Her films were controversial, yet brilliant. I had a cinema professor at SC in the 70's who worked for the German movie industry in the40's. He escaped with copies of Olympia and Triumph, and showed them as a final exam at night. Incredible experience I will never forget. The exilaration I felt at the end of both films. Breathtaking.
WOW. this was, undoubtedly, one of the most breath taking sequences. She really captured the stature of being an Olympiad--and the acrobatic nature of diving.
Leni Riefenstahl's greatest twentieth-century artist who was born and lived for art, died in the twilight of his physical strength but in the fullness of his artistic sensibility and redeem any debt on each image that is able to enter voluntarily or involuntarily with humanity. Cinematographic art would not be what it is today without it. I deeply admire his art. hibrante
Immer noch der beste Sportfilm aller Zeiten.Ein Meisterwerk der Filmkunst. Zahllose Regisseure haben Leni Riefenstahls Film und Schnittechnik kopiert. Was hätten noch für Filme entstehen können wenn man Ihr nach 1945 die Chance dazu gelassen hätte.Kein anderer Filmschaffender der in den Jahren 33-45 arbeitete wurde so abgestraft wie L.R.Selbst Harlan der wirkliche Tendenzfilme macht konnte konnt weitere Filme in Deutschland der 50.Jahre drehen.
Also, remember that when this was made, no one had done anything like it. So it is original and groundbreaking. That you were unimpressed by it shows how big an impact on cinematography it has made! :)
Yes, indeed, the editing and cinematography are brilliant. The filmmaker manages to highlight the human form without distracting from its endeavor. A real testament to Riefenstahl's genius.
Leni was truly the master of her art. I saw “Triumph of the Will” and now this excerpt and am so blown away by her artistry. She was not only a great actress, but knew exactly how to bring out emotion and patriotism in the viewer as a director. Not many had the innate ability she possessed. She worked hard and honed her art to be great masterpieces. On top of that she was beautiful. She had it all. Unfortunately she served an evil regime
Sublime. Far too many people today have no idea how difficult this was to film, let alone in the artistic way she captured the events. This was done without reflex lenses, zooms, silent cameras, auto focus, nothing really, except a very crude apparatus by today's standards and tons and tons of skill.
FYI, the composer of the score is Herbert Windt, who also did Triumph of the Will, however the score for Olympia is far more original than the intertwining of Wagner and Raff in TOTW.
It’s crazy to think that this was filmed 87 years ago!!! Leni Riefenstahl is the architect for all modern sporting films. Not to mention that this was the very first time someone captured diving on film from the jump, all the way down and underwater. The fact that she pioneered this with 1936 equipment is mind boggling.
sheer genius. nobody had filmed like this before, its totally unique cinematography at this moment in time. the final part of the diving sequence against the clouds makes them look like flying gods from mythology, very clever.
Absolutely fantastic - beautiful bodies seem to fly into the sky. Thanks for uploading this clip. Unbelievable that these pictures are more than 50 years old. Danke schön.
Aaaand, back on topic, Leni Riefenstahl was truly a cinematic genius. This was such delightfully artistic work, and done with such crude hardware, but she pioneered the use of cranes and dollies in movie-making. Much respect to this lady, and may she rest in well-deserved peace.
Beautiful work, utterly superb. Cinematedman is quite correct in pointing out that this was done with the crude technology of 70 years ago, and represents superb skill, almost totally unaided by technology. Did you notice the one dive on which she cut to an underwater camera? I believe Leni Riefenstahl was the first to use that technique. LR was a brilliant cinematographer, and the fact that she was hounded all her life by political accusers is nothing short of tragedy.
Gosh, sooooo beautiful, so full of dignity! A man is even not like a bird but flying and it's real so well filmed and the music!.. Even from youtube, sitting at work, provokes so many emotions!.. having a cult of a healthy strong body is not being Nazi, so this video is worth admiring
Although I was not an olympic level diver, I was doing these dives when I was in high school in the 80's. I'm not saying this to brag, rather to point out how much the sport has progressed since 1936. I woudl not do the forward triple somersault off the 3m board though. I have learned how to protect the jewels & that dive can be quite painful. Awesome video sequence. Neat to see what they were doign 70 years ago.
The power is not in any individual shot but in the rhythm and the movement of the whole. The entire thing is built out of repetition that slowly evolves. It moves from, at the start, shots that simply document the event (from afar, crowd shown) to, finally, shots cut so that the divers seem to almost fly. From 3:35 on you never even see the water. The crowd is gone. There is only the figure and the sky. For me, there is almost the feeling that the world has been transcended. A little goofy, yes.
