LENI RIEFENSTAHL GOES TO TOWN: AN ESSAY

In early 1960, the British Film Institute chose to appease protesters by making a significant change to its scheduled line-up of lecturers. An invitation previously extended to Leni Riefenstahl was formally withdrawn, after a number of complaints emphasized issues surrounding the filmmaker’s potent Nazi propaganda films produced during the rise of the Third Reich. Riefenstahl had been slated to speak at the National Film Theatre in a lecture series that was to include a number of other accomplished artisans, but at least one of them was bothered by the deleterious connotations potentially carried by the filmmaker’s presence. Prior to the Institute’s decision, the British director Ivor Montagu refused to participate in a program that involved Riefenstahl, and consequently declined to make an appearance.

In a supposed letter to Peter Sellers, Montagu urged the prominent British actor, who was also slated to speak at the series, to join him in protest. Sellers refused, claiming that Riefenstahl’s artistic merits were of value and her appearance would be innocuous. “Alongisde her contributions to the art of filmmaking,” Sellers wrote back in response to the director, “our efforts, if I may say so, Mr. Montagu, appear very puny, indeed.”

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