After the War
Reifenstahl's
postwar photographic work is even more interesting because of the problems
it poses. Though rejected by many for her past, she made the transition
from film (where she could no longer get financial backing) to commercial
photography, recording areas and regions (e.g., isolated parts of Sudan,
underwater locales) which had previously gone undocumented. Taken in the
late 1960's and early 1970's, her images of the Nuba tribe were published
under the title The Last of the Nuba (1973 ), and the volume immediately
attracted attention. While praising the work for its anthropological outlook,
critics saw parallels between the content--e.g., images of tribal life,
with particular emphasis on the human body, the physical form--and her
earlier work. Some went so far as to accuse her of assuming a colonial
mentality, appropriating what had been the exclusive property of the tribe.
In evaluating Riefenstahl's work, it becomes almost impossible to separate
the biography from the oeuvre, and this is perhaps why her work has been
attacked so frequently. In fact, some have argued that her work embraces
a "fascist aesthetic," a perspective
inherent to her vision.