{"id":13059,"date":"2016-02-05T00:53:41","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T05:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13059"},"modified":"2016-02-05T01:38:35","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T06:38:35","slug":"br-triumph-of-the-will-triumph-des-willens-1935","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13059","title":{"rendered":"BR: Triumph of the Will \/ Triumph des Willens (1935)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-13057\" src=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/TriumphOfTheWillSynapse_BR.jpg\" alt=\"TriumphOfTheWillSynapse_BR\" width=\"120\" height=\"154\" \/>Film<\/strong>:\u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n<p><strong>Transfer<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n<p><strong>Extras<\/strong>:\u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n<p><strong>Label:\u00a0<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/synapse-films.com\/synapse-films\/triumph-of-the-will-blu-ray-2k-remastered-edition\/\" target=\"_blank\">Synapse Films<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Region:<\/strong>\u00a0A, B, C<\/p>\n<p><strong>Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 December 8, 2015<\/p>\n<p><strong>Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Documentary \/ Propaganda \/ WWII \/ Third Reich<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Inarguably the most potent propaganda film ever made, showcasing the Nazi party and deifying Adolf Hitler using stunning footage from the 1934 Nuremberg party rally.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><strong>Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0New 2K 2015 HD transfer \/ Audio Commentary by German National Socialist specialist Dr. Anthony R. Santoro \/ Bonus Short: &#8220;Day of Freedom&#8221; (1935) \/ 4-page colour booklet with liner notes by Roy Frumkes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the ultimate and scariest propaganda film ever made \u2013 and rightly so \u2013 Leni Riefenstahl\u2019s self-professed \u2018document\u2019 of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg was a meticulously plotted production designed from the ground-up to assault the senses of German audiences and make it clear Adolph Hitler was not only the country\u2019s man in charge, but its self-appointed savior and visionary.<\/p>\n<p>Riefenstahl had previously shot an hour-long documentary at the 1933 Party Congress, and while that short, <strong>Victory of the Faith<\/strong> \/ <strong>Der Sieg des Glaubens<\/strong> (1933), covered almost the same ground and structure \u2013 Hitler\u2019s arrival, entry into the old city of Nuremberg, addressing the populace from a hotel balcony, an evening oom-pah-pah serenade, and assorted marches interspersed with speeches before concluding speeches \u2013 it pales in being much cruder in filming, assembly, and the director (and party\u2019s) attempt to deify Hitler.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Faith<\/strong> also featured shots of and speeches by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ernst_R%C3%B6hm\">Ernst R\u00f6hm<\/a>, the powerful leader of the brown-shirted SA, the Nazi party\u2019s rabid militia, who was soon slated for execution in a 1934 purge that routed out other SA figures and had the potential to endanger Hitler\u2019s newfound position as Chancellor and Fuhrer, self-crowned after former President <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paul_von_Hindenburg\" target=\"_blank\">Paul von Hindenburg<\/a>\u2019s death in 1933.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Triumph<\/strong> was design to live up to its name and the will of the Nazi party (the NSDAP) to cement their placement as the <em>only<\/em> party that should ever lead the country, and unlike the hastily assembled quality of <strong>Faith<\/strong>, it\u2019s clear both party leaders and Riefenstahl wanted their remake to be the most definitive record of the party\u2019s power and ideal image as representing the country\u2019s truest social values, inarguably setting the NSDAP as the only true defender of a classless society, and the governing body that would bring back the country\u2019s glory after two devastating depressions, the penalties inflicted upon the country after WWI, and the postwar <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Weimar_Republic\">Weimar Republic<\/a> which Hitler fully loathed.<\/p>\n<p>The sometimes perfunctory edits in <strong>Faith<\/strong>, including Hitler\u2019s arrival, were replaced by elaborate and meticulously measured cinematic transitions and montages that certainly in <strong>Triumph<\/strong>\u2019s famous opening, attempted to deify Hitler: POV shots from a plane flying through stunning cloud formations, the plane\u2019s shadow as it descends upon the old city of Nuremberg, and its landing in an airfield packed with throngs of multi-generational citizens and representatives from the various governmental factions in their military-styled uniforms.