The 1936 Olympics in Berlin are remembered for Adolf Hitler’s grandstanding—and for the triumph of African-American sprinter Jesse Owens in the face of it. Leni Riefenstahl, the female director of the Hitler propaganda film Triumph of the Will, captured those and other notable events in Olympia, her two-part documentary of the Berlin Olympics. The film, which broke ground with cutting-edge camera angles and extreme close-ups, was widely acclaimed by critics. But when details of Hitler’s pogrom emerged later in 1938, the movie’s subject and setting – along with the director’s previous work — sparked criticism and resentment.
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