This article"Werner Herzog Sings The Body Electric: His new documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World" was published September , 2016 at CINEMATICA, the blog associated with The Screening Room in Kingston, Ontario. Here is a link to the original article.
"I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul."
Werner Herzog is the internationally lauded and immensely prolific filmmaker who directed the documentaries Grizzly Man (2005) and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (a 2010 3D celebration of the Chauvet cave containing ancient on its walls in France); and a raft of raw, intense, heavy fictional films, including Queen of the Desert (a 2015 film starring Nicole Kidman about the adventurer/write Gertrude Bell), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1977). Of the over fifty films he's made (and counting) many are considered among the finest films every made. Herzog is also a steady and hard-working director in the world of opera and theatre, a writer and poet, and an actor. He has started his own film school and is a generous and tireless pedagogue who uses any and all opportunities to teach others what he knows and what he believes is important. Of all the things he does, Herzog says that the prose and poetry he has written probably has deeper and lasting cultural relevance than anything, including any of his films and he speaks frequently about the importance of fostering the poetic spirit for any kind of artistic endeavour, including and especially filmmaking.
A discussion of his work must also include this director's "true grit" and his restless preference for most extreme settings, most extreme physical feats (usually of endurance) whilst filmmaking, and most extreme subject matter. The appreciation of Herzog's poetic spirit and his spectacularly adventurous and extremes-seeking nature, I think, is part of what binds Herzog's fans to him, of which there are many. Francois Truffaut, himself acknowledged as one of the greatest, called him "the most important film director alive." With his characteristic stark acknowledgement of reality and bravado Werner Herzog also joins the expression of enthusiasm of his own talents. When attending a forum at the Producers Guild of America in conjunction with the release of Lo and Behold, Herzog said: "I believe that not only was I the best choice for this: I was the only choice." He cited his curiosity and the fact that he is a vast reader and says this makes him a critical and conceptual thinker adequate for the task of considering the internet at its impact on humanity. I think Herzog's relative unfamiliarity with the internet and his unusual upbringing in a remote German village without any running water, electricity, or telephones make him a unique candidate to lead an investigation into the most significant and far-reaching technological development of our time. He's after all in the position of witnessing our rapid unfolding of technological advancement because he realizes what it is like to live with the very basic level of technology that most of humanity experienced for most of history. To a person who made his first phone call at the age of 19 as Herzog did, the last 80 years of developments in technology must seem all part of the same wonder - or more exactly rephrased - they must seem all part of the wonder that they truly are. Indeed, the lofty and prophetic title of this film Lo and Behold is meant to underscore the wondrousness of the subject matter and to acknowledge the actual and important dawning of a vastly unique era for humanity. It's also referring to "LO" the first internet message ever sent in UCLA in 1969, which was going to be "LOG" before an unexpected failure of the equipment.
At the time of the release of Lo and Behold Werner Herzog called himself a beginner with regard to the technology about which he was reflecting. "I understand the basics conceptually but I'm still a novice," he said about his facility with the internet at the Producer's Guild of America. During an interview with Ben Makuch of VICE Herzog entertainingly and with self-awareness revealed his at-the-time patchy knowledge about the internet. He recounts to Makuch that after having participated in a podcast someone suggested that he google it once it was posted, to which Herzog asked how he would "hack" into Google to do such a thing and how for minutes afterward the room was seized hopelessly with irrepressible and wordless fits of laughter. No one who has ever used Google would refer to the act in that manner. It's clear that embarking on this project Herzog was secure in what is actually his historically and perennially preferred filmmaking perspective: that of being a stranger in a strange land. I hope now that this film has been made, Werner Herzog can take time to explore the internet and discover how he really feels about it when it's up close and a daily facet of his life. Although I'm sure he believes his "fresh eyes" approach served his purposes, I'm curious about what he would actually think about his subject if he had the same level of usership on it as someone like me, and how he would specifically feel about Facebook and Twitter and Youtube etc. if he were to actually know them and experience them on a daily basis. He made it clear in his VICE interview that he is aware that there are Twitter and Facebook accounts under his name, but that they are made by "imposters" and not authorized by him.
