Triumph des Willens

I was at the Central Library this afternoon, feeling a sudden urge to watch some videos the afternoon and trying to make the best use out of all the school fees I'm paying, I made use of my LAG3203 module code to borrow this film to watch.

Triumph des Willens
otherwise known as Triumph of the Will



I've been meaning to watch this film for a very long time, but never got a chance to watch it so watching it today was a very enlightening and illuminating experience.
From the article from Wikipedia, this film has been lauded by many for its artistic direction, state of the art use of cameras and technology, and for its role in modern propaganda, even setting an example for many in years to come to emulate that sort of use of camera angles and settings. The intention of the film might not be that a positive one but we cannot deny Leni Riefenstahl of her accomplishment in film making.

The film is a documentary. But again, it's more than a documentary, it's definitely not a feature film with no story lines nor plots, but it presents to us a wide range of emotions hoping to similarly evoke our emotions. This is called propaganda in its purest form. Manipulation of screen emotions to evoke human emtions, exploiting the use of film to rally a people together towards a cause. This thought's pretty scary to think of it in this way.

Actually when I was at the library I had just wanted to maybe read a couple of books, but when browsing through the linc, I decided watching a film sounded more interesting than reading a book. And I needed to listen to more German too. So matric card in hand I borrowed the DVD and settled myself down in the multimedia viewing room for the next two hours.


See the stark warning? I actually had tried to video a speech by Goebbels from the telly, but stupid me didn't realise something. I had wanted to video the speech hoping that I might be able to make use of it for my oral presentation or something and that was what I did, I held up the camera in front of the telly and video-ed the whole speech. After that, on my way home, I played the video again to watch it, hoping that I can understand the German speech without reading the subtitles, but no sound came out of the video. I was flabbergasted. Then I realised, I video-ed the speech without sound. Because I was hearing the speech on headphones so I could hear the speech but I couldn't video the sound. Stupid me.




Hitler was taken from this low angle to make him look more heroic. I'm must say this is pretty awesome.

I don't think I have any picture taken from a low angle because for me I think my face would look fat that way, so I always like photos to be taken from a high angle and my chin to be tilted downwards in photos. Okay, I've found a couple of low angle photos of myself. hey... They do look pretty awesome, only that the photos seem a bit blur because of the camera focusing.


This is Goebbels. Seems like only Hitler is given the special treatment from the cameras.


Well, when I was watching the footages from the Nuremberg Rallies the thing that first popped into my mind was actually the National Day Parade. I've always thought that our National Day Parades were huge propaganda festivals and a huge waste of money, but I didn't realise that well, our stage managers were just emulating Hitler and what he had achieved.

In terms of parading the military...

Hitler paraded his military men, his youth camp, paramilitary, and everyone, and us? We have our military and also our youth organisations like Scouts, Girl Guides, NPCC, NCC, SJAB, Red Cross. *shivers* Can NCC be considered as a paramilitary? *more shivers down the spine*


In terms of flag waving and flag bearing, and the whole essence of the significance of a flag as a symbol of a nation...

Actually I wanted to use a photo of the German civilians doing the Nazi salute and compare it with a photo of Singaporean civilians waving the red and white flag, but I couldn't manage to locate the former picture, so I am merely doing comparisons of the whole idea of the flag, which is scary enough even though not as scary as my original intention.


This is scary. The idea of the "leader" being paraded in a car...

Note the use of a black open top car with the "leader" standing up there and greeting the civilians.

Note the use of a black open top car with the "leader" standing up there and waving to the civilians not pictured, but we all know anyway.

All photos from the NDP which I've used are from this government commissioned site so there is no way anyone can say that I've manipulated materials. And face it, we all atch the NDP every year, and we KNOW what's going on, just that you might not realise the propaganding going on slowly brainwashing you.

And well, remember Hitler's motto to his people?
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer
(One People, One Empire [which is somewhat similar to a nation], One Leader)
Compare this to...
One People, One Nation, One Singapore
*dying from all the shiverings*