The Antelope and the Lioness: Ancient Greece in the Prologue of Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show that readings of Riefenstahl as an artistic genius with full control over all aspects of her work have closed off more complex readings of the prologue of her film Olympia (1938). The author argues that we cannot begin to appreciate the density of this section of the film and its complex attitude toward ancient Greece without taking a closer look at the troubled collaboration between Leni Riefenstahl and Willy Zielke as two filmmakers with different visions, preoccupations, methods of work, and degrees of involvement in the making of the prologue. Attention is drawn to the hermeneutic difficulty of policing the boundaries between different types of aesthetics and different types of politics as they are played out in this section of Olympia. The article also teases out some of the difficulties around the question of how to situate the different themes and practices of the prologue within broader cinematic and extra cinematic histories of fascist aesthetics as they intersect with issues of classicism and modern subjectivity.