Reading the troubling case of Leni Riefenstahl through aesthetic and feminist lenses

ABSTRACT

Leni Riefenstahl was one of the most talented and one of the most notorious women of the twentieth century. Her gift as a filmmaker secured her a place in the history of cinema. She put this gift to the service of the Nazis. Throughout her life, she steadfastly defended her identity as an artist who merely documented events in Nazi Germany. However, she was unable to escape dominant representations of her in Germany as a woman of evil who seduced the nation into following Hitler to catastrophe. In this article, I offer a reading of Riefenstahl through aesthetic and feminist lenses in international relations. In relation to narratives on Riefenstahl as instrumental in the rise of German fascism and also her self-representation as a political naïf and misunderstood artist, I make the case that she is a more ambiguous figure. Contra representations of Riefenstahl as a monster, I argue that she is better understood as serving as a scapegoat in a tragic drama on the fall of the German nation and its eventual redemption. I conclude with some final reflections on how Riefenstahl’s case speaks to debates on aesthetics, narrative, agency, and accountability in international relations.

KEYWORDS:

• International relations
• gender
• aesthetics
• narrative
• agency

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to my colleague Cerwyn Moore, to three anonymous reviewers, and to the editors of IFJP, all of whom provided me with constructive feedback on earlier drafts of this article. All remaining flaws are my own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In her own words, Riefenstahl was “100% woman, 100% man” (cited in Schwarzer 1999, 39).

2 The thesis on fascist aesthetics was first expounded by Kracauer (1974/2004, 259–260) in relation to structural and thematic tendencies that he perceived in German films of the interwar period. He too regarded The Blue Light as protofascist fare and, as such, a precursor to Riefenstahl’s more overtly fascistic output during the Third Reich. Eisner (1965, 163), a film critic and film historian of some note, was among the first to question whether major films produced during the Weimar Republic could be characterized as fascistic.

3 In support of his contention, Trimborn (2007, 107) cites a people’s survey conducted in Germany in August 1934 which revealed that some 38 million Germans approved of Hitler’s policies and his position of unchecked power.

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Jill Steans

Jill Steans is Senior Lecturer in International Relations Theory at the University of Birmingham, UK. She has served on a number of editorial boards, including the British Journal of Politics and International Relations and the Feminist Journal of International Politics, and frequently acts as a referee for major research bodies, including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Her popular book Gender and International Relations (Polity Press) is now in its third edition. Other publications include articles in International Political Sociology, the Review of International Studies, Global Society, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, the Review of International Political Economy, and New Political Economy.