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166-550: Coral Gardens is the title of the 1978 English-language translation of German film director Leni Riefenstahl 's Korallengärten , an illustrations book published in the same year in Germany. The book was published by HarperCollins in the United States. It is the first of two book collections of underwater photographs, followed by Impressionen unter Wasser (Impressions under Water) in 1990. The book illustrations are

332-705: A helicopter crash in Sudan in 2000 while trying to learn the fates of her Nuba friends during the Second Sudanese Civil War , and was airlifted to a Munich hospital, where she received treatment for two broken ribs. Riefenstahl celebrated her 101st birthday on 22 August 2003 at a hotel in Feldafing , on Lake Starnberg , Bavaria , near her home. The day after her birthday celebration, she became ill. Riefenstahl had been diagnosed with cancer for some time, and her health rapidly deteriorated during

498-461: A baby daughter whom she names Snow White. (However, in the 1812 version of the tale, the queen does not die but later behaves the same way the stepmother does in later versions of the tale, including the 1854 iteration.) A year later, Snow White's father, the king, marries again. His new wife is very beautiful, but a vain and wicked woman who practices witchcraft . The new queen possesses a magic mirror , which she asks every morning, "Mirror mirror on

664-407: A bead sewn into her lower lip like a permanent cinnamon drop; a wrestler prepared for his match, with his shaven head turned to look over the massive shoulder, all skin color taken away by a coating of ashes. Art Director's Club of Germany awarded Riefenstahl a gold medal for the best photographic achievement of 1975. She also sold some of the pictures to German magazines. Riefenstahl photographed

830-470: A castle with forty giants. Meanwhile, Marietta's stepmother, believing her stepdaughter is dead, asks the Sun who's the most beautiful. When the Sun answers Marietta is more beautiful, she realises her stepdaughter is still alive, and, disguised as a peddler, goes to the giants' castle to kill her. She goes twice, the first trying to kill her with an enchanted ring, and the second with poisoned grapes. After Marietta

996-447: A crow lets a ring fall on the huts' floor, and, when the heroine puts it on, she falls in a deathlike state. Believing she's dead the shepherd kills himself and the heroine is later revived when she gives birth to twins, each one of them with a star on the forehead, and one of them sucks the ring off her finger. She's later found by a prince, whose mother tries to kill the girl and her children. A Swedish version titled The Daughter of

1162-423: A documentary based on Riefenstahl's legacy document collection of 700 archive boxes, in which Riefenstahl's early knowledge of Nazi atrocities are clearly documented. As of 1948, however, Riefenstahl consistently denied all knowledge and presented herself as a victim. Riefenstahl began a lifelong companionship with her cameraman Horst Kettner  [ fr ] , who was 40 years her junior and assisted her with

1328-502: A farmer's wife and offers Snow White a poisoned apple . Snow White is hesitant to accept it, so the queen cuts the apple in half, eating the white (harmless) half and giving the red poisoned half to Snow White; the girl eagerly takes a bite and then falls into a coma, causing the Queen to think she has finally triumphed. This time, the dwarfs are unable to revive Snow White, and, assuming that the queen has finally killed her, they place her in

1494-605: A feature film based on Eugen d'Albert 's Tiefland ("Lowlands"), an opera that was extremely popular in Berlin in the 1920s. Riefenstahl received private funding for the production of Tiefland , but the filming in Spain was derailed and the project was cancelled. (When Tiefland was eventually shot, between 1940 and 1944, it was done in black and white, and was the third most expensive film produced in Nazi Germany . During

1660-479: A female character with snow-white skin in " The Raven ." In most Italian versions of Snow White, the heroine is not the daughter of a king but an innkeeper, the antagonist is not her stepmother but her biological mother, and instead of dwarfs she takes refuge with robbers. For instance, in La Bella Venezia , an Abruzzian version collected by Antonio De Nino, the mother asks her customers if they have seen

1826-505: A film which Riefenstahl said had been commissioned by the International Olympic Committee . She visited Greece to take footage of the route of the inaugural torch relay and the games' original site at Olympia , where she was aided by Greek photographer Nelly's . This material became Olympia , a hugely successful film which has since been widely noted for its technical and aesthetic achievements. Olympia

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1992-573: A friendly relationship. After the war, Riefenstahl was arrested and found to be a Nazi " fellow traveller " but was not charged with war crimes . Throughout her later life, she denied having known about the Holocaust , and was criticized as the "voice of the 'how could we have known?' defense." Riefenstahl's postwar work included an autobiography book and two photography books on the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan. Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl

2158-736: A friendly relationship. The propaganda film was funded entirely by the NSDAP. During the filming of Der Sieg des Glaubens , Hitler had stood side by side with the leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Ernst Röhm , a man with whom he clearly had a close working relationship. Röhm was murdered on Hitler's orders a short time later, during the purge of the SA referred to as the Night of the Long Knives . It has gone on record that, immediately following

2324-435: A glass casket as a funeral for her. Some time later, a prince stumbles upon a seemingly dead Snow White lying in her glass coffin during a hunting trip. After hearing her story from the seven dwarfs, the prince is allowed to take Snow White to her proper resting place back at her father's castle. All of a sudden, while Snow White is being transported, one of the prince's servants trips and loses his balance. This dislodges

2490-426: A huntsman who she has sent to assassinate her. The Queen then decides to murder Snow White by disguising herself as an old woman in order to gain her trust so she can then poison her. The Queen initially attempts to poison Snow White with a comb, but when that fails, she disguises herself as an old woman and gives Snow White a poison apple. The Queen's third attempt to kill Snow White is successful: Snow White bites into

2656-484: A magic mirror. The Bad Stepmother ( La mala madrastra ) comes from Sepúlveda, Segovia , and also has instead of seven dwarfs the robbers that live in a cave deep in the forest, that can open and close at command. Here the words to make it happen are "Open, parsley!" and "Close, peppermint!" The last one, Blancaflor , is from Siete Iglesias de Trabancos , also in Valladolid, ends with the heroine buried after biting

2822-466: A man's life"—Riefenstahl seems only to have modified the ideas of her Nazi films. In December 1974, American writer and photographer Eudora Welty reviewed Die Nuba positively for the New York Times , giving an impressionistic account of the aesthetics of Riefenstahl's book: She uses the light purposefully: the full, blinding brightness to make us see the all‐absorbing blackness of the skin;

2988-502: A more dignified occupation. His wife, however, continued to support her daughter's passion. Without her husband's knowledge, she enrolled Riefenstahl in dance and ballet classes at the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin, where she quickly became a star pupil. Riefenstahl attended dancing academies and became well known for her self-styled interpretive dancing skills, traveling across Europe with Max Reinhardt in

3154-440: A package from Fanck containing the script of the 1926 film The Holy Mountain . She made a series of films for Fanck, where she learned from him acting and film editing techniques. One of Fanck's films that brought Riefenstahl into the limelight was The White Hell of Pitz Palu of 1929, co-directed by G. W. Pabst . She had to undergo many physical challenges that would probably be deemed unethical in today's standards. Some of

3320-404: A piece of her clothes. The servants spare Mauricia's life, as well as her pet sheep. To deceive Mauricia's mother, they buy a goat and bring a bottle with the animal's blood as well as a piece of his tongue. Meanwhile, Mauricia is taken in by seventeen robbers who live in a cave deep in the forest, instead of seven dwarfs. When Mauricia's mother discovers that her daughter is still alive, she goes to

3486-445: A poisoned pear, and the mirror proclaiming that, now that her stepdaughter is finally dead, the stepmother is the most beautiful again. One of the first Portuguese versions was collected by Francisco Adolfo Coelho . It was titled The Enchanted Shoes ( Os sapatinhos encantados ), where the heroine is the daughter of an innkeeper, who asks muleteers if they have seen a woman prettier than she is. One day, one answers that her daughter

