WERNER HERZOG, A JOURNEY TO ROMANTICISM

Written by Jules Cook 19/04/2020 Student Number: 180423

This research project will focus on Werner Herzog and his work, in particular ‘Grizzly Man’, the documentary from 2005 to analyse how, why and with what effect real-life stories and situations are used as the basis of their film and/or TV work. The following critical and theoretical approaches of Cinéma-Vérité, German New Cinema and Romanticism will be employed.

HERZOG, GERMAN CINEMA AND FILM DECADENCE

After the Second World War, Germany emancipated itself through art and cinema. Slowly detaching itself from Nazism and propaganda cinema. Freedom of speech marked the beginning of a new era for a new artistic film movement: The German New Cinema. Making its debuts in the early sixties, some ‘auteur’ filmmakers have surfaced from post war, wasteland Germany. Amongst them, Reine Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog and others… They were all more or less animated to present a commentary on Germany in a way that awakened criticism from the audience. They saw film as a way to shock and in essence, change society. German New Cinema was an opportunity for young filmmakers to make their debuts in the cinema industry, as most of the films were made with a very low budget (an average of £200,000 per film at the time). And indeed, the government was very involved in the funding of new German auteurs after the Oberhausen Manifesto, a document signed by 26 young filmmakers “claiming the right to create the New German Feature Film” in 1965, was put together. Although Werner Herzog moved into another direction at the end of the seventies, and although his feelings contradict, “I don’t really feel that I am part of the German Cinema. I work alone for the most part without a lot of contact” (Herzog; Ames: 2014:53). It is key to say that his contribution to German culture (in cinema and literature) was crucial. With his controversial experiments, conquest for authenticity with breathtaking feature films, he might have changed contemporary filmmaking and indeed German cultural history.

It is not until later that Herzog dedicated himself to documentary filmmaking. A genre that he had mastered in his own way, experimented with, disregarding rules and conventions.

The chaos that Werner Herzog exudes is something that made him catch the attention of the world of cinema. He believes that the best way to start in the industry of filmmaking is to steal a camera. He in fact, stole a camera from the Munich Institute for Film Research with which he shot his first eight feature films. He claims that the sole purpose of the camera was to be stolen by him, to fulfil its ‘destiny’. This aspect of Herzog makes people categorise his films as guerrilla style, and indeed, handheld camera, improvised takes are dominant across Herzog’s work. As absurd as it may sound, this same chaos is also reflected through his persona, in interviews, but also in his own films.

He has strong opinions on cultural matters and sets of ideas, as he proved with his Minnesota Declaration for example. He sees Cinema as an athletic constitution “I believe I gained a physical sense for movement. […] For me making a film is a really physical labour.” (Herzog; Ames: 2014:54). And indeed, to accomplish authenticity in his films, he uses real elements, life-sized props, like the steamboat in ‘Fitzcarraldo’. This exacerbated devotion is in essence what truly makes Herzog, Herzog. An artist of decadence.

He believes that pilgrimage, walking by foot, is the only way to prove devotion to someone else. In 1974, he walked from Munich to Paris by foot, in the span of three weeks, to ‘prevent the death’ of Lotte Eisner, here is a quote from ‘Of Walking in Ice’, a book he wrote that documents his journey:

“At the end of November 1974, a friend from Paris called and told me that Lotte Eisner was seriously ill and would probably die. I said that this must not be, not at this time, German cinema could not do without her now, we would not permit her death. I took a jacket, a compass, and a duffel bag with the necessities. My boots were so solid and new that I had confidence in them. I set off on the most direct route to Paris, in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot.” (Herzog: 1978:7)

Lotte Eisner was a well-known writer and film critic. She was not only, Herzog’s dear friend, but she was also his mentor. She represented for him, the heritage of German Cinema, “German Cinema could not do without her now, we would not permit her death…” (Herzog; Erman: 2015). She embodied the traditions of filmmaking during the Weimar regime “and furnished a useful past for the directors who would constitute the New German Cinema” (Erman: 2015). She was fundamentally Herzog’s last link between the old world (of cinema and Germany), and the contemporary world. This explains a lot of inspiration from German Expressionist Cinema especially through Herzog’s own work of fiction.

In the beginning of the 1960’s, a new model of cameras that used 16mm film was created. Unlike the usual 35mm cameras at the time, they were less bulky and more easily transportable. It inevitably led to a new genre of documentary filmmaking: “cinéma-vérité”, or “direct cinema”. One of its main predecessors Jean Rouch described the genre as “a deeper level of truth about the world than the ‘imperfect human eye’” (Rouch; Cousins, Macdonald: 2006:249). It, in essence, captures the truth as it is, in its immediate intimacy. Many of the films following the genre are handheld, usually wobbly and at times, out of focus.

