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A brilliant artist driven by fascist ideals and selfish ambition, Leni Riefenstahl was a complex woman composed of contradictions. She was a determined woman, though not a feminist; part of Hitler’s inner circle, though politically unaware; a Nazi propagandist but not a war criminal. It has been argued that Leni Riefenstahl has feigned ignorance over the years in order to defend her propagation of the Nazi National Socialist party, most notably in her film, ''Triumph of the Will''. Riefenstahl's own words in Ray Muller's 1993 documentary, ''The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl'', contradict that argument.<ref>Ray Muller, ''The Wondeful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl''DVD (1993,New York: Kino on Video, 1998)</ref> Riefenstahl never had to feign ignorance, rather she ''chose'' ignorance as a means by which to attain her goals of artistry and adulation, and to positively promote Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party.

==== Life Before ''Triumph'' ====

Riefenstahl had done her own physical work in the Alpine films she made with Arnold Fanck in the 1920s. When she directed her own mountain film in 1932, ''The Blue Light'', she maintained the theme of mountaintops as being a mystical goal with the villagers below being the dispensable mass populace. The mountains not only represented majestic beauty, but were also seen as powerful and dangerous. As an artist, Riefenstahl was acutely aware of how to juxtapose the supremacy of the mountains and Adolph Hitler in her infamous 1935 production, ''Triumph of the Will''. By employing certain camera angles and specific lighting techniques, the director enhanced the image of Hitler and made him comparable to the perception of a mountain; powerful, mystical, and dangerous. Her movies prior to this Nazi propaganda film were made to satisfy her artistic talents and her audience's ideas of fantasy, whereas in ''Triumph'', she catered to Hitler's fantasy and played a part in his mythical existence.

== == The "Ideal Nazi " Women ==In Eva Braun, Hitler had a mistress with a loyal heart and who practiced blind obedience. In Riefenstahl, he had identified his ideal German woman. In her acting career, she played characters who were brave and heroic and usually of the peasant class. Hitler admired her traits and talents, something of which Riefenstahl was aware. She exploited her role as the dominant woman in Hitler's life in order to gain carte blanche of her Party funded projects, much to the consternation of Joseph Goebbels. The head of the Propaganda Ministry was politically aware, intelligent, capable, and fiercely loyal. Tension began to grow between Goebbels and Riefenstahl as the competition for the Fuhrer's attention escalated. Riefenstahl emerged triumphant and began to garner coveted directorial tasks away from Goebbels, thus furthering her career as a film maker and Nazi propagandist. A chief component of Riefenstahl's success with Hitler was the way in which she projected German women.==

In her masterpiece, ''Triumph of the will,'', women are depicted in only two ways; as smiling peasants in parades and as adoring fans of the Fuhrer. The women shown in the crowds are smiling with delight, cheering in ecstasy, and even holding handkerchiefs to their faces to wipe away tears of exhilaration. There were no scenes of women working or participating in any political events. Not coincidentally, in her later book of photographic work, ''The Last of the Nuba''<ref>Leni Riefenstahl, ''Last of the Nuba'' (London: Harvill Press, 1986)</ref>, involving an African tribe in Sudan, Riefenstahl again depicts the males as warriors and physically perfect while the women watch from the sidelines and wait only to be chosen as a wife by one of the virile men in order to bear his child. Although African, they were of pure ancestry, strong, and non-materialistic; all qualities for which the Nazi’s longed.