...Werner Herzog's postmodernist tirade. Reactions?
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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."
Unfortunately, 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.
8. Each year at springtime scores of people on snowmobiles crash through the melting ice on the lakes of Minnesota and drown. Pressure is mounting on the new governor to pass a protective law. He, the former wrestler and bodyguard, has the only sage answer to this: "You can´t legislate stupidity."
9. The gauntlet is hereby thrown down.
10. The moon is dull. Mother Nature doesn´t call, doesn´t speak to you, although a glacier eventually farts. And don´t you listen to the Song of Life.
11. We ought to be grateful that the Universe out there knows no smile.
12. Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of a hell that during evolution some species - including man - crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota April 30, 1999
Werner Herzog
source:
http://wernerherzog.com/main/index.htm
truth and fact in documentary cinema
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steve hyde
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audadvnc
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Oh, heck, I remember hearing about that Herzog appearance in Mpls, wish I had gone. Some interesting asides to his tirade -
- according to legal experts, truth is fungible, and is in fact passe. Lawyers call these times the "post truth" era,; since many witnesses don't have any active spiritual/religious beliefs, they feel no guilt at lying after swearing on a bible. Bibles are meaningless as a coercive tool.
- Tourism may be a sin, but if we had to walk, we'd never make it to Paree. How'd Herzog get to Mpls, anyway?
- The wrestler Jesse Ventura was IMHO perhaps the last honest politician in Minnesota. His opponents derided his populist upbringing, saying that politics should be left to the professionals, i.e. them. And we know how politics have gone in the last 6 years.
- Minnesota snowmobilers not only crash through the melting ice, they intentionally race their machines across open water between ice flows as a test of manhood. Sometimes they make it across, and if not, the schnapps antifreeze sometimes keeps them sedated long enough for their buddies to fish them out unharmed. But the Darwin Awards are frequently handed out there.
- according to legal experts, truth is fungible, and is in fact passe. Lawyers call these times the "post truth" era,; since many witnesses don't have any active spiritual/religious beliefs, they feel no guilt at lying after swearing on a bible. Bibles are meaningless as a coercive tool.
- Tourism may be a sin, but if we had to walk, we'd never make it to Paree. How'd Herzog get to Mpls, anyway?
- The wrestler Jesse Ventura was IMHO perhaps the last honest politician in Minnesota. His opponents derided his populist upbringing, saying that politics should be left to the professionals, i.e. them. And we know how politics have gone in the last 6 years.
- Minnesota snowmobilers not only crash through the melting ice, they intentionally race their machines across open water between ice flows as a test of manhood. Sometimes they make it across, and if not, the schnapps antifreeze sometimes keeps them sedated long enough for their buddies to fish them out unharmed. But the Darwin Awards are frequently handed out there.
Robert Hughes
Do you see it as postmodern because it's relativistic? Anti-ideology? Just curious because that's not necessarily the first thing that popped into my head (I’ve read this before).
I think Herzog is a little extreme in his critique of verite, but I agree with the general idea, the need for risk taking aesthetically and questioning form. At its worst, verite assumes reality automatically comes from a position and an aesthetic i.e. closeness and non-interference with the subject...the fly on the wall. Obviously truth doesn't come from the apparatus or the technique, but can be discovered through that.
Is anyone still an unreconstructed verite practitioner? Sometimes to make a critique you need to essentialize, and I think he's doing that with verite. Is Gimme Shelter verite? If so, isn't showing the Stones the footage of Altamount on a steenbeck or whatever a fairly large break?
The comments about nature (#9-12) are pretty interesting, not only in light of Grizzly Man. I think there are two threads to what Herzog's saying, one fairly romantic and one postmodern: in one sense I think he’s making a larger point about cinema verite and non-involvement: your non-involvement always has a perspective, and denying that is absurd. You may assume that nature is speaking to you, but it’s not saying anything. Nature is cold and a-rational. Your POV on what you’re documenting/nature comes from you and your ideology, not from the thing you’re documenting, and you need to acknowledge that as a first step toward finding whatever aesthetic/s can bring you closer to an illumination. But on the other hand, he seems to see nature not as indifferent but as oppositional or anti-humanistic, and thinks that some romantic, mysterious, ineffable engagement with it can bring some greater truth i.e. Grizzly man.
In terms of verite, the size of the cameras was a breakthrough. Has there been a similar breakthrough with video cameras and video compositing in AE etc?
