German Colonial Cinema/Leni Riefenstahl
Hello all, I'm a fairly recent member of the community and posting for the first time, so... cordial greetings and that stuff.
Anyway, I attended a lecture yesterday, delivered by Dr. Wolfgang Fuhrmann (he's an established authority on German film, so I suspect some of you may actually know of him), that focused on the "informative" films made by German colonists in Africa at the beginning of the 20th century. The style of these films was basically in the form of cursory documentary; a vehicle by which to inform the masses of the lifestyle and obligations of the German colonists, and how they co-existed with the native populace.
To me, the material smacked a lot of Leni Riefenstahl's later propagandistic film-making (in particular, Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt), although the sentiment was somewhat more innocent, and the ulterior motives were not so blatantly displayed on their proverbial shirtsleeve.
I was wondering if the connection between the two (colonial documentary and Leni Riefenstahl) is just a figment of my imagination, or if Riefenstahl was in fact influenced by the earlier genre, and twisted its fundamental ideas to suit her own ends as a propaganda-monger. If any of you have any expertise in the subject or have heard of any academic work done on it, it'd be great if you could help me learn a little more about it.
Thanks in advance!
Anyway, I attended a lecture yesterday, delivered by Dr. Wolfgang Fuhrmann (he's an established authority on German film, so I suspect some of you may actually know of him), that focused on the "informative" films made by German colonists in Africa at the beginning of the 20th century. The style of these films was basically in the form of cursory documentary; a vehicle by which to inform the masses of the lifestyle and obligations of the German colonists, and how they co-existed with the native populace.
To me, the material smacked a lot of Leni Riefenstahl's later propagandistic film-making (in particular, Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt), although the sentiment was somewhat more innocent, and the ulterior motives were not so blatantly displayed on their proverbial shirtsleeve.
I was wondering if the connection between the two (colonial documentary and Leni Riefenstahl) is just a figment of my imagination, or if Riefenstahl was in fact influenced by the earlier genre, and twisted its fundamental ideas to suit her own ends as a propaganda-monger. If any of you have any expertise in the subject or have heard of any academic work done on it, it'd be great if you could help me learn a little more about it.
Thanks in advance!