Ferocious Reality: Documentary according to Werner Herzog

349 Pages·2012·11.932 MB·English

by  Eric Ames

FEROCIOUS REALITY
VISIBLE EVIDENCE
Michael Renov, Faye Ginsburg, and Jane Gaines, Series Editors
27 FEROCIOUS REALITY: DOCUMENTARY ACCORDING TO WERNER HERZOG
Eric Ames
26 CREATING THE WITNESS: GENOCIDE IN THE AGE OF FILM, VIDEO, AND THE INTERNET
Leshu Torchin
25 CINEMA’S ALCHEMIST: THE FILMS OF PÉTER FORGÁCS
Bill Nichols and Michael Renov, Editors
24 RECORDING REALITY, DESIRING THE REAL
Elizabeth Cowie
23 THE RIGHT TO PLAY ONESELF: LOOKING BACK ON DOCUMENTARY FILM
Thomas Waugh
22 FIRST PERSON JEWISH
Alisa S. Lebow
21 DOCUMENTARY TIME: FILM AND PHENOMENOLOGY
Malin Wahlberg
20 CIRCUITS OFCULTURE: MEDIA, POLITICS, ANDINDIGENOUS IDENTITY IN THE ANDES
Jeff D. Himpele
19 SHIMMERING SCREENS: MAKING MEDIA IN AN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY
Jennifer Deger
18 FOREST OF PRESSURE: OGAWA SHINSUKE AND POSTWAR JAPANESE DOCUMENTARY
Abé Mark Nornes
17 F IS FOR PHONY: FAKE DOCUMENTARY ANDTRUTH’S UNDOING
Alexandra Juhasz and Jesse Lerner, Editors
16 THE SUBJECT OF DOCUMENTARY
Michael Renov
15 JAPANESE DOCUMENTARY FILM: THE MEIJI ERA THROUGH HIROSHIMA
Abé Mark Nornes
14 NACHO LÓPEZ, MEXICAN PHOTOGRAPHER
John Mraz
13 CINÉ-ETHNOGRAPHY
Jean Rouch
12 THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME VIDEO
James M. Moran
(continued on page 337)
FEROCIOUS REALITY
Documentary according to
Werner Herzog
ERIC AMES
Visible Evidence 27
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis · London
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges financial assistance
provided for the publication of this book from the Department of Germanics,
University of Washington.
A portion of chapter 2 was previously published as “Herzog, Landscape, and
Documentary,” Cinema Journal 48, no. 2 (2009): 49–69; copyright 2009 by the
University of Texas Press; all rights reserved. Part of chapter 5 was previously
published as “The Case of Herzog: Re-opened,” in A Companion to Werner Herzog,
ed. Brad Prager, 393–415 (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
The Minnesota Declaration copyright by Werner Herzog.
Copyright 2012 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ames, Eric.
Ferocious reality : documentary according to Werner Herzog / Eric Ames.
(Visible evidence ; 27)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8166-7763-4 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8166-7764-1 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Herzog, Werner, 1942—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Documentary films—History
and criticism. I. Title.
PN1998.3.H477A63 2012
070.1'8—dc23
2012030014
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
The Minnesota Declaration ix
Introduction: Werner Herzog, Documentary Outsider 1
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
1. Sensational Bodies 17
Game in the Sand
Handicapped Future
Land of Silence and Darkness
Wodaabe
2. Moving Landscapes 49
The Dark Glow of the Mountains
Fata Morgana
La Soufrière
Lessons of Darkness
Wheel of Time
3. Ecstatic Journeys 81
Huie’s Sermon
Bells from the Deep
Pilgrimage
4. Baroque Visions 105
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
Death for Five Voices
God and the Burdened
5. Cultural Politics 147
Fitzcarraldo
Ballad of the Little Soldier
Ten Thousand Years Older
The White Diamond
6. Reenactments 181
Little Dieter Needs to Fly
Wings of Hope
Rescue Dawn
7. Autobiographical Acts 215
I Am My Films
Portrait Werner Herzog
My Best Fiend
Grizzly Man
Conclusion: Herzog’s Verité 259
Encounters at the End of the World
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Notes 269
Index 321
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have a number of people to thank for the help they gave me in writing
this book. Several people read portions of the manuscript, and it ben-
efited enormously as a result. They include Maya Barzilai, Jane Brown,
Dan Gilfillan, Deniz Göktürk, Marianne Hirsch, Anton Kaes, Monika
Kaup, Sudhir Mahadevan, Brigitte Prutti, Mark Sandberg, and Diana
Taylor. Special thanks go to Brad Prager for his detailed and constructive
feedback on the entire manuscript. At the University of Washington, I
am grateful to my students for exploring the films with me, to Stephanie
Welch for helping me prepare the illustrations, and to the Department
of Germanics for providing a book subvention. Both the German depart-
ment at Columbia University and a Herzog retrospective at Arizona State
University gave me opportunities to hone key ideas and their presenta-
tion in writing. At the University of Minnesota Press, I am particularly
grateful to Jason Weidemann and to his assistant, Danielle Kasprzak, for
their editorial guidance. Finally, I want to thank my family—Veronika,
Isaac, and Max—for their constant love and support in all my endeavors.
This book is dedicated to them.
vii
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THE MINNESOTA DECLARATION
Truth and fact in documentary cinema
“Lessons of Darkness”
1. By dint of declaration the so-called Cinema Verité is devoid of verité.
It reaches a merely superficial truth, the truth of accountants.
2. One well-known representative of Cinema Verité declared publicly that
truth can be easily found by taking a camera and trying to be honest.
He resembles the night watchman at the Supreme Court who resents the
amount of written law and legal procedures. “For me,” he says, “there
should be only one single law: the bad guys should go to jail.” Unfortu-
nately, he is part right, for most of the many, much of the time.
3. Cinema Verité confounds fact and truth, and thus plows only stones.
And yet, facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes
their inherent truth seem unbelievable.
4. Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.
5. 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.
6. Filmmakers of Cinema Verité resemble tourists who take pictures amid
ancient ruins of facts.
7. Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.
ix