<\/p>\n<p>As historian Dr. Anthony Santoro cites in his audio commentary track on Synapse\u2019s stellar Blu-ray, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Treaty_of_Versailles\">Treaty of Versailles<\/a> had reduced Germany\u2019s army to 100,000 men, so Hitler\u2019s clever workaround was to create paramilitary governmental branches \u2013 the police; the worker\u2019s union; and the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hitler_Youth\" target=\"_blank\">Hitler Youth<\/a>, an ideological version of the boy scouts where each member wore a uniform, was indoctrinated in the party\u2019s philosophy, had to stick with an unwavering sense of discipline, and maintain absolute loyalty to Hitler.<\/p>\n<p>The messages brow-beaten into the militias emphasized each man and woman was a vital member of a greater movement which mandated total fealty to the party and its orders to ensure that the country\u2019s struggle to return to the world stage would never be eroded by further Allied meddling. In essence, each faction formed a military-like corps, pre-inculcated for the discipline required for war when the Nazis would soon break treaties, expand the military, re-arm the Rhineland, ramp up war production, and go on a European and North African conquest spree, murdering millions at home and abroad.<\/p>\n<p>As Riefenstahl celebrated the ideological heaviness of the Nazis by glorifying their fetishes for organized and disciplined Romanesque tributes to Hitler, it also transformed <strong>Triumph<\/strong> into the kind of film <strong>Faith<\/strong> wasn\u2019t to such a heavy degree: a meandering, almost neverending parade of fetishized militarism that would probably make even war geeks glance at the clock more than a few times, especially in the final third.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also a \u2018document\u2019 (the NSDAP\u2019s own branding for their feature-length advert) that\u2019s been referenced and parodied in a variety of pop culture films. The massive symbolism of the Nazis looks surreal, given the use of icons and slicked-backed paramilitary figures that dominate George Orwell\u2019s still gripping <strong>1984<\/strong>, if not the animated version of Orwell\u2019s <strong>Animal Farm <\/strong>(1954) with its Hitlerian pigs branding \u2018worthless\u2019 members of society (like an old horse) for extermination (a glue factory).<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no mention of wiping out sub-humans in <strong>Triumph<\/strong>, but there are moments when closing speeches bring up issues of faith, fear of impurity, and expunging threats to the new order of the magical Third Reich.<\/p>\n<p>The use of the swastika in both films as a brand logo is scary and rather hysterical in appearing <em>everywhere <\/em>on <em>everything<\/em>, but unlike <strong>Faith<\/strong>, it\u2019s been isolated to more decorative and formal placement instead of the ridiculous, like the bumper pistons on a train that arrives at the beginning of <strong>Faith<\/strong>. (Trains decorated with party regalia isn\u2019t exclusive to the Nazis, but a similarly excessive bombardment of brand iconography was used satirically in Edward Dmytryk\u2019s 1972 sexy version of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kqek.com\/dvd_reviews\/b\/3267_Bluebeard1972.htm\">Bluebeard<\/a><\/strong>, in which the legendary wife killer is affiliated with a fascist party, wears a Gestapo-like uniform, and features a train similarly peppered with a fascistic logo.)<\/p>\n<p>The icon-branded drapes hanging from old city buildings and balconies as banners and bunting are surreal, but in one goofy shot a small flag\u2019s been poked into a potted plant as the camera looks out from a window into the brightening morning view of Nuremberg. As propaganda, it adds to the image of a household\u2019s devotion of the party, but outside of Germany, even in 1935, that image may have been regarded as absurd, like some daffy fertilizer rod that channels Nazified ammonia-rich nutrients (shit) to embolden potted plants into flowering to their maximum capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>The brilliance of Riefenstahl\u2019s filmmaking techniques have made <strong>Triumph<\/strong> a work to study by generations of film students, but it\u2019s perhaps most effective in extracts as these manage to synthesize the film\u2019s constant bombardment of the same images and visual themes which as an aggregate flow like Hitler\u2019s own speeches \u2013 calm, measured, organized, repetitive, and erupting in a cyclical barking of core themes designed to stir up passion in party acolytes.