I am not familiar with the work of Riefenstahl, but this discussion makes me
ask the question: If Riefenstahl's abhorrent political views make it
innapropriate to defend her on artistic grounds, then why is D.H. Lawrence's
_Birth of a Nation_ canonized based on it's groundbreaking approach to film-
making?
 
Being a black person, I have never felt comfortable with the near universal
reverence directed at Lawrence and his film filled with Ku Klux Klan
propaganda.  I'm curious about the thoughts of others . . .
 
Marc    [log in to unmask]
 
 
On Tue, 14 Jun 1994, David Desser wrote:
[stuff deleted]
> ...More than this (since I know you don't in any way mean to
> imply this sort of thing in your wildest imagination), can "techniques" be
> separated from the cause to which they are put?  More than that, as Susan
> Sontag demonstrated quite convincingly years ago, in "Fascinating Fascism,"
> Riefenstahl was obviously and clearly a fascist and a Nazi sympathizer.  It
> makes no sense to defend her on purely aesthetic grounds, as if her values
> and beliefs, not to mention her contribution to the Nazi effort, were
> merely "something to get past."  Has cultural relativism and "pluralism"
> allowed us to accept the Nazis as just one more value system to "get past"
> in our aesthetic sensibilities?
>
> _____________________________________
> David Desser,UIUC Cinema Studies
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