Audrey Salkeld, Jonathan Cape

Where she felt herself most at variance with Fanck was in the juxtaposition of reality and magic. Fanck's filming was magic, no question about that: he produced glittering, unearthly, fantastical images, yet he would persist in trying to marry these to such obstinately prosaic plots. Everyday realism, in Leni's opinion, called for realistic, rather than fairy tale visuals. To make the most of his beautiful shots, he ought to be raising plots from fable or fantasy, the sort of stories, in other words, which so strongly appealed to her. This overriding feeling that form and content should coincide reinforced in her the desire to write her own ballad or legend for such a film, in very much the same way as she had for dance. She began constructing situations and scenes in her own mind, not at first with any intention of directing the film herself, for she still saw herself primarily as an actress. That was her chosen career, after all, the career in dedication to which she had given up her beloved dancing. And she had talent for it - perhaps not a great one, but one she did not care to fritter away. Yet there remained this growing need to encompass more. She was being impelled into film making by her very nature and by the knowledge she was soaking up so readily. She had had her fill of icy cold, of tempests and glaciers. Though mountains still held her in thrall, it was those sunwashed Dolomitic pinnacles that she hankered after, the dream mountains she had first fallen in love with:

Mountains, trees, people's faces, I was seeing them quite differently, in their particular moods and movements. The urge to create something of my own grew ever stronger. Whether I found myself on a lonely hill path or a train to Berlin, or in the bustle of the city, always images kept rising within me ... A waterfall, crystals, the menacing branches of a stark, solitary tree, sunbeams breaking through mist, twinkling dew on grass, flowers . . .'

She saw a young girl, living in the mountains, a creature of nature, ragged, outcast ... She saw the harsh, lean heads of mountain peasants ... saw these peasants hunt the girl through narrow village streets, hurling stones . She saw a bridge, heard the echo of vengeful cries off the mountain wall ... And high above, beyond everything, the rock face gleamed with a strange blue light ...

The tragedy of Das Blaue Licht (The Blue Light) was taking shape. It was not an old Dolomite legend, as many supposed, though its roots were in the true tradition of folk and fairy tales. Riefenstahl was often asked where the idea came from, and she would say only that one of her early successful dances had been The Blue Flower: she supposed she must have drawn inspiration from that.

From the beginning, Junta, the young girl of the story, was conceived as an embodiment of herself--or at least she only ever saw herself playing the role. It was the summation of all the parts she had ever wanted to play. The name Junta came to her from nowhere, she said; she had never consciously heard it before. In her story, this strange faerie-creature, sleepwalking, climbs towards the blue light, which is only visible on nights of full moon. It is the glow emitted by rock crystals in a secret grotto when lunar rays catch it from a particular angle. It is symbolic, too, of the light or ideal that young people should always be seeking. Junta is the only one who can reach it because she is pure of heart. Village lads, when they try, fall to their destruction, and the light has therefore come to be seen as a curse on the little community. Parents seek to keep their children at home behind closed shutters.

One day, a Viennese artist, Vigo, arrives in the village. He learns of the mysterious light that lures young men to their doom, and of a wild girl who lives high on the mountainside. He sees how the villagers shun her, drive her away with stones if she ventures into the valley. After witnessing one such scene, Vigo follows the girl back to her mountain retreat. Soon he is hopelessly bewitched by her and when, at the next full moon, the blue light gleams once more and Junta slips out to climb her Monte Cristallo, a bewildered Vigo is only a few steps behind her. As he follows higher, he suddenly realises she has known the mountain's secret all along, the secret which so fitfully eluded the villagers. She leads him up a hidden gully towards the summit, completely unaware of his presence. Soon, he too is party the mystery: never has he seen anything so wondrous as this cavern of shimmering crystals in the moonlight.

Excitedly, Vigo returns to the valley to tell all, convinced that by the discovery he will dispel the superstitious dread of the mountain and, with it, all antagonism towards Junta. Soon he is leading the villagers back to the cave, from where they remove all the crystals.

Junta finds a dropped crystal on the track and knows at once that some dreadful violation has taken place. Immediately, she begins clambering the rocky chffs to see for herself. But without the blue light to guide her steps, she slips and plunges to her death. Vigo, on finding her body the next day, comes to realize, too late, that in his attempt to do right by the village and Junta, he has been responsible for this tragedy. The realist had killed the dream.

Shyly, Leni shows her outline script to a few friends. They seem to like it but she cannot raise any enthusiasm among film producers. Everyone tells her it would be practically impossible to film (in black and white, as it still was then). She is devastated. How can they say that? To her it is blindingly obvious how it could be done. She even has a good idea how the night scenes might be brought to life. Far from losing heart or faith in the whole idea, she sees that to make it come true is up to her alone.

Could she direct it herself? It was not something she felt completely happy about, though if she played the lead as well, that would be two fat salaries dispensed with ... and everything could be shot out of doors; there was no need of elaborate sets--apart from the crystal grotto ... She still needed money. What would be the smallest crew she could get away with--eight? It might just be possible. If only they could be persuaded to work without wages until after the film was completed, all she would have to fund initially would be the flhn stock- and subsistence in the mountain huts. It was no good, she couldn't make the sums add up, even so. She tried Sokal, who was quite a mogul these days, having made a killing out of Piz Palu, but though he had faith in her talents, he was not ready to sink his own money into such a flimsy venture.