MovieChat Forums > Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl (1994) Discussion > Mueller was not ethically principled eno...

Mueller was not ethically principled enough for this role


In response to Riefenstahl's lamentations about her struggle between life and death, the voiceover adds that "60 million in Europe had already lost this fight at the time". Speaking almost with one voice, Mueller and Riefenstahl equate the suffering of the victims of Nazi persecution and the Nazi war of aggression with the mental anguish many Germans, including possibly Riefenstahl, experienced as a result of the collapse of their empire and worldview. But people in Riefenstahl's situation, easily the vase majority of the population, didn't face any problems that could be honestly equated with the experiences of the 60 million dead - i.e. the death camp inmates, the soldiers or the victims or air warfare.

In the next segment, she says, "putting myself in the place of the victims one could understand that it was difficult to see swastikas and the SS and the SA -- all these people of whom we thought they were not criminals. The collapse lasted forever; I have never overcome the terror I experienced at the time." Here again she continues to glide seamlessly from the displeasure of the victims who might not enjoy seeing the SS uniforms in Triumph of the Will to the terror that she herself allegedly experienced at the end of the war. She seems to have no awareness of the fact that this comparison is inappropriate, among other reasons, because what caused her pain, the collapse of the Reich, was the very factor that alleviated the suffering of the victims

And Mueller, again, doesn't confront her with the historical record and her own hypocrisies. He rarely challenges her version of events.

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