Some criticize cinéma-vérité and argue that the so-called ‘fly on the wall’ is a mere illusion. In fact, the camera makes the subject behave a certain way that could be perhaps unnatural or unreal.

“We have been too sophisticated for too long to think that documentary can be “life caught unawares” in any meaningfully unmediated way because appearing before the documentary camera cannot normally avoid awareness, a source of audience distrust.” (Wang, Vanstone, Winston: 2017:85)

Furthermore, new waves of documentary approach followed, opposed to ‘cinema-vérité’ and believe that it is the Documentary filmmaker’s job to show the objectified truth, in reality, documentaries will never be less than primarily subjective. The lens and the editing are indeed a reflection of the filmmaker’s vision: we are seeing the truth: through the eyes of someone else.

“[There is] a crucial shift in the documentary idiom, almost an epistemological break, in which the old idea of objectivity is seen as naïve and outmoded, and is revoked by asserting the subjective identity of the filmmaker within the text of the film’”. (Saunders 2010:77)

Werner Herzog’s desire to show real life stories is contradicted by his opposition to cinéma- vérité. He defines the film genre as being ‘fact oriented and primitive’.

“It is the accountant’s truth, merely skirting the surface of what constitutes a deeper form of truth in cinema, reaching only the most banal level of understanding.” (Herzog; Cronin: 2014:287)

He even gives an open critique to cinéma-vérité in his Minnesota Declaration, a manifesto he wrote in twelve points, sharing facts and beliefs about the Cinema of the Real. It goes on to say that, in order to compete with his opposite school of thought, he re-invents the documentary genre by blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction.

“The line between fiction and documentary doesn’t exist for me. My documentaries are often fictions in disguise. All my films, every one of them, take facts, characters and stories and play with them in the same way.” (Herzog; Cronin, 2014:287).

Herzog undoubtedly manages to fool us as an audience. He does this not only in his fiction films, where he shoots authentic landscapes, situations and scenery like in ‘Fitzcarraldo’ (1983; Figure 1), in which he dragged a real steamboat over a slope in Amazonian Peru, but he also fools us in his documentaries, where he has asked some of his subjects to recite dialogue or perform specific acts. In ‘Bells from the Deep’ (1993; Figure 2), he hired drunken Russian men to play the part of pilgrims in search of the lost city of Kitezh. The purpose of this trickery isn’t only to fool us. Herzog believes that in acting the truth lays a more sublime authenticity. As he calls it: “the ecstatic truth”.

“There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization." (Herzog)

In other words, Herzog proclaims himself to be an artist or a poet instead of a documentary filmmaker.

Bill Nichols in his ‘Introduction to Documentary’ (2001) distinguishes the ‘poetic mode’ as a separate genre of documentary filmmaking. He argues that Poetic Documentaries are purposely detaching themselves from the objective truth and instead, follow a narrative showing the filmmakers’ philosophies. This is precisely what Herzog does in his non-fiction work. In ‘Grizzly Man’ (2005) for example, he interrupts Timothy Treadwell’s monologues many times to give his separate, yet entirely opposite point of view in order to alter the narration.

A MODERN PHILOSOPHER

Landscapes are omnipresent in Herzog’s films. He does this not only as a reminder of how small humanity is compared to the greatness of nature, but also builds a background that is similar to an otherworldly fantasy universe. From the hypnotic volcanoes in ‘Into the Inferno’ (2016), the bucolic and hostile jungles in ‘Fitzcarraldo’ (1983), to the alien looking Alaskan forests in ‘Grizzly Man’ (2005). It could remind us of a specific period in art history: Romanticism. The era could be defined by the expression of poets, philosophers and artists trying to establish the sublime portrait for the unacknowledged mind, or artist. A sympathy for what is being forgotten, like the absence of the superficial. One of the most emblematic paintings of this artistic movement from the XVIIIth century is the ‘Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’ (Figure 3: Caspar David Friedrich, 1818), which Herzog has a deep admiration for.

“A man is alone, small, insignificant in the vast landscape. The landscape isn’t just a backdrop, it is like the inner landscape representing the soul’s condition.” “Friedrich didn’t paint landscapes per se; he revealed inner landscapes to us, ones that exist only in our dreams. It’s something I have always tried to do with my films.” (Herzog; Cronin 2014:142)

We can see there are many romantic characters across Herzog’s fiction work, but the portrayal of Timothy Treadwell in ‘Grizzly Man’, is comparable with the wanderer, representing a certain naïveté and childishness.

