The Amos Vogel Atlas 18
Stahltier Troopers

September 23, 2024

In his book Film as a Subversive Art, first published in 1974, Amos Vogel devotes quite a lot of space to propaganda films: "[D]espite their carefully prescribed parameters, propaganda films, precisely because of their calculated nature, are, in fact, subversive; they contaminate not merely the truth, but all who come near them; witness the ominous, perverse attraction of Triumph of the Will even today."
 
Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1935), a film about the the 1934 national party convention of the National Socialist German Workers Party is shown annually at the Film Museum in Peter Kubelka's Was ist Film cycle: The "most famous propaganda film of all time" (Vogel) is a unique example of the mobilization of film conventions – the Nazi regime gave Riefenstahl practically unlimited freedom to "document" a staged event. Vogel even writes of a "pseudo-event": "It is a stupendous revelation to realize that this whole enormous convention was primarily staged for the film."
 
Unlike his relatives in his Jewish family, Vogel managed to escape the Nazis at the last moment, but faced fierce opposition as he showed Nazi propaganda films, including Triumph des Willens, in New York for the first time in the 1950s. For him, the point was "dealing with film both artistically and socially": Only by studying Nazi filmmaking methods can we also become aware of cinema's terrifying possibilities as a propaganda medium. For this reason, the day before this year's annual screening of Triumph des Willens, we will present a Vogel Atlas featuring two films from our collection, with introductions, to provide historical contextualization to Riefenstahl's work and explode the myth about its uniqueness.
 
First up is Willy Zielke's Das Stahltier (1934), an important but little known predecessor to Riefenstahl's film: Commissioned to celebrate the anniversary of the German State Railway, the film's artistic ambitions made it unfit for commercial purposes and it was promptly banned, even though it served as a training ground for camera people of the propaganda company. However, Zielke's film, whose visual inventiveness was inspired by avant-garde movements of the day, did garner enthusiasm from Riefenstahl and her crew, who seized upon many of its ideas.

Then, with Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997), we present the subversive peak of Hollywood-style blockbuster propaganda. The elaborate arrangements of Triumph des Willens and Riefenstahl's "masterful orchestration of filmic and psychological components" (Vogel) have repeatedly been quoted throughout film history and, especially after a completely apolitical Riefenstahl renaissance in the 1970s, her mise-en-scène was even copied in popular films like Star Wars (1977). Riefenstahl is also quoted in Starship Troopers, but as part of Verhoeven's satirical consolidation and sabotaging of the propaganda arsenal of cinema and pop culture – an angry swansong for film art (and its commercial form) as the key medium of the 20th century. (Christoph Huber / Translation: Ted Fendt)

Amos Vogel (1921–2012), an Austrian-born Jew, became one of the most important figures in international film culture after his emigration to the United States. The Amos Vogel Atlas is a series dedicated continuing Vogel's oppositional legacy alongside the study of his literary estate, which is deposited in the Film Museum. Rarities from the collection represent key focal points.