The Film Background of Victory of Faith

193365438+1On October 30th, German President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of the German Reich, and the Nazis seized power, and the Third Reich began a page in its history. On March 6th of the same year, the Propaganda Department was established, with Josef Goebbels as the minister. On March 28th, Goebbels pointed out that "German films are facing economic and spiritual crisis" when meeting with people in the film industry. To this end, he demanded that "German films must be fundamentally reformed to make them have distinctive ethnic characteristics ..."

This year, leni riefenstahl, who had been favored by Hitler and the Nazis, was ordered to make a documentary about the Nazi Party Congress. This is the first party congress after the Nazis came to power, and it is also a large-scale power show. Leni riefenstahl led five photographers to record the Party Congress from different angles, and named the movie Victory of Faith as the theme of the Party Congress to celebrate the Nazi victory. For this documentary, the British "Observer" once wrote and commented: "The film is like the reappearance of Caesar's gods. Caesar was naturally' played' by Hitler, and his soldiers were all Roman slaves. "

Just like her movie Victory of Will in 1934 and Freedom Day-Our National Defence Force in 1935, although different from the typical propaganda film, Victory of Faith was promoted to the public by the Nazi Party as a "propaganda film" at that time. All academic groups prefer to think that it is a documentary, but it is completely different in essence.

As a milestone in the history of Nazi propaganda, Victory of Faith pushed the ambition of a newly-elected ruling party to the peak at the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg in 1933. Shown in the early stage of 1934, this film, as an arbitrary and effective tool, presents the Nazi fanaticism to the German people.

In the following year, Hitler bloodily cleaned many of his former comrades. One of the most famous is the leader of the stormtroopers, Roma. 1933, it seems that he is the supreme leader of the stormtroopers, and the second is Hitler, which is obvious in the movie "Victory of Faith". After a long bloody cleaning that night, Roma became an unwelcome person, and everything involving him was deleted from public places. As a result, thousands of publications of Faith Victory were searched and destroyed from all corners of Germany. Then the Nazi regime completely eradicated the celebration of 1933 from memory, and the director of the party congress began to arrange the next congress in Nuremberg, that is, September of 1934. Rivesta was once again entrusted to record the meeting; The result is the masterpiece of her propaganda film: victory of will.

For the victory of faith, people always think that no complete film has survived, which aroused young people's interest in the history of the Third Reich. Until recently, a copy of the film Victory of Faith was found in an obscure corner of England. It turned out that it was inadvertently left in Britain when Rivenstar 1934 visited Britain at the beginning of the year. This is the most complete version of all public appearances. There are many valuable scenes in this film, which show the original ideas and shooting techniques of Riefenstahl, and of course, they are naturally applied to the will victory that won great success later.

Compared with other films, this film has completely got rid of the stagnation of the early Nazi propaganda history: it evokes heroism and collective will, and shows the unity of the country and the people that Hitler has always dreamed of. Moreover, the victory of faith is instructive for observing a Nazi movement that first came to power in 1933. For film researchers, this film presents two basic viewpoints, namely, power aesthetics and the Third Reich.