Riefenstahl, Leni. Leni Riefenstahl: Five Lives by Leni Riefenstahl, edited by Angelika Taschen.

Taschen, 2000. 1st edition. Large profusely illustrated hardcover with dust jacket. Fine/fine. Text in English, French, and German. 336 pages.  Includes Riefenstahl's (1902-2003) long, impressive, sometimes controversial career as dancer, actress, film director, photographer, and scuba diver, with extensive biographical information in back of the book, with biography, bibliography, and filmography.  Like new. Summary:

Leni Riefenstahl: Five Lives (2000), edited by Angelika Taschen, is a comprehensive visual autobiography and monograph that categorizes the controversial German artist’s career into five distinct phases: her beginnings as a dancer, her stardom as a film actress in "mountain films," her internationally acclaimed yet politically condemned work as a director for the Third Reich, and her later-life reinventions as a photographer of the Nuba people and an underwater documentarian.

Core Themes and Narrative

• The Pursuit of Perfection: The book tracks Riefenstahl's obsession with the "heroic" body and the sublime. Whether she is filming the 1936 Olympics or photographing African tribesmen, her theme remains the same: the glorification of physical power and aesthetic symmetry.

• Artistic Autonomy vs. Moral Accountability: Taschen’s curation highlights Riefenstahl’s technical genius while implicitly forcing the reader to confront the ethical vacuum of her "vision." It presents a woman who claimed to be a "pure artist" while creating the most effective propaganda in human history (Triumph of the Will).

• Survival and Reinvention: The narrative arc is one of relentless adaptation. After being blacklisted from filmmaking post-WWII, she pivoted to still photography and later, at the age of 71, lied about her age to obtain a diving certificate, beginning a fifth career in marine biology.

Visual and Technical "Finish"

• The "Epic" Style: Riefenstahl’s visual signature is characterized by low-angle "hero shots" that make her subjects appear monumental. Her finish is razor-sharp and high-contrast, designed to evoke awe rather than empathy.

• The "Nuba" Saturated Tones: Her later color work in Africa features a hyper-saturated, almost "plastic" finish that treats the human skin as a sculptural surface, much like the bronze statues she sought to emulate in her earlier films.