A HISTORICAL AND AESTHETIC ANALYSIS OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL'S "OLYMPIA" (GERMANY)

The relationship of any work of art to its political and cultural context is always extremely complex. The film Olympia, produced in National Socialist Germany to document and celebrate the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936, raises some especially controversial questions about the relationship of the film maker, Leni Riefenstahl, to the regime.

The dissertation is divided into two sections. The first section of five chapters traces the historical background of the film as well as its subsequent production and distribution. The evidence shows that the relationship of Riefenstahl to the regime and especially to the Propaganda Ministry is far closer than she has cared to admit. The second section of the dissertation looks at the film closely, especially noting some of the major differences between versions, and then discusses the film from an aesthetic point of view. It finds that the aesthetics and underlying ideology of the film have their roots in certain popular cultural trends in Weimar culture, perhaps best exemplified by the writings of the George Circle and the renewed interest in Kleist and Holderlin. While these trends were perhaps not inherently National Socialist, they were easily exploited by the National Socialists after they took power.