No Apologies: Leni Riefenstahl's art and politics in Mieko Ouchi's The Blue Light

Abstract

In the acknowledgements to the published script of The Blue Light, Mieko Ouchi comments on the artist's relationship to her audience, observing that “as artists we will always be judged. By those who are here. By those who come after. By history. By taste. By politics. By hindsight” (6).1 How we judge Leni Riefenstahl is a central concern of Ouchi's play. Riefenstahl filmed Adolf Hitler's Nuremberg rallies (most notably in Triumph of the Will [1935]) and the 1936 Berlin Olympics (Olympia [1938]); yet she denied that these films were politically motivated and refused to take any kind of responsibility (even with the benefit of hindsight) for her role in Hitler's rise. While she is recognized as a cinematic pioneer, even lauded by some as a trail-blazing woman in a male-dominated industry, her work remains inextricably linked to fascist aesthetics and politics.2 Ouchi writes that “Leni Riefenstahl holds a perplexing place in my heart. I look at her with admiration, revulsion, reverence and horror” (“Acknowledgements” 6). The Blue Light does not attempt to reconcile Ouchi's “awe” and her “dismay” at the film-maker's notorious complicity, but it does offer a dynamic representation of the contradictions of Riefenstahl's life (6).3