Triumph of the Night and Fog

Did anyone feel ready to join the Nazi Party after watching Triumph of the Will?  The director's careful syncronization between music and scene was powerfully done.  It was interesting to note that, from what I can remember, there was no mention of anti-semitism.  Hitler looked surprisingly benign, even when he spoke to the battalion of manual laborers, executing perfect close order drill with . . . shovels.

Quite obviously, Triumph was intended to be a chest-swelling patriotic film, and it did so by carefully showing Hitler, beloved of small children with flowers, out-of-luck young men, and hordes of admires as he stood on his balcony like being cast into a Shakespeare play.  

The height perspective was an interesting choice by the director.  While making Hitler look friendly and accessible, he was constantly above his audience with an almost divine seperation.  He enters the film flying high above Nuremburg.  He exits from his plane above a crowd of admirers.  He stands in a car above the spectators of a parade.  He stands above the legion of shovel-wielding young men.  And of course, his balcony, lit with Heil Hitler in Hollywood bulbs.  

This dual nature, both truly and fully God and truly and fully man, is perfectly understood by one of the propaganda posters we were shown equating Hitler to Jesus, which was a strong theme of the movie.  The similarities are striking: Jesus and Hitler letting the children come unto them.  Jesus and Hitler feeding thousands, though Hitler's seemed to be much more blonde.  Jesus and Hitler giving the sermon on the mount, though markedly different in subject matter.

They both, however, gave their followers something to believe in, even to death, which was shown in Triumph of the Will.