Word: leni
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Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl. Harvard-Epworth Church, 7, April...
...game really counts-producing or directing-the female ranks are thin indeed. Lillian Gish directed one film ( Remodeling Her Husband, 1921), and Ida Lupino has half a dozen films to her some-what dubious credit. In Europe, the only woman director before 1960 that springs to mind is Leni Riefenstahl, responsible for the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympiad. The situation in the last decade seems to have improved-with the emergence of Agnes Varda, Shirley Clarke, Mai Zetterling, Joan Littlewood, and just recently, Barbara Loden-but the numerical improvement is probably illusory. The fact remains that...
...what the father doesn't count on, is that Johanna also falls in love with Frantz, believes in his "crabs" more than he does, and perpetuates his isolation. The father then switches alliances, and tells Leni that Johanna has been seeing Frantz. That's when it really hits the fan: Leni tells Johanna of Frantz's past as a torturer; Johanna abandons Frantz; Frantz sees his father and they commit suicide together. Leni takes Frantz's place in the attic...
...have, then, five condemned people: Frantz to his attic and guilt; Leni to her incestuous love; the father to death in six months; Werner to his inferior position as unfavored son; and Johanna to an impossible choice. And they live in a world polarized by the existential isolation of Frantz's attic and the mundane world below. Frantz, to escape his war-time guilt, has tried to assume guilt for all. His rejection of ends-justifies-means ("evil was our only material... Good was the final product. Result: the good turned bad") is almost a Camus-esque rejection of political...
...expected Condemned to be over the actors' heads. Happily, this was not the case. Tom Rosqui is most impressive as he chills the audience with the power and insanity of Frantz's explosive moods. Priscilla Pointer deftly handles the shifts between the confident conniving, insecurity, and subservience' that is Leni. Edward Winter is pathetic enough as Werner, the play's only shallow character. And George Coulouris (not a regular member of the Company) is convincingly imperious as the father...