ABSTRACT
Fascism pretends a populist stance, against “elites” and for working people; it uses populism as a screen to diffuse its gathering of power around an elite group, headed by the leader—the Fuhrer in Germany or Il Duce in Italy. Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, started the fascist movement in Italy in 1922 he took the name from the Latin fasci, the image of an axe bound in the middle of rods or sheaves of wheat. Leni Riefenstahl came to prominence in a series of “mountain films” that celebrated strenuous activity in mystical landscapes, a connection with “blood and soil” that was so much a foundation of Nazi mythology and ideology. Triumph of the Will is a documentary of a Nazi rally held in Nuremburg in 1934. Triumph of the Will is about a tribal gathering celebrating a ceremony of worship for their leader, who, at the beginning of the film, descends in his plane from the heavens.