Throughout the film, Herzog's conversation perspectives of the internet are only representative of a technical or scientific view of the internet (curiously heavy on nightmare science-fiction scenerios) or with those highly-antagonistic to the internet. The personal opinion that Herzog in the end seems to convey is that the internet may be a miracle, but that it may be just as well avoided altogether. I can detect from watching interviews about this film that at times Herzog seemed pleased in some ways to be so far away from the enchantment and - for himself and his work - still largely living in a pre-internet environment of his own preservation.
This project began when the production company Netscout offered him a commission to do five short films about the internet. Herzog says it became clear within days that the scope of the project would be much larger. He says that Netscout easily assented to all expansion and to his delight, continued to give him freedom to pursue it in any way he pleased. His modus operandi was to set up a series of meetings with experts and interesting characters. He admits that in general he shoots relatively little footage compared with other filmmakers for any project he embarks upon. In the end this time he shot about 28 hours of footage mostly in Los Angeles and Chicago and Pittsburgh to make the finished product of 1 hour 38 minutes. About his methods for capturing good footage quickly, he explained in his talk at The Producer's Guild of America (whose audience was populated with many young filmmakers) that in all the films in which he uses "talking heads" footage, he that he doesn't do interviews, but he "conducts conversations." He does not have a catalogue of questions and likes to arrive completely unprepared. He gets a quick sense of the person he's dealing with and forms a natural rapport. Herzog emphasizes that in order to be able to have a rapport with others they must be worldly and to read widely: "You learn about the world and reading that gives you access to the rapport and thoughtfulness. If you want to learn how to do it - have real conversations with real people, expose yourself to the world where it is raw stark-naked and intense. That will make it easy for you to have a decent conversation on camera."
The students in his charge at his film school, Rogue Film School (est. 2009) are probably well-used to such admonishments. According to Wikipedia "The program is a 4-day seminar with Herzog, which occurs annually (the last of which was held in March, 2016 in Munich). Courses include "the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance." For the students, Herzog has said, "I prefer people who have worked as bouncers in a sex club, or have been wardens in the lunatic asylum. You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn't mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that's what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia." In an appearance on a UK television debate program called Intelligence Squared Herzog states: "The poet, the filmmaker, the musician... must not avert his eyes. We should not be sitting in the library and study it as an academic subject. I think the poet has to live a real, solid, pure, raw life out there in life itself." He goes onto say that the poet must even observe and try to understand all aspects of culture - even the most base and vulgar.
In this film, Herzog brings us interviews with scientists, computer experts, technologists, robotics engineers, and game-designing microbiologists, and he also features the stories of ordinary people with extraordinary relationships to the internet like internet and video game addicts and others who live without the internet for other reasons.
"I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul."
- Walt Whitman
Werner Herzog is the internationally lauded and immensely prolific filmmaker who directed the documentaries Grizzly Man (2005) and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (a 2010 3D celebration of the Chauvet cave containing ancient on its walls in France); and a raft of raw, intense, heavy fictional films, including Queen of the Desert (a 2015 film starring Nicole Kidman about the adventurer/write Gertrude Bell), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), Fitzcarraldo (1982), and Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1977). Of the over fifty films he's made (and counting) many are considered among the finest films every made. Herzog is also a steady and hard-working director in the world of opera and theatre, a writer and poet, and an actor. He has started his own film school and is a generous and tireless pedagogue who uses any and all opportunities to teach others what he knows and what he believes is important. Of all the things he does, Herzog says that the prose and poetry he has written probably has deeper and lasting cultural relevance than anything, including any of his films and he speaks frequently about the importance of fostering the poetic spirit for any kind of artistic endeavour, including and especially filmmaking.