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3652-436: A prince, who choses her over the nurse's three biological daughters, but after that the king and the prince had to leave to fight in a war. The queen seizes her opportunity to chase Snow White away, and she ends up living with the dwarfs in a mountain. When the queen finds out Snow White is still alive thanks to a magic mirror, she sends her daughters three times, each time one of them, with poisoned gifts to give them to her. With

3818-536: A promotional poster for the 1924 film Mountain of Destiny , she was inspired to move into acting and between 1925 and 1929 starred in five successful motion pictures. Riefenstahl became one of the few women in Germany to direct a film during the Weimar era when, in 1932, she decided to try directing with her own film, The Blue Light . In the latter half of the 1930s, she directed the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of

3984-486: A queen wishes to have a daughter after eating a pomegranate and calls her Magraneta. As in the Grimm's version the queen asks her mirror who's the most beautiful. The dwarf's role is fulfilled by thirteen men who are described as big as giants, who live in a castle in the middle of the forest called "Castell de la Colometa", whose doors can open and close by command. When the queen discovers thanks to her mirror that her daughter

4150-466: A rally in 1932 and was mesmerized by his talent as a public speaker. Describing the experience in her memoir, Riefenstahl wrote, "I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the Earth's surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook

4316-732: A reporter for the Detroit News , "To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength". On 31 August 1938, Olympia won the Mussolini cup at the Venice Film Festival as "Best foreign film". She arrived in New York City on 4 November 1938, five days before Kristallnacht (the "Night of the Broken Glass"). When news of

4482-434: A ring, saying that if she puts it on she'll see her mother. The daughter actually falls unconscious when she does put it on because the old woman is actually a witch who wants to kidnap her, but she can't because of the scapular the girl is wearing, so she locks her in a crystal casket, where the girl is later found by the prince. In a version from Mallorca collected by Antoni Maria Alcover i Sureda titled Na Magraneta,

4648-448: A room with the hope that no one will see her and think she's more beautiful. But the attempt fails when a guest tells the mother the girl locked in a room is prettier than she is. The story ends with the men who found the heroine discussing who should marry the girl once she's revived, and she replies by telling them that she chooses to marry the servant who revived her. Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Jr. collected four versions. The first one

4814-457: A rose in a snowy day and wished to have a child as beautiful as the rose. The role of the dwarfs is played by Korrigans , dwarf-like creatures from the Breton folklore. Louis Morin collected a version from Troyes in northeastern France, where like in the Grimm's version the mother questions a magic mirror. A version from Corsica titled Anghjulina was collected by Geneviève Massignon , where

4980-530: A satirical novella told from the wicked stepmother's point of view. Albert Ludwig Grimm (no relation to the Brothers Grimm) published a play version, Schneewittchen , in 1809. The Grimms collected at least eight other distinct variants of the tale, which they considered one of the most famous German folktales. The Pentamerone , published 1634-1636, contains some stories with similarities to Snow White, such as an enchanted sleep in " The Young Slave " and

5146-491: A show funded by Jewish producer Harry Sokal . Riefenstahl often made almost 700  ℛ︁ℳ︁ for each performance and was so dedicated to dancing that she gave filmmaking no thought. She began to suffer a series of foot injuries, which led to knee surgery that threatened her dancing career. It was while going to a doctor's appointment that she first saw a poster for the 1924 film Mountain of Destiny . She became inspired to go into movie making, and began visiting

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5312-540: A symbol of masculinity, equated with national pride and dominance, that supposedly channels men's sexual and masculine energy. Riefenstahl's cinematic framing of the flags encapsulated its iconography. Saunders continues, "The effect is a significant double transformation: the images mechanize human beings and breathe life into flags. Even when the carriers are not mostly submerged under the sea of colored cloth, and when facial features are visible in profile, they attain neither character nor distinctiveness. The men remain ants in

5478-621: A three-hour tour showing her the ongoing production of Fantasia . From the Goebbels Diaries , researchers learned that Riefenstahl had been friendly with Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda , attending the opera with them and going to his parties. Riefenstahl maintained that Goebbels was upset when she rejected his advances and was jealous of her influence on Hitler, seeing her as an internal threat. She therefore insisted his diary entries could not be trusted. By later accounts, Goebbels thought highly of Riefenstahl's filmmaking but

5644-539: A vast enterprise. By contrast and paradoxically, the flags, whether a few or hundreds peopling the frame, assume distinct identities". Riefenstahl distorts the diegetic sound in Triumph of the Will . Her distortion of sound suggests she was influenced by German art cinema. Influenced by Classical Hollywood cinema's style, German art film employed music to enhance the narrative, establish a sense of grandeur, and to heighten

5810-454: A version titled La Bella Ostessina . In some versions, the antagonists are not the heroine's mother or stepmother, but her two elder sisters, as in a version from Trentino collected by Christian Schneller, or a version from Bologna collected by Carolina Coronedi-Berti. In this last version, the role of both the mirror and the dwarfs is played by the Moon, which tells the elder sisters that

5976-401: A woman more beautiful than she is. Instead of ordering a huntsman or servant to kill her daughter, after the mirror tells the woman her daughter has surpassed her, she tries to get rid of her daughter herself, inviting her to go for a walk in the countryside, and when they reach a rock she recites some spells from her book, making the rock swallow her daughter. Fortunately thanks to her prayers to

6142-502: A woman more beautiful than she. If they say they did not, she only charges them half the price, if they say they did she charges them twice the price. When the customers tell her that her daughter is prettier than her, she gets jealous. In Maria, her Evil Stepmother and the Seven Robbers ( Maria, die böse Stiefmutter und die sieben Räuber ), a Sicilian version collected by Laura Gonzenbach the heroine also lives with robbers, but

6308-453: A young king she marries him and has a son with him, but the queen goes to the castle pretending to be a midwife, turns her daughter into a golden bird by sticking a needle on her head, and then the queen takes her daughter's place. After disenchanting the twelve princes with her singing, the princess returns to the court, where she's finally restored to her human form, and her mother is punished after she believed she ate her own daughter while she

6474-422: Is awoken and marries the prince, the stepmother goes to the prince's castle pretending to be a midwife, sticks a fork on Marietta's head to turn her into a pigeon, and then takes her place. After several transformations, Marietta recovers her human form and her stepmother is punished. Georgios A. Megas collected another Greek version, titled Myrsina , in which the antagonists are the heroine's two elder sisters, and

6640-493: Is believed that the change to a stepmother in later editions was to tone down the story for children. A popular but sanitized version of the story is the 1937 American animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Walt Disney . Disney's variation of Snow White gave the dwarfs names and included a singing Snow White . The Disney film also is the only version in which Snow White and her prince meet before she bites

6806-448: Is considered one of the most controversial personalities in film history. On the one hand, she is regarded by many critics as an "innovative filmmaker and creative aesthete", while on the other hand she is criticized for her works in the service of propaganda during the Nazi era . A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl became interested in dancing during her childhood, taking lessons and performing across all Europe. After seeing

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6972-488: Is diabolical and cast out. She is protected by a glowing mountain grotto. According to herself, Riefenstahl received invitations to travel to Hollywood to create films, but she refused them in favor of remaining in Germany with a boyfriend. Hitler was a fan of the film, and thought Riefenstahl epitomized the perfect German female. He saw talent in Riefenstahl and arranged a meeting. In 1933, Riefenstahl appeared in

7138-477: Is distinctive about the fascist version of the old idea of the Noble Savage is its contempt for all that is reflective, critical, and pluralistic. [...] In celebrating a society where the exhibition of physical skill and courage and the victory of the stronger man over the weaker have, at least as she sees it, become the unifying symbol of the communal culture—where success in fighting is the "main aspiration of

