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Savant was shown this film several times in film school, and remembers a course taught by Stephen Mamber where we studied the distinction between documentary filmmaking and propaganda. I believe we concluded that a film record of almost any subject so selects and chooses how to represent it, that objective documentation is an almost unattainable ideal. We are bombarded with calculated, insidious media messages today, all pretending to present 'the truth', whether about a consumer item or a political candidate for sale. There are those who claim that the culture as a mass has lost the ability to discern for itself simple values of right and wrong, truth and lies.

Creating a controlled 'truth' was exactly the aim of Riefenstahl and her Nazi producers, who created and ran the giant rally as much to make this propaganda tool, than for its own purpose. The giant stadiums were designed to accommodate special cameras (you can see little elevators for camera buckets going up and down the colossal bannered columns) and many shots were accomplished by repeatedly restaging ostensibly 'candid' scenes. Because of camera placement and sound recording, it's more than probable that key 'dialogue' scenes were actually shot totally separately, including whole speeches by Hitler himself. The staggering job of assistant- directoring dwarfed the dimensions of anything Hollywood ever made: there are literally tens of thousands of people following 'direction' and 'hitting their marks' far more perfectly than in any epic. When the pomp and circumstance becomes more complicated, the spectacle turns into a Busby Berkeley vision of Hell.

And it is staggering. The camera tracks along endless lines of people whose life's fulfillment seems to be the honor of massing to adore Hitler. The huge rally of workers, with Hitler and two cronies walking calmly down a wide causeway between vast regiments of men standing to attention, is the most potent image of 20th century totalitarianism.

Synapse's DVD adds a dynamic to the movie that makes this disc more 'useful' than seeing Triumph of the Will projected on a screen. Watching the show with only its own few titles as a guide, it's easy to get lost; you wish you had a college professor sitting next to you to identify all the historical villains onscreen, and the significance of whole rallies, as well as details like insignia. Who are those guys carrying shovels instead of guns? Are there any girls in the Hitler youth? The DVD provides this extra dimension through the pleasant-sounding Dr. Anthony R. Santoro, whose running commentary is priceless. His explanations of basic facts are clear and well timed: So that's what the infamous Streicher looks like. 'Swastika' isn't a German word - they call it a 'hooked cross.' What eventually happened to all those Nazis making ecstatic speeches, and who were the nastiest of them? Santoro also notes for us the not-so-obvious indications of directorial influence: the restagings, the moments 'designed' for the camera. Without making weighted judgments, he points out the sources and the ironies of Hitler's power, remarking that everything in the rallies was chosen to bolster weaknesses in the party's rule (Hitler had just assumed full control of the state; a major party leader had just been purged). Finally, Santoro makes the vital distinction between autocratic power, which wants to control your actions, and totalitarian power, which wants control over your actions and your thoughts. Thought control of masses of people wasn't possible until the 20th century and modern communications; this film proves the theory that the most powerful tool of thought control is the Cinema.

Features
* 2005 Digitally Remastered Windowboxed Transfer from a 35mm Fine Grain Element
* Original German Language with Newly Translated removable English Subtitles
* The Leni Riefenstahl short film, DAY OF FREEDOM (17 min.)
* Optimal Quality RSDL Dual Layer Editon
* Audio Commentary by Historian Dr. Anthony Santoro





Download Triumph of the Will (1935)