The only thing I have expressed a disagreement about on this thread is the statement from the poster that said that Leni Riefenstahl had no influence on Titanic because of the reason that Titanic was nothing like Triumph of the Will.
That is apples and oranges. As I pointed out, it was Riefenstahl's bergfilmes that were compared to Titanic.
As far as Hitler is concerned, I pointed out that it is impossible for an imperfect human to be 100% evil, 100% of the time, even if he specifically tried to accomplish such a task. Eventually, the imperfect human makes a mistake, as all humans do, and produces something good. Godwin’s Law is funny but it has no bearing to the real world.
Thanks for the clarification. Yes, you are right that Van Dassanowsky talks about the Berg film apart from the Nazis, but the point of this article is that they are by no means so neatly seperated. It is doubtful that he knows very much at all about the green connections to the Nazi movement, and if even he did, he would not have mentioned it anyway because this would guarantee that his review would be either ignored or condemned.
“As far as Hitler is concerned, I pointed out that it is impossible for an imperfect human to be 100% evil, 100% of the time, even if he specifically tried to accomplish such a task. Eventually, the imperfect human makes a mistake, as all humans do, and produces something good. Godwin’s Law is funny but it has no bearing to the real world.”
I won’t comment on Hitler being 100% evil or not, or Godwin’s Law for that matter, but I will tell you that you’re a bit too optimistic if you think that a human can’t be 100% evil 100% of the time. In fact, I can name an actual real life example of such a human being who was exactly that. His name is the Marquis de Sade, who doesn’t even make it a secret that he’s proud of being an irredeemable monster. I don’t recall him producing ANYTHING good.
Anyways, it’s not just James Cameron who ripped off Leni Riefenstahl. I also heard that George Lucas’s ending for A New Hope actually was taken directly from Triumph of the Will, shot by shot. And get this, the HEROES were pretty much in the same position as Hitler and the Nazis. Bit ironic, really, considering the Empire often gets denounced as being Nazis (and here’s another tidbit you guys might not know: The Empire was actually meant by Lucas to be based on us Americans during the Vietnam War).