7304-407: Is prettier. The daughter takes refugee with a group of robbers who live in the forest, and the role of the apple is fulfilled by the titular enchanted shoes. Zófimo Consiglieri Pedroso collected another version, titled The Vain Queen , in which the titular queen questions her maids of honor and servants who's the most beautiful. One day, when she asks the same question to her chamberlain, he replies

7470-501: Is set to a Native American theme, the character Gray Wolf (voiced by Zahn McClarnon ) is in the role of the Huntsman. Gray Wolf is summoned by Sly Fox where he is instructed to take White Snow into the forest and kill her while bringing her liver as proof. The Huntsman appears in the first season of Once Upon a Time played by Jamie Dornan . The Huntsman is a nameless hunter who is a solitary recluse, raised by wolves. He considers

7636-506: Is spared by the huntsman sent by her stepmother to assassinate her, she takes shelter at the home of seven dwarves. Finally, the queen disguises herself as an old woman and tricks Snow White into eating a poison apple, which puts her in a deep sleep. Snow White is revived by a kiss from a prince, whom she then marries. The Queen deeply envies Snow White for her looks and her jealousy leads her to attempt to murder Snow White in multiple different ways. The Queen first tries to murder Snow White via

7802-516: Is still alive she sends an evil fairy disguised as an old woman. The role of the poisoned apple is fulfilled by an iron ring. Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr. collected two Spanish versions. The first one, titled Blanca Flor , is from Villaluenga de la Sagra , in Toledo . In this one the villain is the heroine's own biological mother, and like in Na Magraneta she questions a mirror if there's

7968-455: Is than she. One day the two women are going to mass together. Instead of a male protector, Caterina takes refuge in a house by the seashore where an old woman lives. Later a witch discovers that Caterina's still alive and where she lives, so she goes to tell the queen, who sends her back to the cottage to kill her with poisoned flowers instead of an apple. A similar version from Siena was collected by Sicilian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè , in which

8134-412: Is titled Blancanieves , is from Medina del Campo , Valladolid , and follows the plot of the Grimm's version fairly closely with barely any significant differences. The same happens with the second one, titled Blancaflor , that comes from Tordesillas , another location from Valladolid. The last two are the ones that present more significant differences, although like in Grimm's the stepmother questions

8300-434: Is to eat her own daughter's heart and liver. To save his daughter's life, the king marries her off to a prince, and serves his wife a goat's heart and liver. After Silver-Tree discovers that she has been deceived thanks to the trout, she visits her daughter and sticks her finger on a poisoned thorn. The prince later remarries, and his second wife removes the poisoned thorn from Gold-Tree, reviving her. The second wife then tricks

8466-526: The 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, and rock star Mick Jagger along with his wife Bianca for The Sunday Times . Years later, Riefenstahl photographed Las Vegas entertainers Siegfried & Roy . She was guest of honour at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Quebec , Canada. In 1978, Riefenstahl published a book of her sub-aquatic photographs called Korallengärten ("Coral Gardens"), followed by

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8632-462: The Brothers Grimm published the version they had first collected, in which the villain is Snow White's jealous biological mother. In a version sent to another folklorist prior to the first edition, additionally, she does not order a servant to take her to the woods, but takes her there herself to gather flowers and abandons her; in the first edition, this task was transferred to a servant. It

8798-528: The German Army in 1935. Like Der Sieg des Glaubens and Triumph des Willens , this was filmed at the annual Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg. Riefenstahl said this film was a sub-set of Der Sieg des Glaubens , added to mollify the German Army which felt it was not represented well in Triumph des Willens . Hitler invited Riefenstahl to film the 1936 Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Berlin,

8964-660: The German government paid her 7 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ in compensation. From 23 September until 13 November 1940, she filmed in Krün near Mittenwald . The extras playing Spanish women and farmers were drawn from Romani detained in a camp at Salzburg-Maxglan who were forced to work with her. Filming at the Babelsberg Studios near Berlin began 18 months later in April 1942. This time Sinti and Roma people from

9130-518: The Marzahn detention camp near Berlin were compelled to work as extras. Almost to the end of her life, despite overwhelming evidence that the concentration camp occupants had been forced to work on the movie were later sent to the Auschwitz death camp , Riefenstahl continued to maintain that all the film extras survived. Riefenstahl sued filmmaker Nina Gladitz, who said Riefenstahl personally chose

9296-540: The magic mirror , the poisoned apple, the glass coffin, and the characters of the Evil Queen and the seven Dwarfs . The seven dwarfs were first given individual names in the 1912 Broadway play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and then given different names in Walt Disney 's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . The Grimm story, which is commonly referred to as "Snow White", should not be confused with

9462-656: The "Snow White" episode of Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics voiced by Mike Reynolds in the English dub. He is sent by the Evil Queen to eliminate Snow White. This plan fails when Snow White's friend Klaus buys Snow White enough time to get away. When the Huntsman goes after Snow White, he is attacked by a wild boar and knocked off the cliff into the forest below. In the Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child rendition of Snow White that

9628-465: The 1990 book Wunder unter Wasser ("Wonder under Water"). On 22 August 2002, her 100th birthday, she released the film Impressionen unter Wasser ("Underwater Impressions"), an idealized documentary of life in the oceans and her first film in over 25 years. Riefenstahl was a member of Greenpeace for eight years. When filming Impressionen unter Wasser , Riefenstahl lied about her age in order to be certified for scuba diving. Riefenstahl survived

9794-781: The 19th century, established the tale type, in Europe, was distributed "from the Balkan peninsula to Iceland, and from Russia to Catalonia", with the highest number of variants being found in Germany and Italy. This geographical distribution seemed to be confirmed by scholarly studies of the 20th century. A 1957 article by Italian philologist Gianfranco D'Aronco ( it ) studied the most diffused Tales of Magic in Italian territory, among which Biancaneve . A scholarly inquiry by Italian Istituto centrale per i beni sonori ed audiovisivi ("Central Institute of Sound and Audiovisual Heritage"), produced in

9960-523: The Abruzzian version collected by De Nino in Italian Folktales . Paul Sébillot collected two variants from Brittany in northwestern France. In the first one, titled The Enchanted Stockings ( Les Bas enchantés ), starts similarly to Gubernatis' version, with the heroine being the daughter of a queen, and her mother wanting to kill her after a soldier marching in front of her balcony says

10126-652: The Allied troops shortly after the war. Riefenstahl said she was not aware of the nature of the internment camps. According to Schulberg, "She gave me the usual song and dance. She said, 'Of course, you know, I'm really so misunderstood. I'm not political'". Riefenstahl said she was fascinated by the Nazis, but also politically naive, claiming ignorance about any war crimes. Such claims were not unambiguously dispelled until 2024, testifying to Riefenstahl's successful campaign of denial over six decades. Throughout 1945 to 1948, she

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10292-567: The Disney movie, the evil queen tries only once to kill Snow White (with the poisoned apple) and fails. She then dies by falling down a cliff and being crushed by a boulder, after the dwarfs had chased her through the forest. In the original, the queen is forced to dance to death in red hot iron slippers. This tale type is widespread in Europe, in America, in Africa and "in some Turkic traditions,"

10458-582: The Huntsman helps him escape. The Prince asks him to assist him, but he states he cannot leave. The Huntsman is named Eric and played by Chris Hemsworth . Eric is a huntsman whose wife, Sara, was seemingly killed while he was off to war. After Snow White escapes into the Dark Forest, Queen Ravenna and her brother Finn make a bargain with Eric to capture Snow White, promising to bring his wife back to life in exchange. The Huntsman tracks down Snow White, but when Finn reveals that Ravenna does not actually have

