in the Soviet film “ The Fall of Berlin ”, where, of course, Stalin, played by Mikhail Gelovani, was in the role of a deity descending from heaven.) Her ill -wishers herself called Valkyrie, and her meeting with Hitler, “a flight in Walgall”.

Why was the "triumph of will" so dangerous, why did he play such a terrible role in the fate of Rifenshtal?

The book Salkeld is trying to answer this question. "Triumph of will" is a documentary dedicated to the Congress of the Nazi Party in Nuremberg in 1934. Consider and listen to it. In the film (and at the congress) it is only about work and about the world. Neither about racial superiority, nor about plans to unleash the war, not a word is said about anti -Semitism. Two years before the start of the war, the film received a Grand Prix at the Film Festival in France. “If there was something dangerous there, this would not have happened,” Leni Rifenshtal said. The denazification court later considered the case of the film "Triumph of the Volya" and issued an acquittal to the author.

The next (and the last, as it turned out) the film was Olympia. This film is documentary and at the same time poetic. It found the final expression of its ability to convey the physical movement of the heroes or the director’s author’s thought through the displacement, through the metaphor. The fencing tournament is shown as a duel of the shadows of two fencers on the asphalt; The fatigue of the runner at the marathon distance is transmitted through the grass swaying along the side of the road; And in the prologue of the cast of the famous statue of the Greek sculptor Miron, the Discobol is coming to come to life, transforming into a real discolus of flesh and blood. Everyone was struck by episodes, which depict swimmers jumping from the tower into the water - their jumps taken at a slow pace resemble the flight of birds rushing down. Well and so on. After Rifenshtal, many were removed so; Nobody seems to her. All this was then pulled out for quotes - and for many then it was very convenient to "forget" the source.

Descendants require her political engagement. I wonder why?

We can say that her post -war creative fate (more precisely, absurd) is a retribution of history for the pact with the devil. Вспомним все же, что нацизм, равно как и сталинизм, не возник в готовых формах раз и навсегда. Так же как Сталин 37-го года - совсем не то, что Сталин 24-го, так и Гитлер 33-го отличался от Гитлера 39-го. Будущее предвидеть невозможно - и надо было обладать умом мыслителя и огромной человеческой интуицией (как Томас Манн , который уехал из страны после прихода Гитлера к власти), чтоб понять в начале тридцатых, что может ожидать Германию через 5-10 лет. Лени Рифеншталь ни тем ни другим не обладала - но можно ли ее за это осудить?

Эйзенштейна , который не документальными, а художественными средствами (в фильме "Иван Грозный") возвеличил диктатора, виновного в гибели миллионов людей, никто ведь не вычеркивал из истории кинематографа на том основании, что он вступил в "пакт с дьяволом". А тем более - Эйзенштейна времен "Броненосца Потемкина", который тоже ведь был гениальной художественной пропагандой большевизма? При этом "Иван Грозный" снимался, когда эти миллионы уже погибли в лагерях. Не зря ведь Эйзенштейн был так раздражен, когда узнал о похвале Геббельса своему "Потемкину" ("вот бы нам, - дескать, - своего Эйзенштейна"). Видимо, Сергей Михайлович почувствовал, что в сравнении двух "-измов", стоящем за этими словами, есть большая доля правды.

Лени Рифеншталь оправдал (и даже дважды) денацификационный суд, но эти решения ни на что не повлияли в ее судьбе. Общественное мнение, увы, не руководствуется доводами рассудка. К сожалению, человеческое сознание устроено так, что когда человек травмирован, его не интересует истина, на выяснение которой может уйти много времени; его интересует только мгновенная месть обидчику, а если его нет или он неочевиден - то тому, кого назначат обидчиком в данную минуту.

Немцев никто не заставлял любить Гитлера. "Немцам нужен кто-то, кто был бы для них образцом. Они охотно позволяют управлять собой" , - говорила Рифеншталь. "Пора пришла - она влюбилась" - это ведь и про Германию и Гитлера. Он очаровал миллионы людей - и не только ведь идеологией нацизма, темной и во многом путаной, но своей личной харизмой. И кто сказал, что зло не может быть обаятельным?

Одри Салкелд приводит мнение одного из современных искусствоведов - о том, что если бы Рифеншталь довелось жить при коммунистах, она снимала бы фильмы "под коммунистическим углом зрения".

"После войны целая нация переложила свою нечистую совесть на хрупкие плечи этой женщины" , - полагает режиссер фильма о Лени Рифеншталь Рей Мюллер . И похоже, что это справедливое замечание.

В 50-е годы она много путешествовала по Африке, которую полюбила; в последние годы жизни увлеклась подводными съемками. Как ни удивительно, все кино- и географические путешествия Лени Рифеншталь напоминают поиски потерянного рая, начиная с альпийских высокогорий и ледников Гренландии и заканчивая поездками в Африку и подводными съемками. Все, что связано с равниной, низиной - для нее низменно и даже порочно. Альпийские горы, гренландский ледник, позже - африканская саванна, населенная племенами древней и свободной цивилизации, - это область обитания высокого духа и неиспорченности. В старости она всерьез подумывала о том, чтоб отправиться на постоянное жительство к своим любезным туземцам племени нуба. Лени знала, что там в случае ее кончины каждый из соседей пожертвует самую лучшую корову на ее поминки, - во всяком случае, так они сказали ей в шутку. "Мне легче будет окончить дни мои среди милых туземцев нуба, чем здесь, в большом городе, где я веду одинокую жизнь" , - рассуждала она. Так может сказать только человек, который очень настрадался от так называемых цивилизованных европейцев.

Но Лени чувствовала, что она переживет и этот первобытный рай. Он исчезал на ее глазах.

Современный исследователь высказывает гипотезу, что режиссерский взгляд Лени Рифеншталь - это взгляд танцовщицы. У этой остроумной версии есть свое подтверждение и в словах самой Рифеншталь. Вот что она говорит о своем фильме "Олимпия": "Переход от древности к современности был таким драматургическим, что его проще было представить через пластические образы" . В документальной ленте Рея Мюллера (только что вышедшей и у нас) Лени Рифеншталь спустя много десятилетий смотрит свой фильм о нацистском съезде - и во время просмотра у нее вырываются слова: "Как спускаются отряды - точно в такт маршу! Интересно?" Это удивительный кадр. Такие слова выдают в ней человека, подвластного прежде всего чувству ритма и пластическому темпераменту. Лени Рифеншталь оставалась такой и в свои 100 лет.

Шкловский написал однажды, что Грин знал сверхвозможности человека и поэтому смог написать все свои книги. Лени Рифеншталь тоже знала сверхвозможности человека. Этот ее удивительный дар в то же время был и ее бедой.

"Фильм "Синий свет" стал предчувствием моей собственной судьбы" , - сказала однажды Рифеншталь. Это, может быть, прозвучит кощунственно, но после книги Одри Салкелд складывается впечатление, что Лени Рифеншталь - в итоге такая же пострадавшая от истории, как те жертвы нацизма, чье негодование преградило ее фильмам путь к зрителю, как "эхо мстительных кличей, отражающееся от горных стен"...