The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929) is the story of three climbers trapped on a mountain of rotting ice in blizzard conditions, awaiting their rescue, or their death. It was typical Fanck, featuring gorgeous outdoor photography and the aerial acrobatics of WWI flying ace Ernst Udet. A departure for this film was the co-directing of Fanck who handled all the scenic work, and G. W. Pabst who was brought in to direct the acting scenes. Fanck’s favorite leading lady, Leni Riefenstahl, once again starred, this time with Gustav Dissel, who appeared opposite Louise Brooks as Jack the Ripper in Pandora’s Box (1928). While the use of these two directors may be easily understood by comparing them to their modern equivalents (imagine the pairing of Warren Miller and Mike Nichols), there is no modern equal to Reifenstahl.
"…the most talented woman ever to make a film."
The life and career of Leni Riefenstahl reads like a Greek Tragedy. David Thomson described her as "...arguably, the most talented woman ever to make a film." As a young dancer, Reifenstahl studied under Max Reinhardt until injury forced a career change to acting. Her name became as synonymous with Mountain Films as Fanck’s. Riefenstahl possessed a physical beauty and robust vitality that made her the perfect embodiment of the Alpine lifestyle, and she could ski! Fanck and Pabst persuaded Riefenstahl to direct herself in The Blue Light (1932), and her directing career began as the genre was about to end.
At this point, the foundation of all culture within Germany changed as the National Socialist German Workers Party seized power in 1933. A flood of artists and intellectuals fled the country, while others were imprisoned or forced into humiliating circumstances under this new fascist oppression. Riefenstahl was seduced with praise and the offer of advancement, producing Triumph of the Will (1935), which documented the 1934 party conference in Nuremberg. It remains the most sublime example of cultural propaganda ever produced on film. It was effectively used to stir great nationalist sentiment within German society. As a documentary film, it is beautifully photographed, edited and no doubt was extremely useful as a tool of mass persuasion. Triumph of the Will was also the horrific testament to what it preceded. Riefenstahl for the rest of her life denied it was anything resembling propaganda. Two years later she filmed the 1936 Games of the IX Olympiad in Berlin, for what is now considered the greatest sports documentary ever produced, Olympia (1938). Her accomplishment and skill are abundantly clear and Thomson’s observation is quite possible. Riefenstahl also possessed an arrogant denial of her own complicity and the truth. How could a woman of such extraordinary intelligence claim ignorance, or excuse away a personal friendship with Adolph Hitler? She paid for her avarice, with imprisonment and persecution after the Second World War. She wrote a fascinating autobiography toward the end of her long life (101 years) and produced beautiful volumes of still photographs, but never regained her place in cinema or the brilliant career that might have been.
Seattle Theater Group and the Paramount Theater present The White Hell of Pitz Palu, with musical accompaniment performed by Dennis James, on the Paramount’s original 4/20 Publix Wurlitzer.