10624-404: The Huntsman named Humbert to take Snow White far into the forest and kill her while stating that he knows the penalty should he fail. She further demands that Humbert return with Snow White's heart in a jeweled box as proof of the deed. However, Humbert is unable to kill Snow White and urges her to flee into the woods. The Magic Mirror later revealed that the heart in the box is not Snow White's, but

10790-527: The Jews be removed from the market, which was relayed to the soldiers as "Get rid of the Jews", thus leading to the massacre. Photographs of a potentially distraught Riefenstahl survive from that day. Nevertheless, by 5 October 1939, Riefenstahl was back in occupied Poland filming Hitler's victory parade in Warsaw . Afterwards, she left Poland and chose not to make any more Nazi-related films. On 14 June 1940,

10956-848: The Middle East, in China, in India and in the Americas. Jörg Bäcker draws a parallel to Turkic tales, as well as other tales with a separate origin but overlapping themes, such as those in Central Asia and Eastern Siberia, among the Mongolians and Tungusian peoples. Due to Portuguese colonization, Sigrid Schmidt posits the presence of the tale in modern times in former Portuguese colonies, and contrasts it with other distinct African tales. A primary analysis by Celtic folklorist Alfred Nutt , in

11122-463: The Nazi party remained unclear during her lifetime. This can be explained with Riefenstahl's vehemence to control interpretation. Shortly before she died, Riefenstahl voiced her final words on the subject of her connection to Hitler in a BBC interview: "I was one of millions who thought Hitler had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn't know bad things were to come." In October 2024, Andres Veiel and Sandra Maischberger released

11288-466: The Queen grows to hate increasingly with time. Eventually, she orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her. As proof that Snow White is dead, the Queen also wants him to return with her heart. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but after raising his dagger, he finds himself unable to kill her when Snow White realizes her stepmother's plan and tearfully begs the huntsman, "Spare me this mockery of justice! I will run away into

11454-429: The Queen the lungs and liver of a wild boar, which is prepared by the cook and eaten by the Queen. In the 1916 silent movie adaption , the Huntsman is named Berthold (portrayed by Lionel Braham ). Humbert the Huntsman appears in the 1937 American animated musical fantasy film , Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs voiced by Stuart Buchanan . Queen Grimhilde is so jealous of Snow White's beauty that she orders

11620-438: The Queen to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and to dance in them until she drops dead. With the Queen finally defeated and dead, Snow White's wedding to the prince peacefully continues. Snow White is the main character in the story and stepdaughter to the Evil Queen. She is described by the Evil Queen's Magic Mirror as the fairest of the land. She survives several attempts by the jealous queen to murder her. After Snow White

11786-507: The Sun and the Twelve Bewitched Princes ( Solens dotter och de tolv förtrollade prinsarna ) starts pretty similarly to the Grimm's version, with a queen wishing to have a child as white as snow and as red as blood, but that child turned out to be not the heroine but the villain, her own biological mother. Instead of a mirror, the queen asks the Sun, who tells her that her daughter will surpass her in beauty. Because of it

11952-447: The Sun, the queen twice sends her husband to the dragons' castle to kill Marigo, first with enchanted hair-pins and the second time with an enchanted ring. After the dragons fail to bring her alive, they decide to bury her in a coffin adorned with pearls. They hang it in a young king's garden where an ancient tree near a beautiful fountain is to be found. The dragons suspend the coffin on four silver chains so that it would dangle right over

12118-552: The U.S.-German co-productions of the Arnold Fanck -directed, German-language SOS Eisberg and the Tay Garnett -directed, English-language S.O.S. Iceberg . The films were filmed simultaneously in English and German and produced and distributed by Universal Studios . Her role as an actress in S.O.S. Iceberg was her only English language role in film. Riefenstahl heard Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler speak at

12284-535: The Virgin the daughter survives and gets out the rock, and she is later taken in by twelve robbers living in a castle. When the mother discovers her daughter is still alive, she sends a witch to kill her, who gives the daughter an enchanted silk shirt. The moment she puts it on, she falls in a deathlike state. She's later revived when a sexton takes the shirt off. The second one, titled The Envious Mother ( La madre envidiosa ), comes from Jaraíz de la Vera , Cáceres. Here

12450-456: The Will (1935) and Olympia (1938), resulting in worldwide attention and acclaim. The films are widely considered two of the most effective and technically innovative propaganda films ever made. Her involvement in Triumph of the Will , however, significantly damaged her career and reputation after World War II . Adolf Hitler closely collaborated with Riefenstahl during the production of at least three important Nazi films , and they formed

12616-562: The antagonist is her stepmother and she's not an innkeeper. Sometimes the heroine's protectors are female instead of male, as in The Cruel Stepmother ( La crudel matrigna ), a variant collected by Angelo de Gubernatis in which, like in the Grimm's version, Snow White's counterpart, called here Caterina, is the daughter of a king, and the antagonist is her stepmother, who orders her servants to kill her stepdaughter after she hears people commenting how much prettier Caterina

12782-401: The apple; in fact, it is this meeting that sets the plot in motion. Instead of her lungs and liver, as written in the original, the huntsman is asked by the queen to bring back Snow White's heart. While the heart is mentioned, it is never shown in the box. Snow White is also older and more mature. Also, she is discovered by the dwarfs after cleaning the house, not vandalizing it. Furthermore, in

12948-404: The beds. Finally, the last bed is comfortable enough for her, and she falls asleep. When the dwarfs return home, they immediately become aware that there has been a burglar in their house because everything in their home is in disorder. Prowling about frantically, they head upstairs and discover the sleeping Snow White. She wakes up and explains to them about her stepmother's attempt to kill her, and

13114-421: The beginning of the story, a queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of blood to drip onto the freshly fallen snow on the black window sill. Then she says to herself, "How I wish that I had a daughter who had skin as white as snow , lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony ." Some time later, the queen dies giving birth to

13280-424: The blood in the bottle is not her stepdaughter's, and the stepmother sends her servants again, ordering them to bring one of her heart and bare-toes as proof. The stepdaughter later discovers four men living in the forest, inside a rock that can open and close with the right words. Every day after she sees the men leave she enters the cave and cleans it up. Believing it must be an intruder, the men take turns to stay at

13446-417: The bottom of the well. When the heroine's mother discovers her daughter is still alive, she twice sends a fairy to attempt to kill her, first with sugar almonds, which the dragons warn her are poisoned before she eats them, and then with a red dress. In another version from Brittany, this one collected by François Cadic, the heroine is called Rose-Neige (Eng: Snow-Rose) because her mother pricked her finger with

13612-694: The cavern, but the first one falls asleep during his watch. The second one manages to catch the girl, and they agree to let the girl live with them. Later, the same demon that told her stepmother that her stepdaughter was prettier gives the girl an enchanted ring, that has the same role that the apple in the Grimm's version. The version in Catalan included by Francisco Maspons y Labrós in the second volume of Lo Rondallayre follows that plot fairly closely, with some minor differences. In an Aragonese version titled The Good Daughter ( La buena hija ) collected by Romualdo Nogués y Milagro, there's no mirror. Instead,

13778-603: The cinema to see films and also attended film shows. On one of her adventures, Riefenstahl met Luis Trenker , an actor who had appeared in Mountain of Destiny . At a meeting arranged by her friend Gunther Rahn, she met Arnold Fanck , the director of Mountain of Destiny and a pioneer of the mountain film genre. Fanck was working on a film in Berlin. After Riefenstahl told him how much she admired his work, she also convinced him of her acting skill. She persuaded him to feature her in one of his films. Riefenstahl later received

13944-464: The day Paris was declared an open city by the French and occupied by German troops, Riefenstahl wrote to Hitler in a telegram , "With indescribable joy, deeply moved and filled with burning gratitude, we share with you, my Führer, your and Germany's greatest victory, the entry of German troops into Paris. You exceed anything human imagination has the power to conceive, achieving deeds without parallel in

