Unfortunately, Triumph of the Will was also a masterpiece of nazi propaganda. This was the genius of the nazi movement -- they understood that the most successful propaganda had to either be really, really scary or really, really cool and they went with cool. Riefenstahl helped build the nazi movement into a national campaign and later claimed she didn't know about all of the horrific crimes the party committed. Her access to the highest levels of the party makes this claim hard to believe. When Riefenstahl died at the age of 101 in 2003, I thought it proved the old saying -- only the good die young.
Another great documentary by Riefenstahl is Olympia, a film about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Like Triumph, Olympia was pro-nazi, using the Olympics to showcase Hitler's vision of a physically perfect people and casting the nazis as the direct descendants of the ancient greeks who were seen as the creators of western civilization. Nazi design looked Roman for a reason -- you were supposed to see a direct line from Athens to Rome to Berlin. The propaganda had it that Germany was the last, proud stand of the civilization that the Greeks began. Nazi supermen were the next step in the evolution of western civilization.
There may be two kinds of propaganda. There's the N. Korea "Everyone on Earth wants to kill you" model and the nazi/soviet "Trust this government, we're the best thing that's ever happened to humanity" model. Some governments, like the Bush administration, use a little of both -- although, in Bush's case, it's mostly the former.
All of which brings us to the Olympic torch relay. That's all Hitler. He turned the 1936 Olympiad into a "best thing that's ever happened to humanity"-style propaganda outlet. Olympia's breakthroughs in film technology, like mobile tracking cameras on pulleys and cables (which are still used in filming sports today), were meant to show the genius of the Master Race. And the torch relay was meant to symbolize the passing on of the torch of civilization from the ancient Greeks to the modern nazis, not the passing on of the Olympic ideal. Ignited by a parabolic mirror using "the rays of Apollo," the torch supposedly carried the light of civilization through benighted Europe to its new home in Berlin.In other words, the torch relay has jack to do with the Olympics. It was born as propaganda and continues as propaganda's twin sister, marketing. The Greeks never did anything remotely like this.
So, I wouldn't lose any sleep of the politicization over the torch relay on its way to Beijing. It's nothing but an ad for the 2008 Olympics and a marketing campaign for China. It's meant as spectacle, so kick back and enjoy the spectacle. Adding to the fun is that this spectacle isn't the one that Chinese propagandists had planned for it to be...
[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