My feelings and admiration of Leni Riefenstahl are so intense I can never describe them, this film is so stunning. I have never been able to escape since the first time I saw this film but who would ever want to?
A master camerawoman, who also knew how to cut and edit to best effect. I see that some of the comments by fellow viewers bring up the fact that she is tainted by her work for the NSDAP. If history turned out differently and the German Communists had won and held onto power, or if she was working in Soviet Russia, would these same people be making her a monster for working for that regime?
@R3dp055um It's amazing that despite, as you put it, that people had such crude, analog hardware back then, they still made what were both more aesthetically and entertaining cinema; here is one very great example of that.
While Riefenstahl certainly isn't a racist, she does appropriate a fascist aesthetic in her works. Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl's portrait of them evokes some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical. I also think it's absurd and offensive to dismiss Nazism as merely a forgettable bad decision. Read Susan Sontag's Fascinating Fascism.
@bobinobaker True enough; Riefenstahl was already "on her way" even before the Nazis took power and her association with them essentially destroyed what career she could have had after WWII.
@coralarch It was not her. She only had the rights for this movie, but she neither directed nor filmed or cut it. Others like Willy Zielke did the work, but were even sent to madhouses when they wanted to have their rights back.
Actually, this is the usual version one sees of the Diving Sequence, but prints of this sequence from 1940 are about 30-45 seconds longer (if you follow the music, you can hear where a cut it made at around 1:27-1:28). Does anyone know if the Riefenstahl Archive has any plans to release the longer version?
@Exverlobter Well, they were there to participate in the Olympics. Also, Taiwanese and Korean athletes had to compete under the flag of Japan because Japan had conquered these places from China in a war 1894-95.
70 years old and still stunning ! What a genius . Her only 'crime' was to be on the losing side - after Germany's defeat , she was never allowed to make another film .
There is a malicious claim.that Riefenstahl stole techniques from other film makers but I do not believe it for one moment when I watch this sequence most especially.
amazing.i had never seen this until i watched a rammstein music video..the diving sequence was so awesome i had to watch the entirety..thanks for posting.
Riefenstahl was a great, great film maker but none of her films ever have humor, let along irony but they're still amazing. I often wonder what she could have accomplished with faster film that would have been in color, Panavision and steadi-cam.
Took a film appreciation class in Junior College back in 1979 and was fortunate enough to see Olympia in it's entirety. Instructor never mentioned Leni Riefenstahl and her wonderful movie Triumph of the will. ( not really surprising is it?) I knew of the movie but never saw it until UA-cam came along and made the connection for me. I wonder if Olympia is for sale on DVD?
dbck3 Leni was really not friend of Goebbels, she said that she did never like Gobbels. Once she even kicked Goebbels out of her house when he came to visit. Hitler admired her film art and gave nearly totall freedom of art and plenty of resources to make her films. It is not Leni´s fault that her films were so good, one of the greatest masterpieces during film history. She is definitely the best female film director ever and one of the greatest film directors during the movie history too.
She read some of Mein Kampf, and she liked the ideas about benefits for the workers and all that jazz, but all the racial hate she disliked. She even wrote notes in her copy of the book. Hitler just laughed at them. I don't think she was a Nazi, but I agree she offered her talent to the WRONG people.
I love it more with a different soundtrack. Rammstein song Stripped. check it out. they used for their music video the ending part of this video and some other probably from Olympia too.
Incredible! It is sad that she is only known for her past. "It was the biggest catastrophe of my life. Until the day I die people will keep saying, 'Leni is a Nazi', and I'll keep saying, 'But what did she do?'" Everyone must stop judging one another. Yes she did make some bad decisions in her lifetime, but who hasn't? If she truly was a Nazi then she wouldn't have had an interest in Africa (Nuba). Understanding of cultures is most important in this world. All cultures have their good and bad.
Sorry, I don't speak english. Esto sí es cine. Los cuerpos llegan a parecer aviones. A veces parece que salieran del agua. Y cuando caen como heridos tienen mucho valor expresivo. No he visto nada igual. ¿De quién es, por cierto, la música?
Such a great Olympic sight. Too bad Berlin's Japanese counterpart Tokyo was unable to one-up that in the 1940 games. If only the war had not happened...
Leni Riefenstahl war eine genial Künstlerin.Was hätte sie noch alles schaffen können wenn ihre fatale Nähe zu den Nazis ihr Karriere und Arbeit nicht so behindert hätte
Artist had always to choose: to work for any cost, or to let their talent sleep in darkness. Now we have a choice too: enjoy the beauty she made - or judge her.
i'll take the matrix lobby shooting scene any day over this. my history professor made too much of a big deal about these films. that guy's just too old..
