’The triumph of the will’ and ’The Great Dictator’

Freund Dorka

’The triumph of the will’ and ’The Great Dictator’

Propaganda films are useful devices which may reinforce ideas and support any cause, especially when it comes to politics and warfare. They are often produced in documentary-style in order to convince the viewer of a certain political point; therefore, the content can be misleading or false even. Films as propaganda tools are very effectives due to their ability to distort events or historical facts which can lead to the conclusion that they are persuasive but possibly untrustworthy forms of medium. In this essay I’m going to examine Nazi and Allied propaganda cinematography during the Second World War through the examples of ’The triumph of the will’ and ’The Great Dictator’.

The Nazi empire preferred using propaganda films to blind masses by using slogans that were aimed directly at the instincts and emotions of the public, this way the Nazis managed to influence millions. Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, stated that he intends to end the "shamelessness and tastelessness" that became popular after the First World War in cinematography that he had to eliminate. Nazi propaganda movies were to distract the population and to keep everybody’s spirits high by promoting escapism;  this so-called open propaganda  included films such as Der Sieg des Glaubens and Triumph des Willens and records of the Nuremberg rallies and newsreels.

While the movie ‘The triumph of the will’ was being shot then released there was a crisis in Germany which hindered German cinematography and film-production to the extremes. One factor was that the most capable actors and film-makers left the country because of fear from the Nazi government and/or have been banned by Reichsfilmkammer.  Another factor was that the remaining actors and film-makers demanded higher salaries, thus increasing production budgets. Furthermore, due to international boycotts the export of German films severely dropped.

The film, ‘Triumph of the will’, was directed, produced, edited, and co-written by Leni Riefenstahl in 1935. It preserves the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. She used filming techniques such as moving cameras, aerial photography, the use of long focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, and the revolutionary approach to music and cinematography. The  innovative features were enough to earn Riefenstahl and the film recognition in the world as one of the greatest propaganda films in history as it won several awards throughout the world, for instance in Germany, the United States, France, Sweden etc.

Even though the film is now viewed as a means to support the Nazi regime, it continues to influence documentaries, commercials and films even today (Star Wars). It is now banned  in Germany due to its reinforcement of Nazism and the numerous swastika portrayals. The Independent in 2003 claimed that the "Triumph of the Will seduced many wise men and women, persuaded them to admire rather than to despise, and undoubtedly won the Nazis friends and allies all over the world." We can grasp and understand the enormous success the Triumph of the Will achieved by considering the instant and lasting international fame it gave Riefenstahl.

Riefenstahl was attacked on several occasions for contributing to the establishment of the Nazi regime’s power and terror but she continuously defended herself against the charges, by saying that  the ‘Triumph of the Will’ focuses rather on images than ideas, ” If you see this film again today you ascertain that it doesn't contain a single reconstructed scene. Everything in it is true. And it contains no tendentious commentary at all. It is history. A pure historical film... it is film-vérité. It reflects the truth that was then in 1934, history

One famous reaction to the film was Charlie Chaplin's big satire ‘The Great Dictator’ (1940) that was greatly inspired by ‘Triumph of the Will’. ‘The Great Dictator’ is an American political  comedy-drama film which was written, directed, produced, scored by the starring Charlie Chaplin.  The film became Chaplin's first actual sound film which was recorded in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Interestingly, at the time of its first release, the United States was still not officially at war against the Nazi Germany. Chaplin decided to play two extreme roles, a ruthless fascist dictator, and a persecuted Jewish barber. In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he would not have been able to do the film, if he had known about the true extent of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at the time.

Chaplin viewed Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will  at a showing at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Chaplin was laughing out loud when he was watching the film and later he used it as inspiration to many elements of ‘The Great Dictator’. By viewing this film several times, Chaplin could mimic Hitler's gestures credibly. The viewer hears a speech at the beginning of the film, it is German-sounding gibberish which is a caricature of Hitler's powerful style of rhetorical speech; he was able to reach this level of accuracy by careful study of newsreels. He desired to express the violence and repression of Jews by the Nazis in the late 1930’s, the extent of which was described to him by his European Jewish friends.

 As Chaplin was starting to become internationally acknowledged, he once was celebrated by fans on a  trip to Berlin in 1931, which frustrated the Nazis so deeply that they published a book titled The Jews Are Looking at You (1934), featuring the comedian as "a disgusting Jewish acrobat" notwithstanding the fact that he was not Jewish. According to Chaplin’s son, he was haunted by the similarities between him and Hitler concerning their background; they were born four days apart in April 1889, and both started from the bottom. Some believe, that Chaplin managed to send the film to Hitler, and it was confirmed by a witness that Hitler actually saw it. Not surprisingly, later on it was denied that the leader had ever seen it. Hitler's reaction to the film is not recorded, but according to another account, he even watched the film twice.

The film became popular mostly in the US and the United Kingdom and among the allied powers, 9 million people watched it in cinemas only in the UK. Chaplin's fear according to which, wartime audiences would not welcome a comedy about Hitler completely disappeared, as proof it became the second-most popular movie in the US in 1941. The film was banned in several Latin American countries, and also in many parts of Europe.  

It is intriguing to see how Riefenstahl’s film became a trigger that urged and inspired Chaplin to create his great satire, and how both films were perceived by their contemporary audiences and how they are evaluated today in the light of the well-known historical events. One may raise questions like “Would we view it differently if the winners didn’t write history?” or “Is propaganda film-making a form of art at all?” These questions are yet to be answered and foreseeably they will remain to be so until we have enough distance and perspective from the devastating happenings of the Second World War to be able to see and judge objectively and without bias.

Works cited:

[Barsam, Richard Meran. Filmguide to Triumph of the Will. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1975.]

[Grant, Barry Keith, Jeannette Sloniowski, and Bill Nichols. Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2014.]

[Williams Val. "Riefenstahl and the Face of Fascism." Riefenstahl Screened : An Anthology of New Criticism (2003)]

[Chaplin, Charlie. "Had I Known..." Charles Chaplin: My Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964. 392. Print.]

[Eidenmuller, Michael E. "'The Great Dictator' (1940)". American Rhetoric (2012)]

["Propaganda Film." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 6 Dec. 2016.]