This week, we are lucky enough to have the lovely and talented Amanda Wertz joining us as Guest Blogger. Ama (as we like to call her) works at our Courthouse store, speaks fourteen languages, hosts her own radio program, has lived in Europe for many years and has a sassy collection of hats. You may have seen her pedaling her way around the District. She is the curly headed one on the bike. Ama has volunteered to say a few words about an upcoming event and who am I to turn her down. Without further introduction...

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Leni Riefenstahl, how do things look, 
from down there below? 
Does the truth loom heroic,
a legendary price in African exile? 
Dreams in tulle trumped, you 
had to know that man, his
secrets and successes, 
but everyone thought to ruin it,
ruin you, poor Junta, 
my beautiful, precocious pet. 
No, the Alpines could not contain you, 
Though they freshened your face 
and rolled cameras, found
Fanck's fancy an inspiring fuel, 
a bone for those Ufa hounds.
You really stuck it to them, Heidi,
especially the Goebbels-gropers
and Balázs-bellyachers: 
The gaul! What nerve!
And in your fury you sought blue light
to credit your legends, for 
der Führer, sieg heil!, the 
Magic Man, angry like a fire ant 
from the window of your glass elevator. 
You and that eagle were cohorts,
privy to tea-time theatrics, but 
apolitical playmates. So began
athletes as objects, art as flesh, 
you uncovered them, Leni,
painted them shiny and new again. 
Don't let the interviews vex
you, Schneewitchen, nor the truth, 
when it comes poised as fruit.
Hold fast to your fictions, or
your film face may unravel 
the myth of man.

Leni Riefenstahl was many things - Hitler's filmmaker, actress, dancer, artiste. Shrewd, unbelievable, cut-throat. Beautiful, conceited, self-centered. But above all, she was unforgettable; bitter irony, as forgetting was exactly she did - selectively. Her ability to (re)construct reality as she saw fit made her truly incredible.

Or is that just what she'd like us to believe? Who exactly was Leni Riefenstahl? Born Helene Amalie Bertha in Berlin, fiercely independent, strong-willed, and ambitious "Leni" was never one to let obstacles - gender, money, reciprocal interest, or political catastrophe - stand in her way. Dancer gave way to actress to filmmaker. Leni created her own opportunities by any means necessary. "I must meet that man" became her catchphrase, and meet them she did: directors Arnold Fanck (The Holy Mountain) and Walter Ruttman (Berlin: Symphony of a Great City), scenarist Carl Mayer (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), film critic and script writer Béla Balázs (The Threepenny Opera), and all the usual Nazi suspects: Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, Chief Architect Albert Speer, publisher Julius Streicher (Der Stürmer), and of course, Hitler himself. As Germany found itself in a state of political, cultural, and economic crisis following The Great War, Leni became increasingly resourceful. She had a knack for knowing who might prove beneficial in the future, sleeping her way through a cast that included co-stars, producers, and directors, borrowing legend (The Blue Light) or creating her own (Triumph of the Will) to build the framework for her greatness, her fame. It's no mere coincidence she chose film - by the 1920s, film was already the most influential medium of the century, and Leni seized the opportunity to create the worlds and roles of which she dreamt and in which she would never star.

I first became fascinated with Leni in college while pursing my degree in German studies. Sure, I knew my WWII history backwards and forwards, had read Goethe, Kant, and Schiller, and could even recommend a handful of good German hip-hop music. But film? I knew next to nothing about the media tradition (some will still argue!) which first really took off in Germany. My professor and mentor, Dr. Margit Sinka, knew how to show-and-tell a tale, giving us bits and pieces of Leni's cinematic masterpiece, Olympia. But what really struck me came later in the semester, following a very brief showing of a film considered one of the worst of the Nazi era, The Eternal Jew. The film seemed steeped in legend, apparently the cinematic precursor to the Holocaust. Dr. Sinka posed the question: which director was found most guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials? Which director would be permanently banned from ever working again in Germany? The answer came almost as a shock, but not the justification: Leni's films, however often she would deny it in the post-war era, went above propaganda and persuasion. By only "being an artist" and "documenting history," Leni forever stamped the image of Hitler as heroic myth in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Germans. She shaped the cult which would pave the way for total compliance and mass murder. She would later film in Africa in exile, but always with the same theme: physical beauty, humanity as art object.

What I love is a great story, one that has me reading in disbelief. What better choice than Leni? Nearly everything she ever said (publicly or otherwise) couldn't be believed, was either too fantastic or historically erroneous. Stephen Bach gives us a new version of the story, one coming from Leni herself and those closest to her in his newest biography, Leni: the Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. His goes beyond mere fact to give us the characters, the situations, the startling chain-of-events that snowballed into the Myth of the Third Reich, and the woman who brought it all singing and dancing, marching and shouting to our theaters, our classrooms, our homes. Ever-elusive, Leni's real motivations remain slippery half-truths. Why wait for Harry Potter? Leni Riefenstahl is pure fiction.

Editor's Note:
Steven bach will be reading from his book "Leni" at our Lansburgh Store (418 7th St NW) on Tuesday April 24Th at 7 pm. If you happen to attend (and you should because it is going to be great) you might see a curly haired fraulein in the audience. She writes a mean blog, has crazy taste in music, and makes a lovely chocolate cake. Thanks again to Ama for pinch hitting this week.