Abstract

Will Jodie Whitewash Leni?

It is informed that Jodie Foster, the Academy Award-winning actress, is currently developing a movie about the brilliant and ire-inspiring German director Leni Riefenstahl, whose 1935 film Triumph of the Will--made at Adolf Hitler's request-- has been widely denounced for glorifying the Nazi Party. Foster plans to both produce and star in the film, which she predicts will be the most challenging of her career. But Foster is not the first filmmaker in town to flirt with Riefenstahl, whose four-hour film on the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Olympia, was once reviled by Susan Sontag as "fascinating fascism." George Lucas was so intrigued by Riefenstahl that he parodied Triumph of the Will in the final scene of the original Star Wars.