14110-527: The dead. Scholars have theorized about the possible origins of the tale, with folklorists such as Sigrid Schmidt , Joseph Jacobs and Christine Goldberg noting that it combines multiple motifs also found in other folktales. Scholar Graham Anderson compares the fairy tale to the Roman legend of Chione , or "Snow," recorded in Ovid 's Metamorphoses . In the 1980s and 1990s, some German authors suggested that

14276-403: The dwarfs return just in time to revive Snow White by loosening the laces. Next, the Queen dresses up as a comb seller and convinces Snow White to take a beautiful comb as a present; she strokes Snow White's hair with the poisoned comb. The girl is overcome by the poison from the comb, but is again revived by the dwarfs when they remove the comb from her hair. Finally, the queen disguises herself as

14442-400: The dwarfs take pity on her and let her stay with them in exchange for a job as a housemaid. They warn her to be careful when alone at home and to let no one in while they are working in the mountains. Snow White grows into a lovely, fair, and beautiful young maiden. Meanwhile, the queen, who believes she got rid of Snow White, asks her mirror once again: "Mirror mirror on the wall, who now is

14608-498: The earth". Hitler was immediately captivated by Riefenstahl's work. She is described as fitting in with Hitler's ideal of Aryan womanhood, a feature he had noted when he saw her starring performance in Das Blaue Licht . In May 1933, Hitler asked Riefenstahl to make a film about Horst Wessel , but she declined. Riefenstahl was offered the opportunity to direct Der Sieg des Glaubens , an hour-long propaganda film about

14774-420: The emotions in a scene. In Triumph of the Will , Riefenstahl used traditional folk music to accompany and intensify her shots. Ben Morgan comments on Riefenstahl's distortion of sound: "In Triumph of the Will , the material world leaves no aural impression beyond the music. Where the film does combine diegetic noise with the music, the effects used are human (laughter or cheering) and offer a rhythmic extension to

14940-422: The end of the war. The French government confiscated all of her editing equipment, along with the production reels of Tiefland . After years of legal wrangling, these were returned to her, but the French government had reportedly damaged some of the film stock whilst trying to develop and edit it, with a few key scenes being missing (although Riefenstahl was surprised to find the original negatives for Olympia in

15106-638: The event reached the United States, Riefenstahl publicly defended Hitler. On 18 November, she was received by Henry Ford in Detroit . Olympia was shown at the Chicago Engineers Club two days later. Avery Brundage , President of the International Olympic Committee, praised the film and held Riefenstahl in the highest regard. She negotiated with Louis B. Mayer , and on 8 December, Walt Disney brought her on

15272-466: The expedition to magazines in various parts of the world. While scouting shooting locations, she almost died from injuries received in a truck accident. After waking up from a coma in a Nairobi hospital, she finished writing the script, but was soon thoroughly thwarted by uncooperative locals, the Suez Canal crisis and bad weather. In the end, the film project was called off. Even so, Riefenstahl

15438-467: The extras at their holding camp; Gladitz had found one of the Romani survivors and matched his memory with stills of the movie for a documentary Gladitz was filming. The German court ruled largely in favour of Gladitz, declaring that Riefenstahl had known the extras were from a concentration camp, but they also agreed that Riefenstahl had not been informed the Romani would be sent to Auschwitz after filming

15604-405: The fairest one of all?" The mirror tells her that not only is Snow White still the fairest in the land, but is also currently hiding with the dwarfs. The Queen is furious and decides to kill her herself. First, she appears at the dwarfs' cottage, disguised as an old peddler, and offers Snow White a colourful, silky laced bodice as a present. The Queen laces her up so tightly that Snow White faints;

15770-894: The fairy tale could have been inspired by a real person. Eckhard Sander, a teacher, claimed that the inspiration was Margaretha von Waldeck , a German countess born in 1533, as well as several other women in her family. Karlheinz Bartels, a pharmacist and scholar from Lohr am Main , a town in northwestern Bavaria , created a tongue-in-cheek theory that Snow White was Maria Sophia Margarethe Catharina, Baroness von und zu Erthal, born in 1725. However, these theories are generally dismissed by serious scholars, with folklore professor Donald Haase calling them "pure speculation and not at all convincing." The principal studies of traditional Snow White variants are Ernst Böklen's, Schneewittchen Studien of 1910, which reprints fifty Snow White variants, and studies by Steven Swann Jones. In their first edition,

15936-405: The familiar sequences of adoring women greeting Hitler's arrival and cavalcade through Nuremberg. In these Hitler clearly remains the focus of attraction, as more generally in the visual treatment of his mass following. Rather, it is encoded in representation of flags and banners, which were shot in such a way as to make them visually desirable as well as potent political symbols". The flag serves as

16102-456: The fifth Nuremberg Rally in 1933. The opportunity that was offered was a huge surprise to Riefenstahl. Hitler had ordered Joseph Goebbels 's Propaganda Ministry to give the film commission to Riefenstahl, but the Ministry had never informed her. Riefenstahl agreed to direct the movie even though she was only given a few days before the rally to prepare. She and Hitler got on well, forming

16268-738: The film to make the divers turn backwards, holding them in the air as if to defy the laws of gravity". Many of these shots were relatively unheard of at the time, but Riefenstahl's use and augmentation of them set a standard, and is the reason they are still used to this day. Riefenstahl's work on Olympia has been cited as a major influence in modern sports photography. Riefenstahl filmed competitors of all races, including African-American Jesse Owens in what later became famous footage. Olympia premiered for Hitler's 49th birthday in 1938. Its international debut led Riefenstahl to embark on an American publicity tour in an attempt to secure commercial release. In February 1937, Riefenstahl enthusiastically told

16434-657: The film, insisted on Tiefland being shown at the Cannes Film Festival, which he was running that year. In 1960, Riefenstahl attempted to prevent filmmaker Erwin Leiser from juxtaposing scenes from Triumph des Willens with footage from concentration camps in his film Mein Kampf . Riefenstahl had high hopes for a collaboration with Cocteau called Friedrich und Voltaire ("Friedrich and Voltaire"), wherein Cocteau

16600-399: The filming of Tiefland, Riefenstahl utilized Romani from internment camps for extras, who were severely mistreated on set, and when the filming completed they were sent to the death camp Auschwitz . ) Hitler was able to convince her to film Triumph des Willens on the condition that she would not be required to make further films for the party, according to Riefenstahl. The motion picture

16766-435: The first Danish versions collected was Snehvide ( Snow White ), by Mathias Winther. In this variant, the stepmother is the princess' nurse, who persuades Snow White to ask her father to marry her. Because the king says he won't remarry until grass grows in the grave of the princess' mother, the nurse plants magic seeds in the grave so grass will grow quicker. Then, after the king marries the nurse, Snow White gets betrothed to

16932-412: The forest and never come home again!" After seeing the tears in the princess's eyes, the huntsman reluctantly agrees to spare Snow White and brings the Queen a boar's heart instead. After wandering through the forest for hours, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarfs . Since no one is at home, she eats some of the tiny meals, drinks some of their wine, and then tests all

17098-449: The governess, the king refuses, making up various excuses, like his shoes turning red or his robes being full of holes. All of them are fulfilled by Marigo under the manipulation of her governess, therefore, the king keeps his promise and marries her. Some years after, Marigo grows up to be a beautiful young woman, even more attractive than the queen. Jealous, the stepmother forces her husband to choose between them. Either she kills herself or

17264-535: The heart of a pig. In the musical adaptation , the Huntsman is seen with the Prince when they tell the King of the Evil Queen's plot to dispose of Snow White. The Huntsman appears in the 1987 Snow White film portrayed by Amnon Meskin. When the Huntsman takes Snow White away from the King to kill her on the Evil Queen's orders, Snow White figures out her stepmother's plot and escapes from him. The Huntsman appears in