<\/p>\n<p>Riefenstahl\u2019s film has been available in shorter versions, some lacking the orations by party loyalists in what may have been an attempt to perhaps improve the film\u2019s \u2018flow\u2019 or \u2018tone down\u2019 the verbal messaging (as if the imagery and constant interpolation of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nazi_salute\" target=\"_blank\">Sieg Heils<\/a> wasn\u2019t enough on its own). In actuality, the speeches in the grand hall are sometimes more intriguing than the mega-marches because they deal with dangerous subtext and the party\u2019s overt ideology in being utterly reliant on one master figure and his loyal cronies. Interestingly, it also features Nazi figures seen speaking on camera instead of archival photos and scratchy newsreel clips with off-kilter speeds.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of being filmed by an ace team of cameramen with flattering lighting and editing \u2013 a marked contrast to the awkward moments and often poor composition of <strong>Faith<\/strong> &#8211; \u00a0Riefenstahl\u2019s team nevertheless captured candid details that pepper her formal \u2018document\u2019 narrative. Whereas Deputy Fuhrer <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rudolf_Hess\">Rudolf Hess<\/a> offers measured introductory comments in <strong>Faith<\/strong> (plus a nod to an invited member of Italy\u2019s fascist party), he\u2019s a shrill, shrieking acolyte in <strong>Triumph<\/strong>; a caffeinated loon who barks short intros and salutes, and shouts to the audience instead of letting the microphones do the work.<\/p>\n<p>In <strong>Faith<\/strong>, the audio is especially poor, so one suspects the decision was to make sure speakers were both cleanly audible and more passionate in this second go-round, instead of making looser and more banal intros, and taking screen time away from Hitler. In Riefenstahl\u2019s remake, any spoken words are more precise, more formal, and the clips (many obviously staged for static and pre-planned tracking cameras) are designed to present Hitler as a statesman than a military nut, a racist, and a mass murderer.<\/p>\n<p>But even within the strictly organized format, like <strong>Faith<\/strong>, there are small moments that reveal arrogance within party ranks, and physical imperfections.<\/p>\n<p>In a later moment during the film\u2019s last and brutally prolonged street parade finale, a SA leader approaches and salutes Hitler, then backs up against the big black Mercedes to view his passing troops. He turns right and tries to show Hess some love with a similarly pronounced salute, but receives instead a tepid \u2018Yeah, whatever. You\u2019re not worth my time\u2019 quarter-wave which captures the friction between the pass\u00e9 SA brownshirts and the Nazi bigwigs, whose sights are trained on militarized international conquest than SA street fighting.<\/p>\n<p>In the Nuremberg hall speeches that break up the mass marches and stadium and airfield assemblies, Hess isn\u2019t alone in being filmed with beady sweat bubbling across his head \u2013 even Hitler can\u2019t hide the wet spots on his uniform, although one can argue those far rarer glimpses into his biological fallibility were retained due to continuity issues, whereas Hess &amp; Co. were allowed to look like sweaty pigs because they make Hitler look more perfect.<\/p>\n<p>Riefenstahl undoubtedly had a massive selection of footage to assemble a perfect cut, but she had location sound that wasn\u2019t just properly miked, but often synced with speeches. Many close-ups resemble the official portraiture imprinted on stamps, coins, and stills, replicating Hitler\u2019s branding in this live film; and when standing, he\u2019s seen from below among the erect and utterly still masses, or to the side, with a spotlight hitting his waist and creating starry backlighting.<\/p>\n<p>Santoro states in his commentary the Nazis never again crafted such a similarly pure feature-length commercial \u2013 Riefenstahl\u2019s masterwork couldn\u2019t be topped \u2013 and the film ran for 10 years in cinemas, although one suspects near the end those stats may have been part government spin: the film may have been physically screened, but it\u2019s doubtful hundreds trekked through bombed out streets near the end of the war and spent valuable bread money on fascistic claptrap. Even the Third Reich\u2019s last completed production, the nationalistic epic <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2638\">Kolberg<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(1945), was seen by minimal audiences.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past twenty years, \u201cHitler\u201d and \u201cNazi\u201d have become part of pop culture terminology (an adoption that may have been cemented by satirical examples such as the \u2018Soup Nazi\u2019 episode of TV\u2019s <strong>Seinfeld<\/strong>); unlike its 1934 release, in 2016 <strong>Triumph<\/strong> has the combined ability to scare, to bore, to amuse, and to function as a cautionary artifact for future generations.