One picture may be worth a thousand words, but one visit must be worth a hundred thousand pictures. Short of a visit the 160 photos in Das Fuehrerhauptquartier 1939-1945 are the next best thing. Time, for one thing. Andrew Sarris in the 1970s could praise Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will even to the point of remarking that one might well, were a viewing of Triumph his only key, wonder what all this fuss about Hitler's Germany being so bad was about. Francis Ford Coppola could publicly proclaim his admiration for Riefenstahl - even to the point of organizing a festival retrospective for her.
Films shows just how much.
Preceding all is a brief foreword explaining the purpose and scope of the work. As in any such arbitrary selective production, one might quarrel here and there with what has been omitted. But choosing a comparative handful from the hundreds of films made during the National Socialist era is not easy, and editor Michele Sakkara has succeeded remarkably well in culling those films which demonstrate the versatility and high artistic quality of the German cinema of those years. All the great ones are here. Indeed only one documentary, Riefenstahl's Olympia , is mentioned at any length.