Her films were controversial, yet brilliant. I had a cinema professor at SC in the 70's who worked for the German movie industry in the40's. He escaped with copies of Olympia and Triumph, and showed them as a final exam at night. Incredible experience I will never forget. The exilaration I felt at the end of both films. Breathtaking.
WOW. this was, undoubtedly, one of the most breath taking sequences. She really captured the stature of being an Olympiad--and the acrobatic nature of diving.
Leni Riefenstahl's greatest twentieth-century artist who was born and lived for art, died in the twilight of his physical strength but in the fullness of his artistic sensibility and redeem any debt on each image that is able to enter voluntarily or involuntarily with humanity.
Cinematographic art would not be what it is today without it.
I deeply admire his art.
hibrante
hibrante All that and knockdown gorgeous to boot!
Immer noch der beste Sportfilm aller Zeiten.Ein Meisterwerk der Filmkunst. Zahllose Regisseure haben Leni Riefenstahls Film und Schnittechnik kopiert.
Was hätten noch für Filme entstehen können wenn man Ihr nach 1945 die Chance dazu gelassen hätte.Kein anderer Filmschaffender der in den Jahren 33-45 arbeitete wurde so abgestraft wie L.R.Selbst Harlan der wirkliche Tendenzfilme macht konnte konnt weitere Filme in Deutschland der 50.Jahre drehen.
Also, remember that when this was made, no one had done anything like it. So it is original and groundbreaking. That you were unimpressed by it shows how big an impact on cinematography it has made! :)
Yes, indeed, the editing and cinematography are brilliant. The filmmaker manages to highlight the human form without distracting from its endeavor. A real testament to Riefenstahl's genius.
Absolutely brilliant work by a true genius of film-making.
Leni was truly the master of her art. I saw “Triumph of the Will” and now this excerpt and am so blown away by her artistry. She was not only a great actress, but knew exactly how to bring out emotion and patriotism in the viewer as a director. Not many had the innate ability she possessed. She worked hard and honed her art to be great masterpieces. On top of that she was beautiful. She had it all. Unfortunately she served an evil regime
Sublime. Far too many people today have no idea how difficult this was to film, let alone in the artistic way she captured the events.
This was done without reflex lenses, zooms, silent cameras, auto focus, nothing really, except a very crude apparatus by today's standards and tons and tons of skill.
Leni Riefenstahl will always be my favorite film maker. The way she captured the surreal nature of optimized human achievement was inspiring.
FYI, the composer of the score is Herbert Windt, who also did Triumph of the Will, however the score for Olympia is far more original than the intertwining of Wagner and Raff in TOTW.
Just think of what Riefenstahl could have accomplished with faster, color film, Panavision and Stedi-cam; she most assuredly was a genius.
SatchmoSings hello how does it feel in 2020?
It’s crazy to think that this was filmed 87 years ago!!! Leni Riefenstahl is the architect for all modern sporting films. Not to mention that this was the very first time someone captured diving on film from the jump, all the way down and underwater. The fact that she pioneered this with 1936 equipment is mind boggling.
Leni did a sublime job w/ this sequence. it's truly mesmerizing and easy on the eye.
sheer genius. nobody had filmed like this before, its totally unique cinematography at this moment in time. the final part of the diving sequence against the clouds makes them look like flying gods from mythology, very clever.
Absolutely fantastic - beautiful bodies seem to fly into the sky.
Thanks for uploading this clip. Unbelievable that these pictures are more than 50 years old.
Danke schön.
More than 50? Almost 90! It's sad that films made nearly a century ago are far superior to 95% of movies made today.
This is just beautiful art. What a celebration of the magnificent human body. God bless Leni. May she rest in peace.
Best Sports Documentary, EVER...
Aaaand, back on topic, Leni Riefenstahl was truly a cinematic genius. This was such delightfully artistic work, and done with such crude hardware, but she pioneered the use of cranes and dollies in movie-making.
Much respect to this lady, and may she rest in well-deserved peace.
Beautiful work, utterly superb. Cinematedman is quite correct in pointing out that this was done with the crude technology of 70 years ago, and represents superb skill, almost totally unaided by technology.
Did you notice the one dive on which she cut to an underwater camera? I believe Leni Riefenstahl was the first to use that technique.
LR was a brilliant cinematographer, and the fact that she was hounded all her life by political accusers is nothing short of tragedy.