I think Herzog is a little extreme in his critique of verite, but I agree with the general idea, the need for risk taking aesthetically and questioning form. At its worst, verite assumes reality automatically comes from a position and an aesthetic i.e. closeness and non-interference with the subject...the fly on the wall. Obviously truth doesn't come from the apparatus or the technique, but can be discovered through that.
Is anyone still an unreconstructed verite practitioner? Sometimes to make a critique you need to essentialize, and I think he's doing that with verite. Is Gimme Shelter verite? If so, isn't showing the Stones the footage of Altamount on a steenbeck or whatever a fairly large break?
The comments about nature (#9-12) are pretty interesting, not only in light of Grizzly Man. I think there are two threads to what Herzog's saying, one fairly romantic and one postmodern: in one sense I think he’s making a larger point about cinema verite and non-involvement: your non-involvement always has a perspective, and denying that is absurd. You may assume that nature is speaking to you, but it’s not saying anything. Nature is cold and a-rational. Your POV on what you’re documenting/nature comes from you and your ideology, not from the thing you’re documenting, and you need to acknowledge that as a first step toward finding whatever aesthetic/s can bring you closer to an illumination. But on the other hand, he seems to see nature not as indifferent but as oppositional or anti-humanistic, and thinks that some romantic, mysterious, ineffable engagement with it can bring some greater truth i.e. Grizzly man.
In terms of verite, the size of the cameras was a breakthrough. Has there been a similar breakthrough with video cameras and video compositing in AE etc?
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steve hyde
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I see it as a postmodern diatribe because it is a statement about the paradoxical nature truth: that there isn't just one, that truth has multiple dimensions and therefore "fact" is dangerous becuase facts, as is often repeated, do not "speak for themselves". Facts have to live in the prison house we call language. That is what I mean by postmodern.
I would say the Reality TV is an ongoing parade of cinema verite. It is distinctly different in many ways, but I think it captializes on the same so-called objective authority that cinema verite claimed.
The fly on the wall has always been a lie. Cameras influence people to perform and thus the notion that a film crew can enter a space and record things as they actually happen is problematic and can be easily resolved by casting the filmmakers into the film - in turn making the film into a subjective statement rather than an objective one.
His comments on nature, for me, speak to the paradoxical truth of nature:
That it is beautiful and hellish and filled with ecstacy and suffering. I think what he calls "ecstatic truth" is this kind of truth - a paradoxical truth, one that simultaneously makes sense and makes no sense at all. It is rational and anti-rational. It is a surreal truth. You can't do much with this kind of truth within the frameworks of western philosophy or science. Perhaps this kind of truth can only find illumination in cinema.....or a mandala..
Steve
I would say the Reality TV is an ongoing parade of cinema verite. It is distinctly different in many ways, but I think it captializes on the same so-called objective authority that cinema verite claimed.
The fly on the wall has always been a lie. Cameras influence people to perform and thus the notion that a film crew can enter a space and record things as they actually happen is problematic and can be easily resolved by casting the filmmakers into the film - in turn making the film into a subjective statement rather than an objective one.
His comments on nature, for me, speak to the paradoxical truth of nature:
That it is beautiful and hellish and filled with ecstacy and suffering. I think what he calls "ecstatic truth" is this kind of truth - a paradoxical truth, one that simultaneously makes sense and makes no sense at all. It is rational and anti-rational. It is a surreal truth. You can't do much with this kind of truth within the frameworks of western philosophy or science. Perhaps this kind of truth can only find illumination in cinema.....or a mandala..
Steve
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Evan Kubota
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Andrzej Zulawski.[A]nti-rational. It is a surreal truth. You can't do much with this kind of truth within the frameworks of western philosophy or science. Perhaps this kind of truth can only find illumination in cinema.
Production Notes
http://plaza.ufl.edu/ekubota/film.html
http://plaza.ufl.edu/ekubota/film.html
I agree with most of what you've said, Steve, and I'm glad you posted this topic. And even though I agree with Herzog, I still think verite is somewhat of a straw man. Do most people buy verite/straight documentary's truth claims at this point? Does the Real World claim to document or index anything other than good looking young people performing for a camera on a proto-set? It seems to me that the reality and objectivity claims of verite have been set aside in reality TV for something murkier, where life is always already a performance and a competition. However, there also seems to be a trend where documentaries use animation or other stylization in service of verite, to bolster instead of undercut objectivity and factual truth.
And I'm not sure Herzog is a postmodernist. He seems to think that with the right ideology (or maybe lack thereof...an ideology of experimentation etc.) there is a truth to discover or illuminate, however poetic, paradoxical, and horrifying. To me, postmodernism assumes that there is never a truth that is not produced by a discourse, that truth is never discovered but created, and I'm not sure Herzog goes that far.
Anyway, are you thinking of any specific shots/scenes by Herzog or others for ecstatic truth? Also, why is this paradoxical truth antithetical to western thought, especially after quantum physics and post-structuralism?
As an aside, I really like that Herzog refuses to really distinguish between his 'fiction' and non fiction films. For me, what's interesting is the tension, whether in documentary or fiction, when you put people in front of a camera and ask them to play a role, regardless of whether that role is a character or themselves. It seems to me that Herzog, Kiarostami, and maybe now Reygadas and Dumont have exploited a lot in this direction.
And I'm not sure Herzog is a postmodernist. He seems to think that with the right ideology (or maybe lack thereof...an ideology of experimentation etc.) there is a truth to discover or illuminate, however poetic, paradoxical, and horrifying. To me, postmodernism assumes that there is never a truth that is not produced by a discourse, that truth is never discovered but created, and I'm not sure Herzog goes that far.
Anyway, are you thinking of any specific shots/scenes by Herzog or others for ecstatic truth? Also, why is this paradoxical truth antithetical to western thought, especially after quantum physics and post-structuralism?
As an aside, I really like that Herzog refuses to really distinguish between his 'fiction' and non fiction films. For me, what's interesting is the tension, whether in documentary or fiction, when you put people in front of a camera and ask them to play a role, regardless of whether that role is a character or themselves. It seems to me that Herzog, Kiarostami, and maybe now Reygadas and Dumont have exploited a lot in this direction.
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Evan Kubota
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I agree with CDI that Herzog is not strictly or even primarily a postmodernist - romanticism is a huge presence in the films of his that I've viewed...
Production Notes
http://plaza.ufl.edu/ekubota/film.html
http://plaza.ufl.edu/ekubota/film.html
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steve hyde
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It's a manifesto of sorts and like all manifestos you have to have a sense of humor about it, but at the same time take it seriously. One thing is certain. Herzog is a serious filmmaker, a serious artist, a serious truth seeker. He has always gone after substance - to go looking for useful images, to have traveling experiences and to documentent those experiences so that we can share in the experience too. There is a recipe in all of this. If we are to make documentary films worth eating you have to have some knowledge of cooking. The ingredients can only be found in the performances of people engaged in the art of living so the documentary filmmaker has to go and talk to them about that.
I should have known better than to use the term postmodern since that is loaded language. More specifically, I think his view is anti-positivist. (remember the logical positivists were the ones that argued that the facts speak for themselves.) I always think of the rebuttal that the facts are constructs too, as a postmodern argument.
"Facts are the accountants truth." The interpretation of this claim is up for grabs. Modernist historians tended to be accountants - more specifically accountants of empire for empire. History is the history of winners written by the winners - this leaves the truth somewhere left unseen, unwritten, unrecorded - outside the domain of historical truth. The truth has not been accounted for. We cannot rely on history for truth we have to search for it in landscape because that is where the traces of truth might be found.
This is how I'm reading it (and reading into it)
I'm not sure I know what you are getting at with you comments on stylization and animation? Do you mean bolstering objectivity claims or being more transparent about subjectivity?
Steve
I should have known better than to use the term postmodern since that is loaded language. More specifically, I think his view is anti-positivist. (remember the logical positivists were the ones that argued that the facts speak for themselves.) I always think of the rebuttal that the facts are constructs too, as a postmodern argument.
"Facts are the accountants truth." The interpretation of this claim is up for grabs. Modernist historians tended to be accountants - more specifically accountants of empire for empire. History is the history of winners written by the winners - this leaves the truth somewhere left unseen, unwritten, unrecorded - outside the domain of historical truth. The truth has not been accounted for. We cannot rely on history for truth we have to search for it in landscape because that is where the traces of truth might be found.
This is how I'm reading it (and reading into it)
Reality TV is, of course, a new form of commercial that is designed to sell stuff. It is the fine art of product placement. It's murkier than verite to be sure, but it makes its truth claims and I think it uses some of the techniques of verite (fly on wall camera's etc.)CDI wrote: I agree with most of what you've said, Steve, and I'm glad you posted this topic. And even though I agree with Herzog, I still think verite is somewhat of a straw man. Do most people buy verite/straight documentary's truth claims at this point? Does the Real World claim to document or index anything other than good looking young people performing for a camera on a proto-set? It seems to me that the reality and objectivity claims of verite have been set aside in reality TV for something murkier, where life is always already a performance and a competition. However, there also seems to be a trend where documentaries use animation or other stylization in service of verite, to bolster instead of undercut objectivity and factual truth.
