''The People of Kau'' is the title of the 1976 English-language translation of German film director

Leni Riefenstahl Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, photographer and actress known for her role in producing Nazi propaganda. A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl also became in ...

's ''Die Nuba von Kau'', an illustrated book, published in the same year in Germany. The book is a follow-up to her earlier successful 1973 photo book '' Die Nuba''.

Synopsis

This is a photographic monograph on the life of the people of Kau in the southern part of

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

. Riefenstahl spent 16 weeks with the

Nuba The Nuba people are indigenous inhabitants of central Sudan. Nuba are various indigenous ethnic groups who inhabit the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state in Sudan, encompassing multiple distinct people that speak different languages which b ...

of Kau in 1975. These people, known as the "South East Nuba", live only 100 miles away from the

Mesakin Mesakin is an ethnic group in the Nuba Hills in Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. ...

Nuba. Yet, they speak another language, follow different customs, and are said to be very different in character and temperament. Their knife-fights, dances of love and elaborately painted faces and bodies are represented in the book.

Background

Between 1962 and 1977, Riefenstahl had been photographing people of different

ethnic groups in the southern part of

on several visits. She was the first white female photographer who had obtained a special permission by the Sudanese government to do her research in the remote

Nuba mountains The Nuba Mountains ( ar, جبال النوبة), also referred to as the Nuba Hills, is an area located in South Kordofan, Sudan. The area is home to a group of indigenous ethnic groups known collectively as the Nuba peoples. In the Middle Ages, ...

. She observed the Nuba's way of life and recorded it on film and in pictures. For some of her photographs and film scenes, she relied on Sudanese cameraman

Gadalla Gubara Gadalla Gubara (, 1920–2008) was a Sudanese cameraman, film producer, director and photographer. Over five decades, he produced more than 50 documentaries and three feature films. He was a pioneer of African cinema, having been a co-founder of ...

, who accompanied her to the Nuba mountains. Together with

George Rodger George William Adam Rodger (19 March 1908 – 24 July 1995) was a British photojournalist noted for his work in Africa and for photographing the mass deaths at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of the Second World War. Life and career ...

's earlier photo essay on the Nuba and Latuka tribes, published in 1951 in

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

magazine, Riefenstahl's photographic documents are of anthropological, ethnological, and cultural-historical importance in relation to traditional life in the Nuba mountains of these times.

Critical reception

The most well-known critical reaction to Riefenstahl's photography of the Nuba came from the American intellectual,

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

. Sontag scrutinized the "fascist aesthetics" of these photo essays in her widely read essay "Fascinating Fascism". Writing in the ''

New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

'' in 1975, she stated: "The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets". She continued "Its choreography alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, 'virile' posing." Sontag wrote that the collection was the "final, necessary step in Riefenstahl's rehabilitation. It is the final rewrite of the past; or, for her partisans, the definitive confirmation that she was always a beauty-freak, rather than a horrid propagandist." Academic studies, giving critical appraisals of Riefenstahl's books on the Nuba people, have been published by Alexandra Ludewig of the University of Western Australia and by

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

James C. Faris of the University of Connecticut. In his biography on Riefenstahl, the German media critic Rainer Rother gives a detailed account of her repeated visits to the Nuba people, comparing her approach to taking the photographs that seem to have started with a personal fascination of an African world, "unspoilt by civilization", up to her later carefully planned photo expeditions in order to further her fame as a photographer. Another examination of both Riefenstahl's books and of James C. Faris's criticism was undertaken as a comment on a television film, called ''The Nuba'' from the BBC “Worlds Apart” ethnographic series. Here, the author John Ryle describes both the approach of the German photographer and of the anthropologist, trying to do justice to both. Also, he questions the attitude and moral judgements of the admirers of such "exotic pictures from Africa".

Synopsis

Background

Critical reception

See also

References

Further reading