BEAUTIFUL
This, in my opinion, is quite possibly the four most spectacular minutes in film history.
The music was composed expressly for the film. According to the Riefenstahl archive, the score was lost during World War II.
Gosh, sooooo beautiful, so full of dignity! A man is even not like a bird but flying and it's real so well filmed and the music!.. Even from youtube, sitting at work, provokes so many emotions!..
having a cult of a healthy strong body is not being Nazi, so this video is worth admiring
ah man, those shots at the end, with the exposure set for the sky and the silhouettes.... looks like they're diving out of heaven. Really pretty
Although I was not an olympic level diver, I was doing these dives when I was in high school in the 80's. I'm not saying this to brag, rather to point out how much the sport has progressed since 1936. I woudl not do the forward triple somersault off the 3m board though. I have learned how to protect the jewels & that dive can be quite painful.
Awesome video sequence. Neat to see what they were doign 70 years ago.
The power is not in any individual shot but in the rhythm and the movement of the whole. The entire thing is built out of repetition that slowly evolves. It moves from, at the start, shots that simply document the event (from afar, crowd shown) to, finally, shots cut so that the divers seem to almost fly. From 3:35 on you never even see the water. The crowd is gone. There is only the figure and the sky. For me, there is almost the feeling that the world has been transcended. A little goofy, yes.
It looks so normal to us, but the way it was shot , it was extremely modern approach.
My feelings and admiration of Leni Riefenstahl are so intense I can never describe them, this film is so stunning. I have never been able to escape since the first time I saw this film but who would ever want to?
A master camerawoman, who also knew how to cut and edit to best effect. I see that some of the comments by fellow viewers bring up the fact that she is tainted by her work for the NSDAP. If history turned out differently and the German Communists had won and held onto power, or if she was working in Soviet Russia, would these same people be making her a monster for working for that regime?
Great video, thumbs up from us and cheers from sunny IGY Simpson Bay Marina, Sint Maarten in the Caribbean.
@R3dp055um It's amazing that despite, as you put it, that people had such crude, analog hardware back then, they still made what were both more aesthetically and entertaining cinema; here is one very great example of that.
was never the splash that interested Leni, but the dive
Reifenstahl turns diving into a sensuous ballet. Breathtaking.
@gitaclick The composer credited for the soundtrack is Herbert Windt, who also did the score for "Triumph of the Will."
My daughter is a diver, and boy has diving come a long way..
While Riefenstahl certainly isn't a racist, she does appropriate a fascist aesthetic in her works. Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl's portrait of them evokes some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical. I also think it's absurd and offensive to dismiss Nazism as merely a forgettable bad decision. Read Susan Sontag's Fascinating Fascism.
@bobinobaker True enough; Riefenstahl was already "on her way" even before the Nazis took power and her association with them essentially destroyed what career she could have had after WWII.
if you watch closely at least two of those dives are spliced into the sequence in reverse.
@coralarch
It was not her.
She only had the rights for this movie, but she neither directed nor filmed or cut it.
Others like Willy Zielke did the work, but were even sent to madhouses when they wanted to have their rights back.
stunning, just beautiful
Doesn't this make you believe in the ability of humankind? Good job Leni
Actually, this is the usual version one sees of the Diving Sequence, but prints of this sequence from 1940 are about 30-45 seconds longer (if you follow the music, you can hear where a cut it made at around 1:27-1:28).
Does anyone know if the Riefenstahl Archive has any plans to release the longer version?
@Exverlobter Well, they were there to participate in the Olympics.
Also, Taiwanese and Korean athletes had to compete under the flag of Japan because Japan had conquered these places from China in a war 1894-95.
Leni was so cool.
70 years old and still stunning ! What a genius . Her only 'crime' was to be on the losing side - after Germany's defeat , she was never allowed to make another film .
There is a malicious claim.that Riefenstahl stole techniques from other film makers but I do not believe it for one moment when I watch this sequence most especially.
Cinematic genius!
q hermosas tomas,una gran cineasta sin duda alguna
damn, amazing visual work
intigfx so how does it feel in 2020?
Its more than reportage.
amazing.i had never seen this until i watched a rammstein music video..the diving sequence was so awesome i had to watch the entirety..thanks for posting.
she does a very good job of making it look like they're falling from the heavens
Mansplain Blane haha so how does it feel in 2020?
@@ItsMe-ni1qo It probably feels better than posting the same comment over and over again. I hope you've managed to find a hobby by now.
Leni is well known to Japanese.I like this movie.
Riefenstahl was a great, great film maker but none of her films ever have humor, let along irony but they're still amazing.
