ABSTRACT
In her notoriously unreliable memoir, Leni Riefenstahl provides an impressively detailed account of a 1937 conversation with the Austrian-American auteur Josef von Sternberg. As she recalls, Sternberg praises the director’s work in Triumph of the Will, draws favorable comparisons between Riefenstahl and Marlene Dietrich, and makes a plea for insider knowledge about what Hitler is “really like.” Characteristically, Riefenstahl recounts the dialogue as an opportunity to substantiate her desirability and to pronounce upon the misery of her obligations as the Führer’s filmmaker and the many “conspiracies” she was victimized by as a result of the privileges such work afforded. The exchange ends with Riefenstahl dejectedly remarking that, “Fame doesn’t bring happiness” (219).3