Or a romantic landscape, we might remember best the strange and empty African deserts in ‘Fata Morgana’ (1971; Figure 4). A peculiar example as there are many elements that add up to it’s psychedelic nature, like the panoramic movements from left to right and vice versa, the strange and almost abstract apparition of shapes, people, vehicles from the desert and the calm narration of Lotte Eisner.

The addition of these features convey the audience to an unreal place. Almost like a dream, it hypnotizes the audience. It is a characteristic that Herzog re-employs in many of his films.

The Herzogian (anti) hero answers all of his philosophies and beliefs, making us think there is some part of unintentional autobiographical elements in the characters depicted, whether they are fictional or not. Often driven by madness, having a special relationship with nature (that always seem to have the upper hand eventually).

“A chaos of nature threatens to overwhelm a protagonist who is driven sometimes for obscure reasons, to fight against it.” (Erman 2015).

The more apparent protagonists in this scheme are probably Timothy Treadwell, and the old man in Guadeloupe’s “La Souffrière” (1977) who patiently awaits his death, nonchalant, from the erupting volcano. His characters often follow a Rousseauian moral such as ‘the state of nature”, putting the primitive sense of being over the civilized; civilization, which destroyed all of human decency. Rousseau was moreover the precursor of the Romantic Movement. Rousseau might not be the only current of philosophy we can refer to when it comes to Herzog’s films. We can compare for example Treadwell to Thoreau. He is undeniably showing himself as disobedient of the higher power. In this case, the Park Services (“Fuck You Park Services!” he shouts to the camera). He deals with a form of ‘oppression’ (society) by living alone in the Grizzly Maze, as a sort of escapism. He considers himself as being part of nature instead of a separate force. He is part of the ecosystem. In a way, his death provided food for the grizzlies he spent so much time with. A death, that corresponds to his ethics and beliefs. And finally, he has an almost spiritual connection with nature. When Treadwell prays to God for rain, in tears, desperate to provide food and life to the dying Alaskan Maze, he is answered a few minutes later by showers of rain to which he reacts with pure euphoria (: there is a God, there is harmony). Transcendentalism becomes apparent. Treadwell believes in harmony and beauty. He is in substance an embodiment of Romanticism. Meanwhile Herzog can be compared with a more Kantian school of thought that all of nature is hostility and that men are lost without the presence of civilization. “The common denominator of the universe is not harmony but chaos, hostility and murder.” (Herzog in ‘Grizzly Man’).

The difference of those opposing characteristics meant only to bind the two ‘protagonists’. Rather than being an enemy, Herzog is in fact showing empathy to a man to whom he relates in a strange kind of way. The courage and escapism makes us dream, but fear wild nature. Wild nature, which has been Herzog’s biggest ghost.

A STYLISED DOCUMENTARY NARRATIVE

Archival footage constitutes an important part in Herzog’s films. As much as they are mostly from his own personal collection, gathered over the years and throughout his filmography, the archive collection that stands out the most is the one from ‘Grizzly Man’. Most of the film consists of the footage found from activist Timothy Treadwell’s camera. According to an interview with Sheffield Doc/Fest (2019), more than a hundred hours of footage were found against five hours of complementary footage Herzog shot of mostly interviews with Treadwell’s close relatives.

In most of the videos, we can see the bizarre apparition of the bear enthusiast doing daring and courageous things no man would do, by pure naïveté, posing almost, as a is the background is only a ‘photogenic décor’ (Figure 5). Amazed and interested, it led Herzog to directing the film. It also led the audience to question the authenticity of the footage.

“When Grizzly Man came out, children – drowning in the manipulated digital images that surround them and invade their every moment – insisted there was no way that Timothy Treadwell’s footage was real. […] By insisting that this kind of imagery must be the result of digital trickery, they reveal themselves to be disconnected from the real world.” (Herzog; Cronin 2014:326)

Through the narration, Herzog expresses his strong belief that contradicts Treadwell’s fantasy. Yet, there is a strange similarity between the director and his subject. There is the same intensity of interest toward nature and it’s wonders from both parts. They are expressed in such a homogeneous and singular way. “There are points of similarity […] including the theatricality of their voice overs. […] The hushed tones, for instance, designed to promote suspense and awe.” (Herzog; Prager 2012:48).

