The Failure of a Nazi Filmmaker's Moral Will

"One imagines this studio as a facility modeled after the one in Noah Hawley's TV series Legion, where AutoCAD and Photoshop are repurposed for mind-control experiments and all of the meanings implied by "branding." Because only billionaires matter in the 21st century, Joe Gebbia (Airbnb) was appointed to head the agency as the "Chief Design Officer." Photos of his smug, benign smile are just as terrifying as RFK Jr.'s official snarl."

"With vast archival resources at his disposal, Veiel has constructed an eviscerating cinematic response to Leni Riefenstahl's life and career. There is no background narrator summing up Riefenstahl's collaboration with Adolf Hitler and the broader Nazi party on Triumph of the Will and Olympia, the films that established her reputation as the preeminent documentarian of the era. Veiel, instead, ingeniously repurposes Riefenstahl's own work, and her own voice, to present a litany of damning evidence."

"Because only billionaires matter in the 21st century, Joe Gebbia (Airbnb) was appointed to head the agency as the "Chief Design Officer." Photos of his smug, benign smile are just as terrifying as RFK Jr.'s official snarl. By accepting the position, Gebbia's complicity is a given-whatever damage this Design Studio manages to unleash. But, should we ever return to a less punitive era, will he be considered as culpable as the man, and the Legion of Super-Villains, who appointed him?"

On Aug. 21 the administration created a National Design Studio, framed with political doublespeak and staffed by billionaire Joe Gebbia as Chief Design Officer. The studio evokes dystopian branding and mind-control metaphors, and the appointment raises questions of complicity and elite influence over public design. Andres Veiel's Riefenstahl assembles vast archival material to deliver an eviscerating portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, highlighting her collaboration with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party through Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Veiel uses Riefenstahl's own footage and voice, and restores a previously cut interview in which she erupts with rage, to amass damning evidence.

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