Thursday, December 11, 2008
Herzog on Ice
A new documentary film from Werner Herzog is an event to be cherished. His latest film, Encounters at the End of the Worldd features the men and women who live and work in Anarctica. Here he finds scientists who are dreamers. Like Herzog's films this world is full of oddities and a universe of its own.
The National Science Foundation had invited for Herzog to come to Anartica "even though he left no doubt that he would not come up with another film about penguins" He goes on to reveal some of his own questions about nature, like why don't chimps control animals lesser than themselves. For instance, why don't they could ride goats?
He does, however, cover penguins in this film asking a very recalcitrant scientist about sexual practices and possible insanity with the birds. And he also seems to find a fascination with a" derranged or disoriented" bird who separates from the rest in his flock. That description also seems to describe the Some of the folks who make it to the pole are very strange and smart and quirky Werner finds down near the pole. But Werner could find the same lot at Berkeley or the 30 St zone of SE from Reed to Clinton to the Space Room on Hawthorne. The only difference is that there aren't other kinds of people around them as well.
Anarctica is a study in extremes. We see a naked magma lake of Mt Erebus. A frozen sturgeon is found in a cabinet under the South Pole. You either have the grungy frontier town look of McMurdo Station or scientists poking all over pristine looking snow and ice.
Sometimes they poke at the sky. Balloons are sent 40 km in the sky to detect neutrinos in the Stratosphere. "Neutrinos is most ridiculous particle you could imagine" says physicist Dr. Peter Gorham. Then he talks about the billions of neutrinos that don't really do anything, but they were the dominant particle of the big bang.
The most impressive imagery in Encounters occurs with the below the ice photography of Henry Kaiser. This footage appeared first in Herzog's The Wide Blue Yonder. It is quite arresting and is credited by Herzog as what motivated him to come to Anarctica. The sequence on the divers and their discovery of new organisms will prove to be the component of the film I will take away and remember. There is this great Mondo Herzog moment where his camera lingers on divers preparing to go under the ice. To Werner they are like priests preparing for mass getting ready to "Go Down into the cathedral..."
Kaiser's images are far more impressive than his music. He is on the David Gans fringe of the Dead. I sure like David Lindley, but the Kaiser and Lindley world beat new age dream phlegm is allowed by Herzog to pretty much overwhelm parts of the film.
I hope that Herzog's camera goes out in the world many more times to come. I love to watch the world through his lens and hear about it with his dry narration. Such as "For most of our time here we had postcard pretty conditions. This was frustrating because I loathe the sun on both my celluloid and my skin. So it almost came as a relief, when a few days later, the weather suddenly changed."
One more note: Herzog dedicated this film to his friend and early champion Roger Ebert.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:41 PM
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