What really shocks me about the Riefenstahl apologists on this and some other listservs is the concept of "we'll never really know." Most of the participants here are supposed to be historians and there's enough first-hand material to damn her ten times over. And it's all been fairly documented (by better scholars than I) in IAMHIST articles, various biographies, autobiographies, collected letters, etc. The latest about Tiefland is further proof. For example, the concept that she only spent a few days on making Triumph of the Will. It took months of preparation and months of editing. Not to mention this wasn't her only film to celebrate the Nazis. She had done another film the year before this. And behind the "it was just a work for hire" has been her fifty year history of demanding royalties from distributors around the world for the right to distribute or exhibit the film. A perusal of letters to the Eastman House is quite illuminating. To say she didn't know what was happening is to condemn her as stupid. Mein Kampf was a bestseller and a lot of people knew what was happening and left. She was full of ambition and she used the Nazi party and her friendships to get ahead. As for being the greatest woman director ever, I would say that form does not overcome content or intent. There are several women I would rate above her and more important, it's all nonsense. It's like an AFI 100 Greatest Lists. It's a apples and orange statement I would never make about anybody in serious discussion--only for amusement. As for German woman directors, Lotte Reiniger exiled herself for twelve years and only came back late in 1944 to save her mother from starving to death. (And personally, I'd rather see Prince Achmed and some of Lotte's other films than have to watch Triumph or Olympia again.) Lotte, of course, was a great woman. Dennis Doros Milestone Film & Video PO Box 128, Harrington Park, NJ 07640 800-603-1104, Fax: 201-767-3035 email: [log in to unmask] website: milestonefilms.com ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu