I’ve been in a state of ecstasy for the past week. One man and three movies have allowed me to achieve a deeper level of truth and understanding of film, philosophy and humanity than with any other director I’ve yet had the chance to encounter.
And yet for all the time I’ve spent with him for the last five days, I’m still struggling to search for the ecstatic truth behind Werner Herzog.
Here is a man with an unmistakable legacy. For him to do a complete takeover of Indiana University and the IU Cinema that I love so deeply is unprecedented. Glorious digital screenings of “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Fitzcarraldo” and “Nosferatu the Vampyre” accompanied two Herzog lectures on “The Search for Ecstatic Truth” and “The Transformative Role of Music in Film” throughout all of last week.
It was an opportunity to see some of the best work of a cinematic auteur while simultaneously picking the brain of a notorious character.
Going in, I expected a man capable of candid, spontaneous insanity coupled with darkly poetic and far reaching ruminations on life.
Herzog did not disappoint. His impeccable German diction gives him a nuanced charm, and his hilarious life stories were like sharing moments with an old friend.
But everything I assumed about him was an exaggerated caricature. Herzog is a man of two minds. He is a genius and a madman, a poetic optimist and a dour pessimist, a philosopher and a man of utmost practicality, a realist and yet someone with fantastical dreams and ambitions, a grimly serious speaker and a twistedly sardonic storyteller.
Speakers like my personal friends Jon Vickers and James Paasche described his films as a delicate mixture of reality and artifice achieved through improvisation, impossible shooting conditions and Herzog’s own quest for ecstatic truth. His fictional films are surreal but often draw from reality and authentic landscapes. On the other hand, his documentaries cut deep with their harsh true stories, and yet Herzog shows no qualms at outright fabricating moments and constructing a narrative for his subjects.
The man I witnessed this week is a similar combination of reality and artifice. His poise and character as a public speaker is so captivating that he hits right at your body and mind. And yet his rambling stories and outrageous anecdotes may be little more than apocryphal. But together we get an image of a giant, an artist, and an icon. His presence is truer than anyone working in the movies today. Continue reading “My Week with Werner”