Four-star movie: Olympia
Olympia
Director: Leni Riefenstahl
1936
First, my bias. I'm an Olympics junkie. I love the fact that there are four or so network subsidiaries broadcasting all the obscure sports of today's Olympics, even though I can only watch a fraction of it. So to see the very first Olympics documentary, and probably the first real sports documentary, was a remarkable experience.
That said, it's an amazing piece of work. It's remarkably modern-looking; there are many film techniques I recognize as used today.
I’m inclined to give Riefenstahl a pass on the German propaganda question for this movie. While there is glorification of the human body in the two introduction to the two parts of the movie, there is actually less nationalism than I've seen in US broadcasts of the Olympics. This is not, of course, true for The Triumph of the Will, which will show up much later, since I'm watching in mostly alphabetical order.
Director: Leni Riefenstahl
1936
First, my bias. I'm an Olympics junkie. I love the fact that there are four or so network subsidiaries broadcasting all the obscure sports of today's Olympics, even though I can only watch a fraction of it. So to see the very first Olympics documentary, and probably the first real sports documentary, was a remarkable experience.
That said, it's an amazing piece of work. It's remarkably modern-looking; there are many film techniques I recognize as used today.
I’m inclined to give Riefenstahl a pass on the German propaganda question for this movie. While there is glorification of the human body in the two introduction to the two parts of the movie, there is actually less nationalism than I've seen in US broadcasts of the Olympics. This is not, of course, true for The Triumph of the Will, which will show up much later, since I'm watching in mostly alphabetical order.