There is additionally, an omnipresent unease in watching the footage of a dead man. Essayist Brigitte Peucker compares the horror of ‘Grizzly Man’ with the one from ‘The Blair Witch Project’ (1999). The Blair Witch Project’s main concept gravitates towards fictional archive footage found from unfortunate people who disappeared after looking for evidence of the ‘Blair Witch’ myth. The fact that we know, from the start, the footage has been manipulated by someone else, someone exterior, and the tragic destiny that awaits the protagonists establishes unsettlement, something the two films accomplish to deliver. One scene in particular from ‘Grizzly Man’ translates as morbid is when Herzog listens to the very last tape (Figure 6), recording only the sound of the tragic event. When, one of the ‘protected’ bears decides to kill, and eat Treadwell and his girlfriend. We only get to listen to the tape through the facial expression of Treadwell’s old friend looking intensely at Herzog listening to the recording, mortified. There is gloom to this scene that seems both overwhelmingly dramatized and, somehow, exuding a certain worldliness of the act: sitting around a coffee table, listening to someone’s death tape.

The cynical depiction of Treadwell is also made by keeping the takes when he plays a conventional television presenter, in the style of Steve Irwin. It not only plays with the ambiguous authenticity that Herzog stands for, but proffers a light humour, an amusement that relaxes us from the dangerous and shaky environment in which Treadwell is situated.

Even the title: ‘Grizzly Man’ suggests a mythical being between man and animal. This anthropomorphic figure refers to super heroes who, sometimes get their powers from animal characteristics, in this case it refers also to the absurdity the man has with the bears, or rather, the fiction the film tries to achieve.

“And yet, while the intrusion of the camera threatens to rupture both the realism and the fictional diegesis of Treadwell’s world, Thompson’s epic nondiegetic guitar eulogies suture the ‘fictive elements’ whilst also softening the home movie feel.” (Herzog; Prager 2012:194)

The progression of the film, made very apparent in the editing, is the choice to show a shift between a ‘clean nature’, as though we are looking through Treadwell’s eyes. Bears are fluffy, playful in the background in a very calm atmosphere, with soothing music, like a landscape painting from the XVIIIth century. Towards the end, bones and carcasses of dead animals (the foxes and bears we saw playing with Treadwell in the beginning) Timothy filmed are shown. An invisible tension is built between the protagonist and his bear friends, one even tries to attack him in vain. Herzog’s point of view is expressed, bears do not care for Treadwell’s life, and they are forever indifferent to man.

The narration in Herzog’s films is abundantly present. It not only provides context and information about the current situation on screen but also is an instrument to share thoughts and opinions. Indeed, the expected objectivity from a generic documentary shifts to a fascinating subjective narration. We have to take into account Herzog’s signature voice-over, which we can split into two main structure aspects.

The first is the voice acting. It is important to say that most of his films include an immersive narration. His German accent plays the part as it gives a certain ‘intellectual flair’ to what he is stating. The slow pace on some of the words is captivating and almost hypnotizing. In summary, he doesn’t only set a mood through his voice acting but he offers a performance in which he plays the part of a mysterious and intricate character.

“Herzog has stated that the use of his own voice gives his work ‘authenticity and credibility’ but to English speaking audiences his accent adds a further dimension: that of Herzog as a German auteur, taking us on a distinctive kind of cinematic journey.” (Cited as Walters 2007:66 Prager 2012:540)

The second is the writing. His German, romantic heritage pushes him to write about subjects that seem relevant to him on a personal level. In ‘Grizzly Man’, we have an interesting duality of opinions on nature for example. On one side we have Treadwell’s naïve belief that every creature that he encounters is a friend. And on the other, we have Herzog’s dark, fatalistic, yet realistic vision of nature as an unmerciful force, indifferent about life and death. That is to say, convincingly, he shapes real-life stories to fit his own process of reflection, his own opinions. He affirms, that his vision is deliberately transcending the many etiquettes of documentary conventions, in his own words: he goes ‘beyond journalism’.

Arguably, it is hard to say that Herzog contributed to the aesthetic of the film. However, the aesthetic contribution is made obvious in the edit, choosing amongst the hundreds of hours of footage some of the most eye-catching photography accompanied by a music that settles a mood in a very seamless fashion. The story is thus not only provided, by the content but also with the tools of post-production.

The elements viewed previously are what make, in essence, a film, truly ‘Herzogian’. This genre hasn’t escaped the eyes of the mainstream. It even goes to an extent where the Director accepts to play his own caricature in parodies such as the mockumentary ‘Incident at Loch Ness’ (2004) for example or appear as an extra in television shows like ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Family Guy’, or recently, ‘Rick and Morty’.

