piled by the cash register, sat at the counter, lit a cigarette, and started reading.

In the front section, he skimmed pieces summing up the early days of

the Gerald Ford administration and Richard Nixon’s hermit-like existence

since his resignation. In sports, he checked on the status of Denver Broncos

quarterback Charley Johnson’s wobbly knees. On the cover of the Rocky

Mountain West section, he read of the freshman cadets reporting to the

Air Force Academy fifty miles away in Colorado Springs and laughed at the

pictures of hair shorn as barbers showed no mercy. He opened the section,

flipped a couple of pages and came to the beginning of the “Entertainment and Arts”

pages.

   The lead story startled him. Above the headline were three face shots of

the woman who a few minutes earlier had been sitting in the booth behind

him. All three were from the same interview session. In the first, she smiled.

In the middle, she was pensive. In the third, she decisively was making a

point with her hand.

“Nazi” Controversy Mars Telluride Film Festival

By Steven Garrison

Western Slope Bureau

TELLURIDE—By most standards, the inaugural Telluride Film Festival at

the historic Sheridan Opera House in this southwestern Colorado mountain

town was a spectacular success over the weekend, drawing marquee names,

producing overflow crowds, and establishing itself as a can’t-miss stop on the

festival circuit.

 Talks from acclaimed “Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola and

iconic actress Gloria Swanson were popular, but the appearance of German

filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, noted and criticized for her connection to Adolf

Hitler and the Nazi Third Reich, drew the most attention.

Showings of two of the famed director’s works—“Blue Light,” a 1932 drama

Riefenstahl also starred in, and Part 2 of “Olympia,” a documentary about the

1936 Olympics in Berlin—were respectfully, even reverentially, received in

the showcase evening’s session. Many “Olympia” viewers were surprised to

note that Riefenstahl placed a spotlight on a photogenic Coloradoan, American

decathlon gold medalist Glenn Morris.

Riefenstahl was given thunderous standing ovations after both films, and

also when she was awarded a silver medallion as one of the festival’s main

honorees. Her reaction was akin to those of prima ballerinas or opera sopranos,

with her blowing kisses, repeatedly mouthing “thank you,” and accepting

flowers.

A showing of her most famous film, “Triumph of the Will,” the documentary

about the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, was slotted for 1 a.m.,

drew a smaller crowd and surprisingly little reaction—positive or negative.

During the weekend, security was tight. However, protesters numbered less

than a dozen and their actions didn’t disrupt festival events.

Festival organizers, as they had earlier, noted that Riefenstahl never had

been a member of the Nazi party.

Riefenstahl, still a striking woman at age 72, consented to interviews with

individual reporters in her suite at the Manitou Lodge before the festival began,

reiterating her claims that her films were the work of an artist and that she

was neither philosophically nor politically aligned with Hitler and the Nazis.

“I am independent, always,” she said. “Hitler said about me that ‘Leni is as

stubborn as a donkey.’”

 She denied she ever had been romantically involved with the Nazi leader.

“Because I am a woman and because he admired my work, people who were

jealous or were looking for a good romantic story say I was his lover,” she

stated. “I was never Hitler’s lover. We talked a few times on artistic things.

Never politics. He didn’t talk politics with artists.”

Pointing out she was a successful actress and director before turning to documentaries,

she asserted she made “Triumph of the Will” only after much convincing

from Hitler, who told her that if his propaganda ministry oversaw the

project “it would bore everybody.” She said she told Hitler she was ignorant of

the inner workings and militia designations of the Nazi Party, but that Hitler

saw that as a positive, not a negative. She scoffed at the notion the film was

propaganda.

“It is a documentation, a newsreel done artistically,” she claimed.

Swanson, the star of film’s silent age, especially seemed incredulous that

some considered Riefenstahl’s presence deserving of criticism. “Why?” she

asked. “Is she waving a Nazi flag? I thought Hitler was dead!”

   The cook called Kristy over, gestured at the stool next to him, slid the

section over on the counter to be in front of her, and asked, with eyebrows

raised: “Recognize anyone?”

   “That’s her!”

   “Sure is. Read it.”

   The cook returned to the kitchen. Soon, Kristy poked her head next to

the order wheel.

   “Okay, I’ve read it,” she announced. “And it figures.”

   The cook asked, “How’s it figure?”

   “She left a quarter tip.”