<\/p>\n<p>Riefenstahl\u2019s film still scares because it is the most ideal, self-aggrandizing portrait of any organization \u2013 in this case the most murderous group of thugs ever to seize power and inflict horrendous suffering on millions of innocent people. Hitler isn\u2019t a still image but a living force surrounded by up to 200,000 faithful. When he pays homage \/ sends a &#8216;Fuck you-Thank God you\u2019re finally dead&#8217; to the recently deceased Hindenburg, the event isn\u2019t filmed by a few oddly placed cameras as in <strong>Faith<\/strong>, but from a bird\u2019s eye vantage, following the long and sorrowful trek as three meticulously uniformed goons walk down an alley, flanked by SS troops before they pause by a giant wreath and smoldering Romanesque pots.<\/p>\n<p>That sequence is followed by another speech, more mass troop movements, and a flag-touching ritual in which Hitler unites the party\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blutfahne\">blood flag<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a blood-stained flag used in the failed 1923 <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Beer_Hall_Putsch\" target=\"_blank\">Beer Hall Putsch<\/a> &#8211; with new flags assigned to faithful standard bearers.<\/p>\n<p>Other events designed to solidify the party include <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Albert_Speer\" target=\"_blank\">Albert Speer<\/a>\u2019s evening \u201ccathedral of light\u201d that surround troops at the Zeppelin air field where Hitler\u2019s backlit like a God; and the superb sound design that blends enormous choruses of \u201cSieg Heil\u201d salutes with drum rolls to ensure words boom and resonate instead of echoing and melding into a reflective audio mush as in <strong>Faith<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Composer Herbert Windt, who also scored <strong>Faith<\/strong> with long cues, wrote very little music for <strong>Triumph<\/strong>. The lack of original score does give the film a docu-like quality, but it also contributes to the film\u2019s monotonous music track that\u2019s almost exclusively march pieces. Those familiar with actor Gert Frobe (<strong>Goldfinger<\/strong>) might get a chuckle, as the actor spoofed the pomposity of classic German marches by mimicking the oom-pah-pah brass and percussion as part of his version of a pompous, shrill Prussian autocrat in <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6757\">Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines<\/a><\/strong> (1965).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Triumph<\/strong> also bores due to its nearly 2 hours, much of which is devoted to marches and militia movements with flags and standards, as each faction makes its statement of mass-love to Hitler in epic montages.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a peculiar break in the film when the infantry \u2013 horseback soldiers and armed vehicle maneuvers \u2013 are showcased for a perfunctory 2 minutes in less grandiloquent imagery and editing, but <strong>Triumph<\/strong> is about moving strands of disciplined humans in perfect ideological harmony, mass celebration, and mass adulation, not snapshots of horseback infantry, tanks, and anti-aircraft guns on a muddy field. (Santoro adds that these 2 minutes were reluctantly sliced into the film to appease the infantry, and their subsequent displeasure in being given such perfunctory screen time resulted in an appeasement \u2013 the 1935 short <strong>Day of Freedom<\/strong>, also directed by Riefenstahl, and included in Synapse\u2019s Blu-ray.)<\/p>\n<p>To think outside of the classic Nazi borders is inferred to be an act of national betrayal, if not heretical to party philosophy and its appropriated rituals of military structure, commercial iconography, and pseudo-religious relics to create something that appears ancient and sacred but was mass-produced within 10-20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Riefenstahl\u2019s film also (unintentionally) amuses because Hitler is surreal as a potent leader, given his ridiculous haircut, Aryan upper lip soul patch, and oratorical style that progresses from calm and disciplined to a kind of head-and-hip twerking hysteria, but\u00a0there\u2019s also the inherent scariness of the film which goes beyond seeing Hitler walking, talking, and (sort of) smiling onscreen.<\/p>\n<p>When the Fuhrer addresses his junior namesakes, the Hitler Youth, <strong>Triumph<\/strong> becomes quite unnerving as Riefenstahl folds together shots of early morning male bonding via breakfast and swastika-branded calisthenics \u2013 material also present in <strong>Faith<\/strong> as well as collegiate athletes in <strong>Olympia<\/strong> \u2013 plus manly mirth-making and song, but when the SA leader calls out to his \u2018troops\u2019 in the air field and a member of each shouts back from whence they came, it\u2019s like watching a cartoon version of a fascist propaganda short instead of the real thing.