I often wonder what she could have accomplished with faster film that would have been in color, Panavision and steadi-cam.
she is amazing! pure genius!
Took a film appreciation class in Junior College back in 1979 and was fortunate enough to see Olympia in it's entirety.
Instructor never mentioned Leni Riefenstahl and her wonderful movie Triumph of the will. ( not really surprising is it?)
I knew of the movie but never saw it until UA-cam came along and made the connection for me.
I wonder if Olympia is for sale on DVD?
dbck3
Leni was really not friend of Goebbels, she said that she did never like Gobbels. Once she even kicked Goebbels out of her house when he came to visit. Hitler admired her film art and gave nearly totall freedom of art and plenty of resources to make her films. It is not Leni´s fault that her films were so good, one of the greatest masterpieces during film history. She is definitely the best female film director ever and one of the greatest film directors during the movie history too.
She read some of Mein Kampf, and she liked the ideas about benefits for the workers and all that jazz, but all the racial hate she disliked. She even wrote notes in her copy of the book. Hitler just laughed at them.
I don't think she was a Nazi, but I agree she offered her talent to the WRONG people.
wonderful images!
@psymon23 Unless you are Leni Riefenstahl, you have no right to complain about this. You didn't make this footage and you don't own the copyright.
I love it more with a different soundtrack. Rammstein song Stripped. check it out. they used for their music video the ending part of this video and some other probably from Olympia too.
that was wonderful!
Amen!
Nazi or no nazi - that is gorgeous footage.
Incredible! It is sad that she is only known for her past. "It was the biggest catastrophe of my life. Until the day I die people will keep saying, 'Leni is a Nazi', and I'll keep saying, 'But what did she do?'" Everyone must stop judging one another. Yes she did make some bad decisions in her lifetime, but who hasn't? If she truly was a Nazi then she wouldn't have had an interest in Africa (Nuba). Understanding of cultures is most important in this world. All cultures have their good and bad.
Ok, you are right.
Sorry, I don't speak english. Esto sí es cine. Los cuerpos llegan a parecer aviones. A veces parece que salieran del agua. Y cuando caen como heridos tienen mucho valor expresivo. No he visto nada igual. ¿De quién es, por cierto, la música?
very impressive
Running reverse 1.5 straight off 10m - thats crazy!!!
agreed.
Bruce Webber must have loved this stuff
Consider this done back in 1936, Leni's talent made my jaw drop. She was a genius through and through. Nothing any idiotic comments can tarnish that.
this vidio is very well
Speer's son designed the Bird's Nest? What poetry - you've gotta be shitting me. Where did you hear this?
@DidiVavaPele76 I'm sorry, i don't speak english, i use the google traslator
maravilloso
UNA GENIO ESTA MUJER, DEBERIAN PREMIARLA POST MORTEM.
It would be great if one could upload the full version of the Diving Sequence (about 50 seconds longer).
Bob Kosovsky how does it feel in 2020?
@standardissuemale877
There are also asians in this video
Riefenstahl is second only to Hitchcock when it comes to directing
@Rothberath Cult of the Body you mean?
So what? she had firm convictions of what she was doing. She never regreted having work for Adolf Hitler, that is attitude!
wow :o
For the first 3 minutes I was kind of dozing, but then at 2:56 ZOMG 0_0
does anybody know if there is an entire vrsion uploaded? or else, where can I get it?
ok mate!
I still stand by what I said.
newyorkian2000 how does it feel in 2020?
Such a great Olympic sight. Too bad Berlin's Japanese counterpart Tokyo was unable to one-up that in the 1940 games. If only the war had not happened...
What's that for music in the background?
Interessante!
Leni Riefenstahl war eine genial Künstlerin.Was hätte sie noch alles schaffen können wenn ihre fatale Nähe zu den Nazis ihr Karriere und Arbeit nicht so behindert hätte
3:31 interesting turning (point:)
KeyCode88 how does it feel in 2020?
Artist had always to choose: to work for any cost, or to let their talent sleep in darkness. Now we have a choice too: enjoy the beauty she made - or judge her.
I don't fault her. She did what she had to do to survive. And her work is extraordinary.
i'll take the matrix lobby shooting scene any day over this. my history professor made too much of a big deal about these films. that guy's just too old..
Gripping stuff...........
it movie it
No, but Hitler appointed her to the be the Film Expert for the Nazis. She was his greatest propaganda filmmaker. Check out "Triumph of the Will".
Vertov diga
@SatchmoSings probably you're right cause I'm not a lesbian.