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The [[life ]] and [[work ]] of Leni Riefenstahl, who died on Monday at age 101, seems to lend itself to a [[mapping ]] of a devolution, progressing toward a dark conclusion. It began with the early “mountain films” of the 1920s that she starred in and later began directing as well, which celebrated heroism and [[bodily ]] effort in the extreme [[conditions ]] of mountain climbing. It went on to her [[notorious ]] [[Nazi ]] documentaries in the ‘30s, celebrating bodily [[discipline]], concentration, and strength of will in sport as well as in [[politics]]. Then, after [[World ]] War II, in her photo albums, she rediscovered her [[ideal ]] of bodily beauty and graceful [[self]]-[[mastery ]] in the Nuba African tribe. Finally, in her last decades, she learned the difficult art of deep sea diving and started shooting documentaries [[about ]] the strange life in the dark depths of the sea.<br><br>
We thus obtain a clear trajectory from the top to the bottom: We begin with rugged individuals struggling at the mountain tops and gradually descend, until we reach the amorphous teem of life at the bottom of the sea. Is not what she encountered down there her ultimate [[object]], the [[obscene ]] and irresistibly thriving eternal force of life itself, what she was searching for all along? And does this not apply also to her [[personality]]? It seems that the [[fear ]] of those who are fascinated by Leni is no longer “When will she die?” but “Will she <i>ever</i> die?” Although rationally we [[know ]] that she has just passed away, we somehow do not really believe it. She will go on forever.<br><br>
This continuity of her career is usually given a fascist twist, as in the exemplary [[case ]] of the famous Susan Sontag essay on Leni, “Fascinating [[Fascism]].” The [[idea ]] is that even her pre- and post-Nazi [[films ]] articulate a fascist [[vision ]] of life: Leni’s fascism is deeper than her direct celebration of Nazi politics; it resides already in her pre-[[political ]] [[aesthetics ]] of life, in her [[fascination ]] with beautiful bodies displaying their disciplined movements. Perhaps it is [[time ]] to problematize this topos. Let us take Leni’s 1932 [[film ]] <i>Das blaue Licht</i> (“The Blue Light”), the story of a village [[woman ]] who is hated for her unusual prowess at climbing a deadly mountain. Is it not possible to read the film in exactly the opposite way as it usually is [[interpreted]]? Is Junta, the lone and wild mountain [[girl]], not an outcast who almost becomes the [[victim ]] of a pogrom—there is no [[other ]] appropriate word—by the villagers? (Perhaps it is not an accident that Béla Balázs, Leni’s lover at that time who co-wrote the scenario with her, was a [[Marxist]].)<br><br>
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[[Another ]] popular conclusion of this kind of [[analysis]], closer to Leni, is the allegedly fascist [[character ]] of the mass choreography of disciplined movements of thousands of bodies: parades, mass performances in stadia, etc. If one finds it also in [[communism]], one immediately draws the conclusion about a “deeper solidarity” between the two “totalitarianisms.” Such a formulation, the very prototype of [[ideological ]] [[liberalism]], misses the point. Not only are such mass performances not inherently fascist; they are not even “neutral,” waiting to be appropriated by [[left ]] or [[right]]. It was Nazism that stole [[them ]] and appropriated them from the workers’ movement, their original site of birth. None of these “proto-fascist” elements is per se fascist. What makes them “fascist” is only their specific articulation—or, to put it in Stephen Jay Gould’s terms, all these elements are “ex-apted” by fascism. There is no fascism <i>avant la [[lettre]]</i>, because it is the [[letter ]] itself that composes the bundle (or, in Italian, <i>fascio</i>) of elements that is fascism proper.<br><br>
Along the same lines, one should radically reject the [[notion ]] that discipline, from self-[[control ]] to bodily [[training]], is inherently a proto-fascist feature. Indeed, the very term “proto-fascist” should be abandoned: It is a pseudo-[[concept ]] whose function is to block [[conceptual ]] analysis. When we say that the organized [[spectacle ]] of thousands of bodies (or, say, the admiration of sports that [[demand ]] high effort and self-control like mountain climbing) is “proto-fascist,” we say strictly [[nothing]], we just express a vague [[association ]] that masks our [[ignorance]].<br><br>
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So, back to Leni: What all this does <i>not</i> mean is that one should dismiss her Nazi engagement as a limited, unfortunate episode. The [[true ]] problem is to sustain the tension that cuts through her work: the tension between the artistic perfection of her [[practice ]] and the ideological [[project ]] that “ex-apted” it. Why should her case be different from that of Ezra Pound, William [[Butler ]] Yeats, and other modernists with fascist tendencies who long ago became part of our artistic canon? Perhaps the [[search ]] for the “true ideological identity” of Leni Riefenstahl is a misleading one. Perhaps there is no such [[identity]]: She was genuinely thrown around, inconsistent, caught in a cobweb of conflicting forces.<br><br>
Is then the best way to mark her [[death ]] not to take the risk of fully enjoying a film like <i>Das blaue Licht</i>, which contains the possibility of a political [[reading ]] of her work totally different from the prevailing view?
==Source==* [[Learning To Love Leni Riefenstahl]]. ''In These [[Times]]''. September 10, 2003. <http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/102/>. Also listed on ''[[Lacan]].com''. <http://www.lacan.com/zizekleni.htm>. [[Category:Articles by Slavoj Žižek]][[Category:Works]][[Category:Articles]]