8 Documentaries Which Will Change The Way You See The World

8. Triumph Of The Will

Few today are oblivious to the horrors of World War 2 €“ the massive destruction and death unleashed upon civilization in the wake of Hitler's rise to power leading to the deaths of untold millions of people in the space of a few years. It is the bleakest period of the 20th century €“ a dark stain on the history of the species which we pray will never be repeated. But the war might never had happened had Adolf Hitler never rose to power and unleashed his armies on Europe and beyond, and his meteoric rise was only possible thanks to the widespread support he received from the German public. Politics, of course, is a nuanced system, and there were a variety of factors which led to his rise to power, not least a crumbled economy and rising unemployment which Hitler capitalised on to garner support. But the one thing Hitler and the Nazis understood better than their opposition was the power of propaganda, and Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will exemplified the propaganda film's ability to manipulate the masses more than any other. Triumph of the Will covers the 1934 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg (ironically where the Nazis would be tried after the end of the war), where tens of thousands of party members gathered to listen to Hitler's address. Riefenstahl's gift for composition, movement, editing and use of sound remains exemplary and she won numerous awards both in German and elsewhere. It is also a masterclass of manipulation, juxtaposing images of smiling and waving crowds (usually with children lining the front rows) and saluting SS troops with soft focus close-ups of Hitler and his vanguard €“ truth, power, patriotism and religious sentiments all conflated in perhaps the most persuasive yet ultimately destructive documentaries of all time. The public adoration for Hitler and the Nazis lies significantly upon the head of Riefenstahl and her Triumph of the Will €“ the consequences, as history shows us, were devastating.