116. Olympia (1938)

Directed By Leni Riefenstahl

Synopsis

Documentary on the 1936 German Olympiad, aryans don't come out so good out of it. Jesse Owens gets 4 gold medals.

Review

Whatever your political stance might be, there is no denying that his is probably one of the best and most impressive documentaries ever done about not only sports but the human body itself. Leni Riefenstahl was a genius film maker, and even if Triumph of The Will left you with some doubts about that, this is the film that dispells it.

Firstly and most importantly the politics here are nowhere near as important as they were in Triumph of the Will, I actually find it slightly unfair to call it a propaganda film. The event was a propaganda even, therefore anyone filming it would get that impression from the event itself, the German Propaganda Machine was just what you would capture naturally by taking a camera to those games. Leni doesn't seem, at least for most of the film to be racially prejudiced, black people get plenty of screen time, particularly Owens, as do the Japanese for example. In fact Leni's fascination for the human body knows no racial bounds, and she takes pleasure in having a slow-motion image of a male body in action whatever his race.

When I say a male body I mean it - Leni really loved men it seems, her eye for details of the male body, naked or in athletic action is on the edge of the pornographic. Actually, if people in gender studies would like to talk about the "female gaze" this is the film to look at, even though they might cringe at the idea that the "nurturing female" objectifies men and works for the Nazis. The objectification of men, particularly at the beggining of the second part of the documentary is almost at the level of Andy Warhol's shorts. There's a communal shower of athletes, and suddenly a close-up on one of the athelete's face while he's showering which could perfectly well be orgasmic. Female sports and characters are secondary here, they are of course present, but maybe due to a mix of Leni's pervyness with gender inequality it is men's bodies which act as the main characters in the film.

It is also both surprising and interesting to see how much sporting events have evolved in the last 70 years, but how little the filming techniques evolved. Leni creates a template which you see today whenever anyone is filming sports, she made it all up, it is pretty amazing. Actually the film is more visually interesting than most sport covered today even if the sporting events themselves are disappointingly bad. You should really get this film at Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and then left the stadium (some claim this was to avoid having to shake hands with Cornelius Johnson, who was African-American, but according to a spokesman Hitler's exit had been pre-scheduled). Olympic committee officials then insisted Hitler greet each and every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations.On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens recounted:

“ When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany. ”

Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, an irony at the time given that Negroes in the United States were denied equal rights. After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend a reception for him at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Yeah, well, Mr. Hilter was still teh Eval!

Well here goes the prologue to Olympia, some examples of what I was talking about love of men's bodies..., you also get the great soundtrack: