It is never easy to look at Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will as anything other than what Dr. Anthony Santoro quite rightly calls a “supreme propaganda film.” As that, it is nearly unparalleled in the dubious annals of film history.
Compared to John Ford’s studio-bound—though still highly appealing—South Seas adventure The Hurricane, recently reviewed here, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, directed by the great German filmmaker F.W. Murnau, is a patently more realistic and wholly distinctive production.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, as much as it now stands as a cinematic phenomenon and as one of the most astonishing visual releases of the silent era, was, nevertheless, something of an enigma even in its own time.
‘Sunrise,’ from 1927, is one of the greatest of all films. It is a touching, beautiful, and artistically accomplished movie, one of the best ever made, and unlike anything to come out of the studio system.’