17430-490: The heroine stays in a haunted castle. There's also a couple of conversions that combines the ATU tale type 709 with the second part of the type 410 Sleeping Beauty , in which, when the heroine is awakened, the prince's mother tries to kill her and the children she has had with the prince. Gonzenbach collected two variants from Sicily, the first one called Maruzzedda and the second Beautiful Anna ; and Vittorio Imbriani collected

17596-425: The heroine, called Ermellina, runs away from home riding an eagle who takes her away to a palace inhabited by fairies. Ermellina's stepmother sends a witch disguised as her stepdaughter's servants to the fairies' palace to try to kill her twice, first with poisoned sweetmeats and the second time with an enchanted dress. Pitré also collected a variant from Palermo titled Child Margarita ( La 'Nfanti Margarita ) where

17762-623: The history of mankind. How can we ever thank you?" She later explained, "Everyone thought the war was over, and in that spirit I sent the cable to Hitler". Riefenstahl was friends with Hitler for 12 years. However, her relationship with Hitler severely declined in 1944 after her brother died on the Russian Front. After the Nuremberg rallies trilogy and Olympia , Riefenstahl began work on the movie she had tried and failed to direct once before, namely Tiefland . On Hitler's direct order,

17928-566: The killings, Hitler ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed, although Riefenstahl disputed that this ever happened. Still impressed with Riefenstahl's work, Hitler asked her to film Triumph des Willens ("Triumph of the Will"), a new propaganda film about the 1934 party rally in Nuremberg. More than one million Germans participated in the rally. The film is sometimes considered the greatest propaganda film ever made. Initially, according to Riefenstahl, she resisted and did not want to create further Nazi Party films, instead wanting to direct

18094-402: The king kills his daughter. But the king doesn't have the heart to murder his own child, so he takes Marigo into the woods and tells her to fetch him the loaf of bread and the wooden flask which he threw off the cliff. When Marigo comes back, she fails to find her father and realises that he has abandoned her. As it was dark, the girl climbs up a wooden tree to spend the night. While she is asleep,

18260-422: The king. Another Flemish variant, this one from Hamme , differs more from Grimm's story. The one who wants to kill the heroine, called here Mauricia, is her own biological mother. She is convinced by a demon with a spider head that if her daughter dies, she will become beautiful. The mother sends two servants to kill Mauricia, bringing as proof a lock of her hair, a bottle with her blood, a piece of her tongue and

18426-671: The last weeks of her life. Kettner said in an interview in 2002, "Ms. Riefenstahl is in great pain and she has become very weak and is taking painkillers". Riefenstahl died in her sleep at around 10:00 pm on 8 September 2003 at her home in Pöcking . After cremation, her ashes were buried in Munich Waldfriedhof . After her death, there was a varied response in the obituary pages of leading publications, although most recognized her technical breakthroughs in filmmaking. Snow White The fairy tale features elements such as

18592-588: The late 1960s and early 1970s, found thirty-seven variants of the tale across Italian sources. A similar assessment was made by scholar Sigrid Schmidt, who claimed that the tale type was "particularly popular" in Southern Europe , "specially" in Italy, Greece and the Iberian Peninsula . In addition, Swedish scholar Waldemar Liungman  [ sv ] suggested Italy as center of diffusion of

18758-457: The most important inquiries into the relation of esthetics to ideology we have had in many years", Sontag argued that: Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl's portrait of them is consistent with some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical. [...] What

18924-452: The music rather than a contrast to it. By replacing diegetic sound, Riefenstahl's film employs music to combine the documentary with the fantastic." When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Riefenstahl was photographed in Poland wearing a military uniform and a pistol on her belt in the company of German soldiers; she had gone to Poland as a war correspondent. On 12 September, she

19090-427: The now alive and well Snow White, who, surprised to meet him face to face, humbly accepts his marriage proposal. The prince invites everyone in the land to their wedding except for Snow White's stepmother. The Queen, believing herself finally to be rid of Snow White, asks again her magic mirror, who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says that there is a bride of a prince who is yet fairer. The queen decides to go to

19256-409: The photographs of George Rodger . She visited Kenya for the first time in 1956 and later Sudan, where she photographed Nuba tribes with whom she sporadically lived, learning about their culture so she could photograph them more easily. Even though her film project about modern slavery entitled Die Schwarze Fracht ("The Black Cargo") was never completed, Riefenstahl was able to sell the stills from

19422-779: The photographs; they were together from the time she was 60 and he was 20. Riefenstahl travelled to Africa, inspired by the works of George Rodger that celebrated the ceremonial wrestling matches of the Nuba. Riefenstahl's books with photographs of the Nuba tribes were published in 1974 and republished in 1976 as Die Nuba (translated as "The Last of the Nuba") and Die Nuba von Kau ("The Nuba People of Kau"). They were harshly criticized by American writer and philosopher Susan Sontag , who wrote in The New York Review of Books that they were evidence of Riefenstahl's continued adherence to "fascist aesthetics". In this review, which art critic Hilton Kramer described as "one of

19588-413: The piece of the poisoned apple from Snow White's throat, magically reviving her. (In the 1812 version, the prince becomes so obsessed with Snow White that he carries her coffin wherever he goes, until one of his servants, in anger, lifts Snow White from the coffin and strikes her on the back, causing the piece of apple to come out of her throat. ) The Prince is overjoyed by this, and he declares his love for

19754-400: The poisoned apple and dies. The Evil Queen orders an unnamed Huntsman to take Snow White into the deepest woods to be killed. As proof that Snow White is dead, the Queen demands that he return with her lungs and liver. The Huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but spares her. The Huntsman leaves her behind alive, convinced that the girl would be eaten by some wild animal. He instead brings

19920-457: The power to do what she promised, the Huntsman fights him and his men while Snow White runs away. Throughout the film, Eric becomes Snow White's ally in the fight against Queen Ravenna. Hemsworth reprises his role as Eric who is called upon to ensure the destruction of Ravenna's mirror following the events of the first film. In the process he is pitted against Queen Revenna's sister Freya and reunited with his wife, Sara, who reveals that her 'death'

20086-561: The prince and Snow White get married, and the prince invites the stepmother and asks her what punishment deserve someone who has hurt someone as innocent as Snow White. The queen suggests for the culprit to be put inside a barrel full of needles, and the prince tells the stepmother she has pronounced her own sentence. Evald Tang Kristensen collected a version titled The Pretty Girl and the Crystal Bowls ( Den Kjønne Pige og de Klare Skåle ), which, like some Italian variants, combines

20252-653: The prince and having three sons with him the queen discovers her stepdaughter is still alive, also thanks to a talking trout, and sends three giants of ice to put her in a death-like state. As in Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree the prince takes a second wife afterwards, and the second wife is the one who revives the heroine. Thomas William Thompson collected an English version from Blackburn simply titled Snow White which follows Grimm's plot much more closely, although with some significant differences, such as Snow White being taken in by three robbers instead of seven dwarfs. One of

20418-429: The princess is prettier than the queen. The role of the poisoned apple is fulfilled by the titular stockings, and the heroine is revived after the prince's little sister takes them off when she's playing. In the second, titled La petite Toute-Belle , a servant accuses the heroine of stealing the things she stole and then throws her in a well. The heroine survives the fall and ends up living with three dragons that live at

20584-504: The production of Tiefland moved to Barrandov Studios in Prague for interior filming. Lavish sets made these shots some of the most costly of the film. The film was not edited and released until almost ten years later. The last time Riefenstahl saw Hitler was when she married Peter Jacob on 21 March 1944. Riefenstahl and Jacob divorced in 1946. As Germany's military situation became impossible by early 1945, Riefenstahl left Berlin and

