Leni Reifenstahl, 1902-2003.

Leni Reifenstahl, one of the twentieth-century's most controversial and influential filmmakers, died on September 8, 2003 at the age of 101.

Born Helene Berta Amalie Reifenstahl in Berlin in 1902, Reifenstahl became a successful actress and dancer at a young age, eventually starring in several "mountain films" directed by Arnold Fanck, where she enhanced her reputation as being not only artistically talented but fearless. In 1932 she directed her own "mountain film," The Blue Light. A short time later, after hearing Adolf Hitler speak at a rally, she contacted him, thus beginning their professional relationship. Impressed with her directorial work, Hitler commissioned Reifenstahl to document the Nazi rally at Nuremberg, resulting in the powerful Triumph of the Will (1934), which served to further the rhetoric of the Third Reich and glorify the aims of the party. In Triumph of the Will, Reifenstahl used highly innovative camerawork and editing as well as live sound and the film won several awards in Germany. She also shot a documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, Olympia. Although Olympia again demonstrated her unique cinematic style, its release in 1938 coincided with the impending war and it had a chilly reception in the United States. While Reifenstahl's cinematic vision received acclaim, screenings of her work were often accompanied by protests. She was pronounced a Nazi sympathizer and a propagandist by the Allies and found it difficult to find financing for another film for several decades. Reifenhstahl, however, claimed throughout her life that her films were not political works and that although she had originally admired Hitler, she herself was never a Nazi.

At the end of the war Reifenstahl was held by American and later French authorities for nearly four years for "de-Nazification." Later, she spent 20 years in Munich in virtual obscurity. In the late 1960s she began making photographs--focusing on the Nuba people of Sudan--which were praised for their portrayal of beauty, but were reproached by critics such as Susan Sontag, who referred to all of Reifenstahl's creative works as employing "fascist visuals."

Reifenstahl remained active, taking up scuba diving and underwater photography at age 71, publishing such collections of underwater photographs as Coral Gardens (1978) and Wonders Under Water (1991). In 1993, German filmmaker Ray Muller released a three-hour film documentary entitled The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Reifenstahl, in which Reifenstahl maintained that she was not guilty of any wrong-doing. That same year, Reifenstahl published a lengthy memoir that was well-received by critics, although the veracity of some of her historical claims was questioned.

The conflicting sentiment about Reifenstahl and her work continued to the end of her life. In 2001, Reifenstahl received a lifetime achievement award from the American organization Cinecon while in 2002, a German gypsy organization charged that Reifenstahl had been aware of the murder of gypsy extras used in her film Lowlands (1944). The Frankfurt-based prosecution of Reifenstahl on charges of Holocaust denial were dropped due to lack of evidence. Also in 2002 she released her last film, a 45-minute documentary exploring life on the ocean floor, Impressions Under Water.

Reifenstahl is survived by her long-time companion Horst Kettner.