<\/p>\n<p>The not-quite liturgical call-and-answer exchange \u2013 blatantly staged for the cameras &#8211; is shot with grave sincerity, and Riefenstahl\u2019s own fixations on the body beautiful: blondes have been pushed to the forefront of the troops and cameras, and select youths are shot like Greek marble busts with heavenly soft lighting. Riefenstahl may be indulging in her Greek God fetish for the body beautiful (filmed with the same love of classicism she applied to headshots and full body portraiture in her exhilarating <strong>Olympia<\/strong> diptych) but the selected young men also establish a new breed of SA that\u2019s transitioning from SA street thugs to uniformed soldiers. Soft lighting makes the headshots glow unnaturally, and the use of clouds and background smoke adds to the footage\u2019s classical \/ occult tone.<\/p>\n<p>That specific \u2018I\u2019m from X\u2019 interplay between the SA leader and spotlighted blonde minions was later copied in <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=12962\">The Battle of Stalingrad<\/a><\/strong> (1949), one of Joseph Stalin\u2019s \u2018artistic documentaries.\u2019 At the end of that 2-part epic (which, unlike Hitler\u2019s fixation on mass formations and Romanesque pageantry, fetishized mass movements using the infantry, air force and navy via tank and land troops, canon fire, masses of planes, and meticulously choreographed blasts by Red Army bombers), there\u2019s a more compact but no less impressive version of soldiers of diverse ethnicities that have gathered in Stalin\u2019s sacred city from across the Soviet Union to quash the Nazi fascists.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Triumph<\/strong>\u2019s generic purity makes clear what constitutes blatant propaganda in sound and image; Orwell\u2019s <strong>1984<\/strong> may have been a fictionalized version of life under a Nazi-like regime, but <strong>Triumph<\/strong> is a document of the type of self deifying new media container that should send an alert whenever aspects of a totalitarianism, autocratic rule, or ideological brow-beating are adopted by regimes \u2013 political, corporate, and social &#8211; for their own interests.<\/p>\n<p>For better or worse, <strong>Triumph <\/strong>is also a stellar example of film technique in the realms of editing, sound editing, sound design, and distilling an event to a very specific series of dramatic sequences; some compacted, others expanded to epic proportions. At the end of the Hitler Youth rally, Riefenstahl employs a money shot that, as with each other sequence, hammers home the epic scope of the mortal-to-Reichian God relationship that\u2019s being hammered to audiences: placed on the rear of a car exiting the air field, Riefenstahl\u2019s singular camera holds on the edge of saluting faithful, and the shot <em>just keeps going<\/em>, revealing unending row upon row of enthusiastic (and maybe coached) followers<\/p>\n<p>And in the Hindenburg \/ \u201cblood flag\u201d sequence, it\u2019s the aforementioned\u00a0walk along a wide stone court by Hitler and his leading goons, flanked by masses of SS men as they approach the smoldering cauldrons that memorialize both Hindenburg and fallen members of the NSDAP. This is the sequence where three massive banners reach skyward behind the wide podium upon which the Fuhrer speaks, and lines of standard-bearing troops march up steps, twist around the podium, and spiral to the rear in salute. (It\u2019s also the locale where a small \u2018camera cart\u2019 slides up and down the banners to capture the stunning aerial views.)<\/p>\n<p>If <strong>Faith<\/strong> was the precursor to the refined propaganda film that became <strong>Triumph<\/strong>, then the latter\u2019s flawless production coordination set the template for <strong>Olympia<\/strong> and future mass camera coverage of later filmed and televised Olympic and sporting events.<\/p>\n<p>Riefenstahl remains the Nazi era\u2019s most controversial filmmaker perhaps because unlike the blatant racist works of Fritz Hippler (<strong>The Eternal Jew<\/strong>) and Veit Harlan (<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2629\">Jud S\u00fc\u00df<\/a><\/strong>), she showed a special brilliance in advancing the art of filmmaking in fiction, ersatz documentary, and documentary \/ sports films. Her final feature, <strong>Tiefland<\/strong> (filmed between 1940-1944, but not completed and released until 1954), used\u00a0slave labour selected from concentration camps, and it\u2019s impossible to believe she knew nothing of Hitler\u2019s anti-Semitism nor suspected the regime was mass-exterminating Jews and anyone else deemed sub-human. The subtext is more than palpable in <strong>Triumph<\/strong>, and her stubbornness in denying any knowledge of anything sinister ensures she remains loathed and admired, and perhaps a symbol of what happens when a brilliant talent gets too close to the Devil, becomes his servant, and chooses to wear blinders to ongoing horrors.<\/p>\n<p>Leni Riefenstahl\u2019s films as director include <strong>The Blue Light <\/strong>\/ <strong>Das blaue Licht<\/strong> (1932), <a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13050\"><strong>Victory of Faith<\/strong> \/ <strong>Der Sieg der Glaubens<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(1933), <strong>Triumph of the Will <\/strong>\/ <strong>Triumph des Willens<\/strong> (1935), <a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13054\"><strong>Day of Freedom<\/strong> \/<strong> Tag der Freiheit<\/strong><\/a> (1935), <strong>Olympia<\/strong> Parts One and Two (1938), <strong>Tiefland<\/strong> (1954), and <strong>Underwater Impressions<\/strong> \/ <strong>Impressionen unter Wasser<\/strong> (2002).