Leni riefenstahl (ingles)

LENI RIEFENSTAHL
Carolina Quirino
(a) Describe the major influences that led to the rise to prominence of your chosen personality in his/her nation’s history.

Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl was born in 1902 in Berlin. She had a sheltered middle-class upbringing, where her father Alfred was a very successful business man. Leni and her brother, Heinz, grew up in a very strict regime; their father was very controlling and conservative. Her mother Bertha, on the other side, was very supportive towards Leni’s desires to become a performer and to fulfill her talents. Leni started her dancing career at the age of sixteen where she attended dancing classes at Grimm Reiter School for dancers.
Soon she became a successful interpretative dancer coming to the attention of theatrical director, Max Reinhardt. She signed a contract with him to perform several dances in his theatre. Riefenstahl’s first solo dance performance was in the Munich Tonhalle in October 1923.
She then began a tour across Germany and around Europe with Reinhardt. Although successful, she was described as a competent dancer more renowned for her physique than any exceptional ability.In June 1924 she injured her knee while performing in Prague. She had to take the train to the doctor, the train was late and she was impatient, when the train finally came something caught her eyes. It was a poster of a mountain film called ‘’Mountain of Destiny’’. She was so fascinated with the poster, she went straight to the cinema to watch ‘’Mountain of Destiny’’. During the Weimar Republic period the film industry focused on offering a vision of hope to the Germans to help them escape from the economic depression.
Mountain of Destiny directed by Arnold Fanck was the first mountain film created in Germany. Fanck was breaking into new grounds; he explored a variety of different techniques on Mountain of Destiny, such as slow motion, low shot angle, lighting, etc. Mountain films was a popular film genre in