I'm not sure I know what you are getting at with you comments on stylization and animation? Do you mean bolstering objectivity claims or being more transparent about subjectivity?
I don't know what Herzog means by ecstatic truth. Knowable truth is always discursive.CDI wrote: And I'm not sure Herzog is a postmodernist. He seems to think that with the right ideology (or maybe lack thereof...an ideology of experimentation etc.) there is a truth to discover or illuminate, however poetic, paradoxical, and horrifying. To me, postmodernism assumes that there is never a truth that is not produced by a discourse, that truth is never discovered but created, and I'm not sure Herzog goes that far.
I would say quantum physics and post-structuralism are antithetical to the western canon of thought - even subversive to it. I'm suggesting that Herzog is resistant to the dualistic thinking that has characterized much of western thought.CDI wrote: Anyway, are you thinking of any specific shots/scenes by Herzog or others for ecstatic truth? Also, why is this paradoxical truth antithetical to western thought, especially after quantum physics and post-structuralism?
I'm not familiar with the other directors you have referenced here. It looks like I have some homework to do. Thanks for that.CDI wrote: As an aside, I really like that Herzog refuses to really distinguish between his 'fiction' and non fiction films. For me, what's interesting is the tension, whether in documentary or fiction, when you put people in front of a camera and ask them to play a role, regardless of whether that role is a character or themselves. It seems to me that Herzog, Kiarostami, and maybe now Reygadas and Dumont have exploited a lot in this direction.
Steve
Thanks for the detailed response Steve. I like the term anti positivist, and think maybe that's a little more accurate, though I don't think it really matters and wasn't trying to stick you or anything. I brought it up because I sometimes think there's a tension in Herzog between romantic and postmodern ideas, or at least that's what I was reading into his manifesto.
If you're into herzog, I can't recommend Kiarostami highly enough. He's somewhere between Herzog and the neo-realists. I really like Close-Up, Taste of Cherry, Where is the friend's home, and Life and Nothing More.
If you're into herzog, I can't recommend Kiarostami highly enough. He's somewhere between Herzog and the neo-realists. I really like Close-Up, Taste of Cherry, Where is the friend's home, and Life and Nothing More.
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steve hyde
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...thanks. I have always found Iranian cinema fascinating. I will go after these titles. The reason Herzog keeps coming up with me is because I am currently viewing the box set of his documentaries and shorts. And I have always been inspired by his films and the methods he employs to make them. It is interesting that he has returned to documentaries.
Steve
Steve
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steve hyde
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Nigel wrote:All cinema is lies. Whether it is a documentary or a narrative. There will never be truth in movies.
Good Luck
I think truth is the primary currency of any work of cinema. Without it there is nothing to believe in and nothing to care about. If cinema is all lies, then they are lies used to point to some kind of truth. There are small truths in movies, but not universal truth. For example, I really like the American film "Sideways" because it speaks truth about lying - it speaks truth about friendship, it speaks truth about honesty, it speaks truth about wine, it speaks truth about loyalty and it speaks truth about the landscape of Northern California. It does all that though a story about lying... I think it is a perfect narrative film.
Steve
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steve hyde
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I have seen "The Wind Will Carry Us" some time ago and remember it to be a very geographical kind of film with lots of landscape references and hilarious geometrical choreographies. By your recommendation I watched "Taste of Cherry" and "Close Up" - I also watched the 2005 film "Tickets" and part of "Ten", but had to turn it off because there was no camera operator and I felt like I was watching surveillance footage. I thought "Taste of Cherry" and "Close Up" were both excellent. I also recommend "Tickets"CDI wrote:Thanks for the detailed response Steve. I like the term anti positivist, and think maybe that's a little more accurate, though I don't think it really matters and wasn't trying to stick you or anything. I brought it up because I sometimes think there's a tension in Herzog between romantic and postmodern ideas, or at least that's what I was reading into his manifesto.
If you're into herzog, I can't recommend Kiarostami highly enough. He's somewhere between Herzog and the neo-realists. I really like Close-Up, Taste of Cherry, Where is the friend's home, and Life and Nothing More.
Oh - and I also saw Reygadas' "Battle in Heaven" - a very sensual film -real cinema to be sure..
Steve
Steve