Leni Riefenstahl The Valley of the Shadow

Author's PrefaceThe Valley of the Shadow - novel In November, 1938, Leni Riefenstahl brings her Olympic film to New York, just as Kristallnacht - the night in which the full force of Nazi persecution is unleashed against the German Jews - makes her the most prominent German who is available to the American media. Stung by the discrepancy between her own assessment of herself as an independent artist, and the assumption of the media that she is a spokesperson for the Nazi government, she makes the New York visit the frame for a review of her entire inner-life.The Making of The Valley of the Shadow - a reflective journal This journal records my reflections on the process of the crafting of the novel as it evolved through the stages of planning, writing, editing and polishing. It constitutes an effort to be as conscious as possible of the process whereby the single idea that suggested the topic of the novel was expanded into a complex work of art. Topics range from the nuts and bolts of novel-building to the nature of the novel as an art-form.Planning The Valley of the Shadow - a planning notebook During the writing of the novel, I kept a hand-written notebook which records the day-by-day development of the novel as it found its shape and style. The notebook - now in print form - reveals how a vast cluster of thoughts was sifted, selected, structured and polished into novel-form.The Project Together, this novel, journal and notebook comprise the eighth installment in an on-going novel-writing project in which I am exploring the concept of form and meaning in the novel, and of the novel as a form of expression in the 21st Century. All of the published journals and notebooks are available for free download at www.johnpassfield.ca.The Topic The story of Leni Riefenstahl is an interesting variation on the pattern of the artist in a repressive society. During the 1930s, she achieves artistic greatness through her innovative film work, yet is seemingly unconcerned with the mounting evidence of the diabolical nature of the emerging Nazi state. However, her selective viewpoint is challenged during the visit to New York, in 1938, when the shock of Kristallnacht in her homeland and the relentless probing of the motives behind her career by the media forces of a democracy trigger a reconsideration of her role as an artist in a totalitarian society. The film-maker, who has always regarded her career as non-political, is forced to review her life's work with an awareness that it has been accomplished during the emergence and growth of the Nazi menace. Within the frame of the novel, Kristallnacht affirms that she has been making films within the shadow of the most diabolical regime that could be imagined. The story, as it unfolds within the mind of the main character, presents a number of elements for the consideration of the reader, including the pressures which the main character faces, the ambitions which she has, the artistic impulses which she wishes to satisfy and the decisions that she makes in response to her situation. The historical figure, Leni Riefenstahl, has remained controversial into our own time. In presenting her situation as typical of the moral dilemma that all artists face who live under the shadows of repressive regimes, the novel should stimulate interest in both the particular choices that Leni Riefenstahl made and the choices that other artists have made in similar circumstances. This novel, in exploring the responsibilities of the artist in the midst of a world moral crisis, probes the inner-workings of a mind that defies simplistic analysis and polarizes opinion to this day.John PassfieldCayuga, Ontario, Canada