9 - Beauty and evil: the case of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will

Summary

Leni Riefenstahl's documentary of the 1934 Nuremberg rally of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, Triumph of the Will, is perhaps the most controversial film ever made. At once masterful and morally repugnant, this deeply troubling film epitomizes a general problem that arises with art. It is both beautiful and evil. I shall argue that it is this conjunction of beauty and evil that explains why the film is so disturbing. My aim in this essay is to explore the relationship of beauty and evil in Triumph of the Will and to use this examination of a particular case as a way of investigating the more general problem of beauty and evil in art. Having looked at this case in detail, I want to draw some broader conclusions about the inadequacy of the usual solution to the problem of beauty and evil in art and to suggest the direction we should move in to develop an account of aesthetic value rich enough to handle cases as difficult as Triumph of the Will.

My main aim is philosophical, but I shall have to turn to more concrete matters before taking up the philosophical issues. I will briefly describe the historical background of the film and the circumstances in which it was produced (Section II). I will also provide some sense of Triumph of the Will itself, that is, of its artistic strategy and how it contributes to the film's overall effect (Section III).