Triumph of the Will (1935)
Directed by Leni Riefenstahl
A showcase of German chancellor and Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.
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What critics compared Triumph of the Will to
The Brink tracks similarly to how people read Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.
The parade of tributes reflects both the Fascist and gladiatorial aspects of the Hunger Games, the scale recalling "Ben Hur" crossed with Reifenstahl's "Triumph of the Will."
A parade scene for the upcoming games gives off a fascist “Triumph of the Will” vibe, while the fight sequences are taut, visceral and anything but glamorous.
At least he resists trying a geometric shot of phalanxes of storm troopers marching down stairs à la Triumph of the Will.
Like the brilliant but troubling Leni Riefenstahl, the actress and filmmaker who immortalized Adolf Hitler in Triumph of the Will and is invoked throughout Basterds, Joseph Goebbels has created a film of unadulterated hero worship, Nation’s Pride, an ode to carnage on a colossal scale about an episode of extreme violence made respectable by soft filters and key lights.
For all that, this film is firmly rooted in the fantasy traditions of such predecessors as Raiders of the Lost Ark , Terminator , and Triumph of the Will .
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In "The Two Towers," he cribs an iconic image of massed troops from Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda reverie, "Triumph of the Will," but the allusion loses its punch when you realize that another shot of goose-stepping troops has been lifted from "The Wizard of Oz." Tolkien built his story on foundation myths; Jackson builds his on movies: The film's most charming new creature, a mossy shepherd named Treebeard, walks like the heron described by Tolkien but looks like a relation of the animated trees in "Oz."
It's all very satisfying in a geometric, "Triumph of the Will" sort of way.
There are also some arty indulgences, including Maximus’ bleached-out visions of his own death, shots of speeded-up clouds scudding over the desert, and black-and-white parade scenes that are clearly intended to evoke both Nazi-era Berlin and “Triumph of the Will.”
Soldiers move in formations out of Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will."
The opening-credits sequence remixes footage from Triumph of the Will and sets it to the Deutsch-language version of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” that The Beatles recorded for the German market.
In an apocryphal tale of cinema history, legendary director Luis Buñuel and Charlie Chaplin went to a screening of Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will .
From early scenes audaciously intercutting Triumph of the Will footage with the German Beatlemania sounds of Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand (other playfully anachronistic pop tunes include Tom Waits’s I Don’t Wanna Grow Up and David Bowie’s Helden), to later interludes in which Imaginary Adolf acts more like a petulant schoolboy than a murderous dictator, Waititi strives to capture young Jojo’s wide-eyed point of view.
But those parts, like playing the Beatles singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in German over worshipful Hitler footage from “Triumph of the Will,” will definitely make you shake your head and smile.
Writer-director Taika Waititi’s asinine JOJO RABBIT begins with footage from “Triumph Of The Will” recut to an early German-language Beatles recording of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”
Waititi pairs clips of ecstatic fans from Triumph of the Will along with a German-language version of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” showing us people willingly succumbing to the Nazi ideology.
Some of the ideas in “Metropolis” seem echoed in Leni Riefenstahl's pro-Hitler “Triumph of the Will”(1935)--where, of course, they have lost their irony.
Reputedly from a New York and Hollywood trip, Thea von Harbous script for then-husband Fritz Langs Metropolis bulges with allusions to the past and suggestions to the future -- the directors own M and Dr. Mabuse films, Triumph of the Will, Modern Times¸ Dr. Strangelove, Blade Runner, Batman; The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Time Machine, R.U.R., 1984; Moloch and Messiah, a Flood, clock-crucifixion and auto-da-fé; Expressionism and Art Deco, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, and Fascism; Romanticism and pulp, all among endless influences before and after.
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We’ve already mentioned Riefenstahl (director of “Olympia” and “Triumph of the Will”), but much more prominent are a kind of Spielbergian nostalgic glow/childlike thrill-of-action vibe in the earlier sections.
The child characters, even Hero Boy, and the adults on the train never blossom much beyond their initial appearance; the throngs of elves sometimes unfortunately suggest the climax of 1977's "Star Wars" or "Triumph of the Will."
It's infernal entertainment and comparisons to Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will are unavoidable (particularly in a disturbing rally scene), but it's hard to know how much of that intense martial creepiness is intended as satire, and how much of it is just what lies beneath.