Werner Herzog: Interruptus Night One

[zalena]

I was woken at 4 AM by a hail storm. It is cloudy this morning and there is a mist creeping up from the river. I seem to recall I was dreaming about Werner Herzog, which doesn't surprise me, since I've been saturated in this environment since Sunday. Last night's experience was amazing, even if these kinds of events seem to bring out the jackass in Joe Q. Public. Herzog, himself, was amazing with a graciousness and a gravitas that made even the stupidest questions seem astute.

Seeing him yesterday was both more exciting and frustrating than I imagined it would be. His lecture on traveling by foot was a something that I think would interest the BP, particularly his observation that Petrarch was the first person to record ever climbing a mountain just for the hell of it, giving birth to what we now know as tourism. I wonder if how well he'd mesh with the BP's Dark Ecology? I'm tempted to send his lecture to the BP and Herzog a copy of the BP's book. He is definitely onboard with the agnostic eschatology of the Third Mass Extinction Event.

Ebert was there with his amazing wife, Chaz. His computer voice is only a rough approximation of Original Ebert with the oddity of syntax that one gets with all synthesized voices. But just to see him, to hear him, was a kind of triumph. Ebert has become a sort of hero over the years. I feel indebted to him... of all things... as a reviewer. Reading his reviews---and now his blog---is an ongoing education. We are lucky to have him.

Herzog is taller than I thought he would be (and if he were to be played by another actor, it would be Geoffrey Rush) and there was a very interesting portion of his lecture re: German legitimacy: what it takes to overcome barbarianism and partition that brought tears to my eyes. How his mentor brought Herzog's work to the attention of Fritz Lang who said there would never be German cinema, again. This is very much along the lines of the Youth & Militarism issue I've been engaged with this year. There are certain things that will make me cry just about every time: 1. liberation theology is one of them 2. Youth and militarism is another, particularly regarding That War. It's horrors weren't just perpetrated on the rest of the world. It destroyed its own people. (Also some question about where Herzog fits in the tradition of wandervogel, though he himself would delineate between hiking and his extreme walks.)

One of the things that Neiman suggests addressing in our own era of American shame is looking to German reconstruction and reunification to start examining how to rebuild the trust we lost with Bush-era torture and preemptive warfare. She says that the gap between what is and what ought to be is never so large that we cannot keep striving. Herzog seems to think that this process takes generations (I agree,) but spoke of the permeability of boundaries: describing his own work---experiences, really---as an exploration of liminal space.

Herzog also says he doesn't dream and this is why he makes the films he does. Most people dream internally. He dreams externally. There are a lot more funny and pragmatic stories about his work that I will talk about later. I'm just feeling incredibly overwhelmed. Picking up a manuscript I'm supposed to evaluate last night, my interlocutor said, "It's been a long time since I've regularly attended lectures..." and I responded, "Heck, it's been a long time since I've been out in public..." which isn't precisely true, I run errands---go to the library, post-office, etc. at least once a day. But crowds... not so much. In fact, I deliberately avoid being out at rush hour: before 9 AM and between 3-6 PM. There were some really obnoxious grad students behind me whose general lack of information or critical awareness made me feel crazy. ("These can't be grad students!" I thought. "Grad students are supposed to be smart!" But there they were comparing notes on all the 'easy' (undemanding) professors.) And of all people in the audience a elderly Russian woman plopped down next to me and demanded explanations for every little thing (we have a German film about Spanish explorers in South America with English subtitles) before finally giving up in irritation, "This I Cannot Accept!" she announced as she left. I think she wanted to see a movie and didn't understand it would be interrupted despite my attempts to explain that everything was proceeding as intended. We only got through 15 minutes of film in the first installment Cinema Interruptus.

But most of all, I missed having some company. Someone who could sit there with me and see how frickin' ecstatic I was to be there, in the company of two artists whose work I love. All these words could be much more easily communicated if you could see me sitting on the edge of my seat, paying rapt attention, laughing at all the jokes, wiping away tears, and ready to squeeze the living daylights out of anything I could get my hands upon. (I thoroughly mangled one of my favorite pens.) I'm still feeling a little star-struck, but in a way I can't explain. It would serve nothing for me to join the crowd of glad-handers eager to show off their own intelligence or gush-forth with appreciation. I have nothing to say to these people, but they have a great deal, yet, to say to me. And for that I feel greatly humbled.

Comments

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[cawriter.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for the report!