A "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year. One of the century's most remarkable and controversial women, Leni Riefenstahl is an artist of the first order. Dancer, actor, and photographer, she is best known as the director of "Triumph of the Will," a film of a Nazi Party rally and "Olympia," the classic account of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It is for these works of cinematic propaganda that Riefenstahl is revered and reviled. In this autobiography, she discusses her motivations, her history, her important friendships, and, most of all, her art. Along with insights into directing and camera work, Riefenstahl offers an emotional, powerful story of a woman who refuses to be defined by any terms other than her own.

Reviews

Filmmaker for Adolf Hitler and top film executive for the Third Reich, Riefenstahl (b. 1902) portrays herself, in this unconvincing, self-justifying autobiography, as a naive dancer/actress who was seduced by the Fuhrer's charisma and recognized his demonic nature too late. She states that she ``unreservedly rejected Hitler's racist ideas'' and found out about the genocide of the Jews only after the war. Further, she insists, she filmed her documentary on the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin only because of Hitler's unyielding orders, and she had no inkling that it would be used as Nazi Party propaganda. One marvels at how time seems to have dimmed Riefenstahl's conscience. She writes that Joseph Goebbels made crude, aggressive sexual advances on her and later waged a vendetta against her. Relating encounters with Mussolini, Albert Speer, Walt Disney, Marlene Dietrich, Any Warhol and Jean Cocteau, Riefenstahl in this overlong self-portrait describes her postwar imprisonment by French occupational forces, her ``rehabilitation'' and her filmmaking travels from Vienna to the Sudan. Photos. (Sept.)

The subtitle of this book could appropriately have been ``An Apologia.'' According to Riefenstahl, she is an apolitical, passive person who was pushed into her career as a German film actress and filmmaker of such Nazi-era classics as Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Whatever the truth, she did have a remarkable career then and subsequently achieved new fame as a talented photographer. Unfortunately, she writes in a monotonous, unemotional style that dilutes the most prominent times of her life, even her relationship with Hitler. This, coupled with the dubious reliability of her recollections, make the memoir a disappointment. Such works as David Hinton's The Films of Leni Riefenstahl (Scarecrow, 1992), Renata Berg-Pan's Leni Riefenstahl (Twayne, 1980), and Glenn Infield's Leni Riefenstahl: The Fallen Film Goddess ( LJ 10/15/76) will have to suffice until a definitive biography is written.-- Roy Liebman, California State Univ. Lib., Los Angeles

"Some books are so exciting that you can't put them down. This one is so exciting that you often must put it down, lest you overdose on thrills . . . does not contain a single unspellbinding page"--John Simon, "The New York Times Book Review"