“[Incident at Loch Ness is] Mocking Herzog’s most cherished principles of filmmaking, the film spoofs not only Herzog’s themes but also the postures that define him as an auteur.” (Peucker; Prager 2012:38)

In other words, he makes the choice to criticize his own work, style and personality with a self-deprecating and amused gaze, to the greatest pleasure of the public. His eccentric and chaotic personality indeed makes a target for American audience, who see him as some archetype of the ‘pretentious European avant-garde, film director’.

“Herzog subsequently tried using self-questioning and self-parodic multiple voice overs in Fata Morgana (1969). This was an interesting experiment, which, however, had no follow ups, as he decided thereafter to take up the narrative voice himself, a role he has performed in the conservative voice-of-god/ voice of authority style ever since, even when he must speak in his heavily accented English, a trait which over the years has become integral and signature to his public persona.” (Prager 2012)

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the controversial director Werner Herzog lives up to the expectations of an auteur from the German New Wave, yet detaching from all forms of formality. He inserts a chaotic point of view that always reorients the narration of his films with his iconic narration style. He is a modern Romantic Auteur who has a particular taste for the excluded, and the overwhelming nature that is synonymous with the ones of many philosophers of the XVIIIth century. Out-dated? Or rather implementing this traditional vision into a more modern context? Context, story that is stylised by a complex editing, a complex use of archives that in the end makes the message film quite straight foreword: Rather than showing real-life stories, he would show a built narrative to only show what his vision is of the real-life stories. In summary, a subjective documentary, in its purest form of truth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (in order of apparition in text)

FILMS

Grizzly Man (2005) Directed by Werner Herzog [DVD] United States of America: Revolver Entertainment.

Fitzcarraldo (1982) Directed by Werner Herzog [DVD] London: Anchor Bay Entertainment UK.

Bells from the Deep (1993) Directed by Werner Herzog [DVD] Munich: Werner Herzog Film GMBH.

Fata Morgana (1969) Directed by Werner Herzog [DVD] Anchor Bay Home Entertainment UK.

La Souffrière (1977) Directed by Werner Herzog [DVD] Revolver Entertainment.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) Directed by Daniel Myrick [DVD] Artisan Entertainment.

Incident at Loch Ness (2004) Directed by Zack Penn [DVD] 20th Century Fox.

DOCUMENTS

Dan Erman (2015) Lotte Dieter Needs to fly At: https://www.publicbooks.org/lotte-eisner- needs-to-fly/?fbclid=IwAR3BIvUDz7_96xew_9pakT3OpVjjuIR2lZ_70CRVY62gmDF9G- ngrkKsBeo (accessed on 19/04/2020)

The new German cinema, Herzog, Fassbinder, Schlöndorff, Wenders, Syberberg (date: unknown) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXj1UqF_Hvw&t=1209s (accessed on 19/04/2020)

A Conversation with Werner Herzog - Doc/Fest (2019) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXgRCI33Js0&fbclid=IwAR2- eFWmMnP3AWOIr_SM_f59DbgQ5FM_FTkwUfPBr2JixPkb7sRT1XLtuGM (accessed on 19/04/2020)

BOOKS

Eric Ames (2014) Werner Herzog: Interview. United States of America: University press of Mississippi.

Annette Kuhn, Guy Westwell (2012) A Dictionary of Film Studies. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Werner Herzog (2014) Of Walking In Ice. United States of America: University of Minnesota Press.

Mark Cousins, Kevin Macdonald (2006) Imagining Reality: the Faber book of documentary. London : Faber & Faber.

Chi Wang, Gail Vanstone, Brian Winston (2017) The Act of Documenting: Documentary Film in the 21st Century. London : Bloomsbury Publishing.

David Saunders (2010) Documentary. London: Routledge.

Paul Cronin (2014) Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed. London : Faber & Faber.

Bill Nichols (2001) Introduction to Documentary. United States of America: Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.

Brad Prager (2012) A Companion to Werner Herzog. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Elizabeth Henry (2010) Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film – The Screaming Silence. United States of America: University of Virginia Press.

ICONOGRAPHY

Opening Image: Werner Herzog with Grizzly (date: unknown) accessed at: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/558088/facts-about-grizzly-man-werner-herzog- documentary

Figure 1: Werner Herzog (1983) Fitzcarraldo [still from the film]

Figure 2: Werner Herzog (1993) Bells from the Deep [still from the film]

Figure 3: Caspar David Friedrich (1881) Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog accessed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer_above_the_Sea_of_Fog#/media/File:Caspar_David_ Friedrich_-_Wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog.jpg

Figure 4: Werner Herzog (1969) Fata Morgana [still from the film]

Figure 5: Werner Herzog (2005) Grizzly Man [still from the film]

Figure 6: Werner Herzog (2005) Grizzly Man [still from the film]