Leni Riefenstahl, though she indeed worked for Hitler, was actually a brilliant film maker—whose career was totally wrecked after the war. Her remarkable skills are what made her so dangerous...and those skills used post-war were basically ignored by Hollywood until very recently.
The US Space program was built upon the work of differently skilled brilliant German rocket scientists—who were also rewarded for their work for us (and who during the war also helped Hitler nearly succeed).
I really don’t see a lot of moral difference—except the rocket scientists were used and recognized early on—but Reifenstahl basically had to wait until her death.
>>>I’ll never forget when Leni Riefenstahl was honored at the Acadamy Awards in the death montage they do - paying tribute to all the great artists, directors and filmakers that have passed away the previous year. All those idiots cheering for Hitler’s filmmaker. Disgusting.
I hear what you are saying but it’s akin to bashing D W Griffith because later generations disapprove of the message of “Birth of a Nation”. Nonetheless looking at it objectively it is a remarkable film for so early in the history of cinema.
Likewise Leni was a magnificent filmmaker, even if in the service of the Nazi party. And as far as I know she didn’t deal in the sort of hate propaganda as discussed in the main article.
They cheered for Reifenstahl and Polanski, but sat on their hands for Elia Kazan because he talked to HUAC. Their morals are backward.
And I feel exactly the same about Sergei Eisenstein, whose films tried to legitimize a system that killed 100 million.