<\/p>\n<p>She was also profiled in Ray M\u00fcller\u2019s brilliant <strong>The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl<\/strong> \/<strong> Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl<\/strong> (1993) which also includes images from her stills and filming of the African Nuba tribe (later documented in book form) and her work as perhaps the world\u2019s only octogenarian underwater cinematographer.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\n<p>This marks the third time (first in 2001, followed by a more definitive 2006 edition) Synapse has released Riefenstahl\u2019s <strong>Triumph<\/strong> on video, here boasting a fine new Robert A. Harris-supervised 2K fine transfer that balances digital restoration with the film\u2019s original grain and obvious wear (supervised by Greg Kimble). (Note: the new transfer done by The Film Preserve does feature a recurring \u2018bug\u2019 that places the logo in the lower right corner for a short moment, and the main titles are a blend of original fonts laid over a film background, and lacks the sharp-blurry text transitions present in the 2006 DVD.)<\/p>\n<p>The audio is nicely balanced and brings out the striking sound design, and although historian Santoro does point out obvious shots on more than a few occasions, he contextualizes the grim characters of mass murders captured by Riefenstahl, and the political DNA of the Nazi party and each faction that made up the NSDAP prior to several amalgamations and the launch of WWII. Santoro\u2019s commentary is extremely helpful for contextualizing the flurry of historical details within the film, and he also contributed to a series of onscreen captions that identify key figures, given <strong>Triumph<\/strong> features a heavy cast of recurring figures, some sporting similar-styled uniforms. (Also note: unlike the 2006 DVD, these onscreen identifications are non-removable.)<\/p>\n<p>Synpase\u2019s Blu also includes a booklet with liner notes by Roy Frumkes (<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6482\">Document of the Dead<\/a><\/strong>), and the aforementioned short <strong>Day of Freedom<\/strong>, which, like <strong>Victory of Faith<\/strong>, is reviewed separately.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>External References:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=13040\">Editor&#8217;s Blog<\/a> &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0025913\/combined\">IMDB<\/a> \u00a0&#8212; \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.soundtrackcollector.com\/composer\/8292\/Herbert+Windt\">Composer Filmography<\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<strong>Vendor Search Links:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/b?_encoding=UTF8&amp;site-redirect=&amp;node=917972&amp;tag=kqco-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=15121&amp;creative=330641\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon.ca<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.ca\/e\/ir?t=kqco-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=15\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.ca\/e\/ir?t=kqco-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=15\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/> <span class=\"style8\">&#8212;\u00a0<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/b?_encoding=UTF8&amp;site-redirect=&amp;node=130&amp;tag=kqco06-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon.com<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=kqco06-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=kqco06-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/> <span class=\"style8\">&#8212;\u00a0<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/b?_encoding=UTF8&amp;site-redirect=&amp;node=283926&amp;tag=kqco-21&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=6738\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the ultimate and scariest propaganda film ever made \u2013 and rightly so \u2013 Leni Riefenstahl\u2019s self-professed \u2018document\u2019 of the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg was a meticulously plotted production designed from the ground-up to assault the senses of German audiences and make it clear Adolph Hitler was not only the country\u2019s man in charge, but its self-appointed savior and visionary&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[4224,4222,1227,381,4229,4228,4220],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-3oD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13059"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13083,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13059\/revisions\/13083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}