A orgia dos sentidos: a construção do corpo nas imagens de Olympia, de Leni Riefenstahl

Abstract

The present work aims at the historical study of meanings and constructions of body in the documentary film Olympia (ALE, 1938), by the German director Leni Riefenstahl. The film shows a portray of the Olympic Games in Berlin, occurred two years before in full Nazi regime. In this event, Adolf Hitler promoted an intense mobilization to propagate an image of Germany as a harmonious and pacific nation. But, at the same time, it also searched to demonstrate the physical superiority of the Germanic race over the other ones. It is looked, in this direction, to demonstrate as this body portrayed in this film is resulted of a series of conceptions and social political questions that gain force since the end of XIX century. From the care of itself, the popularity of sports as form to discipline body and mind to the nudist groups that had multiplied in Germany, all these movements had been absorbed and gained new meanings for the totalitarian dictatorship. Olympia shows an ideal of body and beauty unique and segregated, on behalf of which Nazis will promote the elimination of different ones by means of the Final Solution.