20750-516: The queen into drinking the poison that was meant for Gold-Tree. In another Scottish version, Lasair Gheug, the King of Ireland's Daughter , the heroine's stepmother frames the princess for the murder of the queen's firstborn and manages to make her swear she'll never tell the truth to anybody. Lasair Gheug, a name that in Gaelic means Flame of Branches, take refugee with thirteen cats, who turn out to be an enchanted prince and his squires. After marrying

20916-506: The queen orders that her daughter must be raised in the countryside, away from the Royal Court, but when it's time for the princess to come back the queen orders a servant to throw her in a well before she arrives. In the bottom, the princess meets twelve princes cursed to be chimeras, and she agrees to live with them. When the queen and the servant discover she is alive, they give her poisoned candy , which she eats. After being revived by

21082-420: The queen's daughter is more beautiful than she is. The queen orders her servants to behead her daughter and bring back her tongue as proof, but they instead spare her and bring the queen a dog's tongue. The princess is taken in by a man, who gives her two options, to live with him as either his wife or his daughter, and the princess chooses the second. The rest of the tale is quite different from most versions, with

21248-412: The ray of light slanting down from the single hole, high in the wall, that is the doorway of the circular house, which tells us how secret and safe it has been made; the first dawn light streaking the face of a calf in the sleeping camp where the young men go to live, which suggests their world apart. All the pictures bring us the physical beauty of the people: a young girl, shy and mischievous of face, with

21414-521: The result of photos taken by Riefenstahl during her scuba diving trips in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s. This article about a photographic book is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Leni Riefenstahl Helene Bertha Amalie " Leni " Riefenstahl ( German: [ˈleː.niː ˈʁiː.fn̩.ʃtaːl] ; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, producer, writer, editor, photographer and actress. She

21580-489: The robbers' cave disguised. She turns her daughter into a bird, and she takes her place. The plan fails and Mauricia recovers her human form, so the mother tries to kill her by using a magic ring which the demon gave her. Mauricia is awoken when a prince takes the ring off her finger. When he asks her if he would marry her, she rejects him and returns with the seventeen robbers. One of the first versions from Spain , titled The Beautiful Stepdaughter ( La hermosa hijastra ),

21746-484: The role of the seven dwarfs is fulfilled by the Twelve Months. Austrian diplomat Johann Georg von Hahn collected a version from Albania , that also starts with the heroine, called Marigo, getting manipulated by the governess into killing her mother. She snaps her mother's head off with a marble lid, while she was leaning over the marble chest to get her figs and almonds. After Marigo tells her father to marry

21912-470: The roles of both the huntsman and the dwarfs are instead a group of bandits whom Anghjulina's mother asks to kill her daughter, but they instead take her away to live with them in the woods. A Flemish version from Antwerp collected by Victor de Meyere is quite similar to the version collected by the brothers Grimm. The heroine is called Sneeuwwitje (Snow White in Dutch), she is the queen's stepdaughter, and

22078-588: The same shipment). During the filming of Olympia , Riefenstahl was funded by the state to create her own production company in her own name, Riefenstahl-Film GmbH, which was uninvolved with her most influential works. She edited and dubbed the remaining material and Tiefland premiered on 11 February 1954 in Stuttgart . However, it was denied entry into the Cannes Film Festival . Although Riefenstahl lived for almost another half century, Tiefland

22244-419: The silver medal at the Venice Film Festival , but was not universally well-received, for which Riefenstahl blamed the critics, many of whom were Jewish. Upon its 1938 re-release, the names of Balázs and Sokal, both Jewish, were removed from the credits; some reports say this was at Riefenstahl's behest. In the film, Riefenstahl played an innocent peasant girl who is hated by the villagers because they think she

22410-400: The stepmother questions a mirror. Instead of dwarfs, the princess is taken in by seven kabouters . Instead of going to kill Snow White herself, the queen twice sends the witch who had sold her the magic mirror to kill Sneeuwwitje, first with a comb and the second time with an apple. But the most significant difference is that the role of the prince in this version is instead Snow White's father,

22576-597: The story of " Snow-White and Rose-Red " (in German " Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot "), another fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. In the Aarne–Thompson folklore classification , tales of this kind are grouped together as type 709, Snow White. Others of this kind include " Bella Venezia ", " Myrsina ", " Nourie Hadig ", " Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree ", " The Young Slave ", and " La petite Toute-Belle ". At

22742-443: The story starts with the mother already hating her daughter because she's prettier, and ordering a servant to kill her, bringing as proof her heart, tongue, and her little finger. The servant spares her and brings the mother the heart and tongue from a dog he ran over and says he lost the finger. The daughter is taken in by robbers living in a cavern, but despite all, she still misses her mother. One day an old woman appears and gives her

22908-582: The story, since he considered Italy as the source of tale ("Ursprung"), and it holds the highest number of variants not derived from the Grimm's tale. Another study, by researcher Theo Meder, points to a wide distribution in Western Europe, specially in Ireland, Iceland and Scandinavia. The Brothers Grimm's "Snow White" was predated by several other German versions of the tale, with the earliest being Johann Karl August Musäus 's " Richilde " (1782),

23074-407: The tale type 709 with the type 410. In this version, the stepmother questions a pair of crystal bowls instead of a magic mirror, and when they tell her that her stepdaughter is prettier, she sends her to a witch's hut where she's tricked to eat a porridge that makes her pregnant. Ashamed that her daughter has become pregnant out of wedlock she kicks her out, but the girl is taken in by a shepherd. Later

23240-506: The third gift, a poisoned apple, Snow White falls into a deep sleep, and the dwarfs leave her in the forest, fearing that the king would accuse them of killing her once he comes back. When the king and the prince finally come back from the war and find Snow White's body, the king dies of sorrow, but the prince manages to wake her up. After that we see an ending quite similar to the ones in The Goose Girl and The Three Oranges of Love

23406-414: The three Fatia , goddesses of fate, take pity on her and decide to wish her good. Each of the fatia suggest a choice for the girl. The third goddess tells her to find the castle inhabited by forty dragons who are all brothers. They take Marigo as their surrogate sister and she helps them with the castle chores, while they gift her precious jewellery. After discovering her stepdaughter is still alive thanks to

23572-482: The titular queen completely disappeared from the story, and the story focusing instead of a prince that falls in love with the princess. In the Scottish version Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree , queen Silver-Tree asks a trout in a well, instead of a magic mirror, who's the most beautiful. When the trout tells her that Gold-Tree, her daughter, is more beautiful, Silver-Tree pretends to fall ill, declaring that her only cure

23738-547: The torments included: being engulfed in small avalanches, jumping into mountain lakes and icy streams, climbing rocky pinnacles while barefoot, letting herself be pulled up a rock face being pelted by snow and ice, balancing on a ladder above a deep glacial crevasse, and enduring obscene jokes from her exclusively male colleagues. Her fame spread to countries outside Germany. Riefenstahl produced and directed her own work called Das Blaue Licht ("The Blue Light") in 1932, co-written by Carl Mayer and Béla Balázs . This film won

23904-409: The villain is also the heroine's biological mother, and she's an innkeeper who asks a witch whether there's a woman prettier than she is. Instead of a shirt, here the role of the apple is fulfilled by enchanted shoes. Aurelio de Llano Roza de Ampudia collected an Asturian version from Teverga titled The Envious Stepmother ( La madrastra envidiosa ), in which the stepmother locks her stepdaughter in

24070-495: The wall, who is the fairest one of all?" The mirror always tells the queen that she is the fairest. The Queen is always pleased with that response because the magic mirror never lies. When Snow White is seven years old, her fairness surpasses that of her stepmother. When the Queen again asks her mirror the same question, it tells her that Snow White is the fairest. This gives the Queen a great shock. She becomes envious, and from that moment on, her heart turns against Snow White, whom

24236-412: The wedding and investigate. Once she arrives, the Queen becomes frozen with rage and fear when she finds out that the prince's bride is her stepdaughter, Snow White herself. The furious Queen tries to sow chaos and attempts to kill her again, but the prince recognizes her as a threat to Snow White when he learns the truth from his bride. As punishment for the attempted murder of Snow White, the prince orders

24402-481: The wolves to be his true family, and is greatly saddened by the deaths of animals. He is considered by the Evil Queen Regina as the perfect assassin and is hired to kill Snow White . When he offers the Queen a stag's heart instead, she realizes she has been tricked and tears out the Huntsman's heart, keeping it in her vault and using it to make him her slave. When Prince Charming is led to his execution,

24568-441: The years, she filed and won over fifty libel cases against people who had accused her of complicity with Nazi crimes. Riefenstahl said that her biggest regret in life was meeting Hitler, declaring, "It was the biggest catastrophe of my life. Until the day I die people will keep saying, 'Leni is a Nazi', and I'll keep saying, 'But what did she do?'" Even though she went on to win up to fifty libel cases, details about her relation to

24734-453: The youngest, called Ziricochel, is the prettiest, and later hides her in his palace. When the sisters discover Ziricochel is still alive, they send an astrologer to kill her. After several attempts, she finally manages to turn her into a statue with an enchanted shirt. Ziricochel is revived after the prince's sisters take the shirt off. Italo Calvino included the version from Bologna collected by Coronedi Berti, retitling it Giricoccola , and

24900-435: Was hitchhiking with a group of men, trying to reach her mother, when she was taken into custody by American troops. She walked out of a holding camp, beginning a series of escapes and arrests across the chaotic landscape. At last making it back home on a bicycle, she found that American troops had seized her house. She was surprised by how kindly they treated her. Most of Riefenstahl's unfinished projects were lost towards

25066-522: Was angered with what he saw as her overspending on the Nazi-provided filmmaking budgets. In Triumph of the Will , Tom Saunders argues that Hitler serves as the object of the camera's gaze. Saunders writes, "Without denying that 'rampant masculinity' (the 'sexiness' of Hitler and the SS) serves as the object of the gaze, I would suggest that desire is also directed toward the feminine. This occurs not in

25232-500: Was born in Berlin on 22 August 1902. Her father, Alfred Theodor Paul Riefenstahl, owned a successful heating and ventilation company and wanted his daughter to follow him into the business world. Since Riefenstahl was the only child for several years, Alfred wanted her to carry on the family name and secure the family fortune. However, her mother, Bertha Ida (Scherlach), who had been a part-time seamstress before her marriage, had faith in Riefenstahl and believed that her daughter's future

25398-401: Was collected by Manuel Milà i Fontanals , in which a demon tells the stepmother that her stepdaughter is prettier than she is when she's looking at herself in the mirror. The stepmother orders her servants to take her stepdaughter to the forest and kill her, bringing a bottle with her blood as proof. But the servants spare her life and instead kill a dog. Eight days later the demon warns her that

25564-402: Was completed. This issue came up again in 2002, when Riefenstahl was 100 years old and she was taken to court by a Roma group for denying the Nazis had exterminated Romani. Riefenstahl apologized and said, "I regret that Sinti and Roma [people] had to suffer during the period of National Socialism. It is known today that many of them were murdered in concentration camps ". In October 1944

25730-438: Was confident her daughter would grow up to be successful in the field of art and therefore gave her full support, unlike Riefenstahl's father, who was not interested in his daughter's artistic inclinations. In 1918, when she was 16, Riefenstahl attended a presentation of Snow White which interested her deeply; it led her to want to be a dancer. Her father instead wanted to provide his daughter with an education that could lead to

25896-407: Was generally recognized as an epic, innovative work of propaganda filmmaking. The film took Riefenstahl's career to a new level and gave her further international recognition. In interviews for the 1993 documentary The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl , Riefenstahl adamantly denied any deliberate attempt to create Nazi propaganda and said she was disgusted that Triumph des Willens

26062-542: Was granted Sudanese citizenship for her services to the country, becoming the first foreigner to receive a Sudanese passport. Novelist and sports writer Budd Schulberg , assigned by the U.S. Navy to the OSS for intelligence work while attached to John Ford 's documentary unit, was ordered to arrest Riefenstahl at her chalet in Kitzbühel, ostensibly to have her identify Nazi war criminals in German film footage captured by

26228-437: Was held by various Allied-controlled prison camps across Germany. She was also under house arrest for a period of time. She was tried four times by postwar authorities for denazification and eventually found to be a " fellow traveller " ( Mitläufer ) who sympathised with the Nazis. While never an official member of the Nazi party, she was always seen in association due to the propaganda films she made in Nazi Germany . Over

26394-652: Was her last feature film. Riefenstahl tried many times to make more films during the 1950s and 1960s, but was met with resistance, public protests and sharp criticism. Many of her filmmaking peers in Hollywood had fled Nazi Germany and were unsympathetic to her. Although both film professionals and investors were willing to support her work, most of the projects she attempted were stopped owing to ever-renewed and highly negative publicity about her past work in Nazi Germany. In 1954, Jean Cocteau , who greatly admired

26560-528: Was in show business. Riefenstahl had a younger brother, Heinz, who was killed at the age of 39 on the Eastern Front in Nazi Germany 's war against the Soviet Union . Riefenstahl fell in love with the arts in her childhood. She began to paint and write poetry at the age of four. She was also athletic, and at the age of twelve joined a gymnastics and swimming club called Nixe . Her mother

26726-404: Was in the town of Końskie when 30 civilians were executed in retaliation for an alleged attack on German soldiers. According to her memoir , Riefenstahl tried to intervene but a furious German soldier held her at gunpoint and threatened to shoot her on the spot. She said she did not realize the victims were Jews. According to another account given by a German officer, Riefenstahl had asked that

26892-443: Was secretly funded by the Nazis. She was one of the first filmmakers to use tracking shots in a documentary, placing a camera on rails to follow the athletes' movement. The film is also noted for its slow motion shots. Riefenstahl played with the idea of slow motion, underwater diving shots, extremely high and low shooting angles, panoramic aerial shots, and tracking system shots for allowing fast action. Riefensthal also "reversed

27058-424: Was staged by Freya. Freya briefly uses the mirror to resurrect Ravenna, only for Freya to assist Eric in killing Ravenna when she learns that her sister was responsible for the death of her baby daughter. The Magic Mirror is an omniscient and seemingly sentient mirror that the Queen uses to confirm her status as the "fairest in the land". The Prince kisses Snow White's corpse upon finding her, which revives her from

27224-485: Was still under the spell. French folklorist Henri Carnoy collected a Greek version, titled Marietta and the Witch her Stepmother ( Marietta et la Sorcière, sa Marâtre ), in which the heroine is manipulated by her governess to kill her own mother, so the governess could marry her father. Soon after she marries Marietta's father, the new stepmother orders her husband to get rid of his daughter. Marietta ends up living in

27390-405: Was to play two roles. They thought the film might symbolize the love-hate relationship between Germany and France. Cocteau's illness and 1963 death put an end to the project. A musical remake of Das Blaue Licht ("The Blue Light") with an English production company also fell apart. In the 1960s, Riefenstahl became interested in Africa from Ernest Hemingway 's Green Hills of Africa and from

27556-549: Was used in such a way. In a private letter to Hitler, quoted in a 2024 documentary, Riefensthal seems enthusiastic about the propaganda effects of Triumph des Willens : "the film's impact as German propaganda is greater than I could have imagined and your image, my Führer, is always applauded". Despite allegedly vowing not to make any more films about the Nazi Party, Riefenstahl made the 28-minute Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht ("Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces") about

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