A discussion of his work must also include this director's "true grit" and his restless preference for most extreme settings, most extreme physical feats (usually of endurance) whilst filmmaking, and most extreme subject matter. The appreciation of Herzog's poetic spirit and his spectacularly adventurous and extremes-seeking nature, I think, is part of what binds Herzog's fans to him, of which there are many. Francois Truffaut, himself acknowledged as one of the greatest, called him "the most important film director alive." With his characteristic stark acknowledgement of reality and bravado Werner Herzog also joins the expression of enthusiasm of his own talents. When attending a forum at the Producers Guild of America in conjunction with the release of Lo and Behold, Herzog said: "I believe that not only was I the best choice for this: I was the only choice." He cited his curiosity and the fact that he is a vast reader and says this makes him a critical and conceptual thinker adequate for the task of considering the internet at its impact on humanity. I think Herzog's relative unfamiliarity with the internet and his unusual upbringing in a remote German village without any running water, electricity, or telephones make him a unique candidate to lead an investigation into the most significant and far-reaching technological development of our time. He's after all in the position of witnessing our rapid unfolding of technological advancement because he realizes what it is like to live with the very basic level of technology that most of humanity experienced for most of history. To a person who made his first phone call at the age of 19 as Herzog did, the last 80 years of developments in technology must seem all part of the same wonder - or more exactly rephrased - they must seem all part of the wonder that they truly are. Indeed, the lofty and prophetic title of this film Lo and Behold is meant to underscore the wondrousness of the subject matter and to acknowledge the actual and important dawning of a vastly unique era for humanity. It's also referring to "LO" the first internet message ever sent in UCLA in 1969, which was going to be "LOG" before an unexpected failure of the equipment.
At the time of the release of Lo and Behold Werner Herzog called himself a beginner with regard to the technology about which he was reflecting. "I understand the basics conceptually but I'm still a novice," he said about his facility with the internet at the Producer's Guild of America. During an interview with Ben Makuch of VICE Herzog entertainingly and with self-awareness revealed his at-the-time patchy knowledge about the internet. He recounts to Makuch that after having participated in a podcast someone suggested that he google it once it was posted, to which Herzog asked how he would "hack" into Google to do such a thing and how for minutes afterward the room was seized hopelessly with irrepressible and wordless fits of laughter. No one who has ever used Google would refer to the act in that manner. It's clear that embarking on this project Herzog was secure in what is actually his historically and perennially preferred filmmaking perspective: that of being a stranger in a strange land. I hope now that this film has been made, Werner Herzog can take time to explore the internet and discover how he really feels about it when it's up close and a daily facet of his life. Although I'm sure he believes his "fresh eyes" approach served his purposes, I'm curious about what he would actually think about his subject if he had the same level of usership on it as someone like me, and how he would specifically feel about Facebook and Twitter and Youtube etc. if he were to actually know them and experience them on a daily basis. He made it clear in his VICE interview that he is aware that there are Twitter and Facebook accounts under his name, but that they are made by "imposters" and not authorized by him.
Throughout the film, Herzog's conversation perspectives of the internet are only representative of a technical or scientific view of the internet (curiously heavy on nightmare science-fiction scenerios) or with those highly-antagonistic to the internet. The personal opinion that Herzog in the end seems to convey is that the internet may be a miracle, but that it may be just as well avoided altogether. I can detect from watching interviews about this film that at times Herzog seemed pleased in some ways to be so far away from the enchantment and - for himself and his work - still largely living in a pre-internet environment of his own preservation.
This project began when the production company Netscout offered him a commission to do five short films about the internet. Herzog says it became clear within days that the scope of the project would be much larger. He says that Netscout easily assented to all expansion and to his delight, continued to give him freedom to pursue it in any way he pleased. His modus operandi was to set up a series of meetings with experts and interesting characters. He admits that in general he shoots relatively little footage compared with other filmmakers for any project he embarks upon. In the end this time he shot about 28 hours of footage mostly in Los Angeles and Chicago and Pittsburgh to make the finished product of 1 hour 38 minutes. About his methods for capturing good footage quickly, he explained in his talk at The Producer's Guild of America (whose audience was populated with many young filmmakers) that in all the films in which he uses "talking heads" footage, he that he doesn't do interviews, but he "conducts conversations." He does not have a catalogue of questions and likes to arrive completely unprepared. He gets a quick sense of the person he's dealing with and forms a natural rapport. Herzog emphasizes that in order to be able to have a rapport with others they must be worldly and to read widely: "You learn about the world and reading that gives you access to the rapport and thoughtfulness. If you want to learn how to do it - have real conversations with real people, expose yourself to the world where it is raw stark-naked and intense. That will make it easy for you to have a decent conversation on camera."
The students in his charge at his film school, Rogue Film School (est. 2009) are probably well-used to such admonishments. According to Wikipedia "The program is a 4-day seminar with Herzog, which occurs annually (the last of which was held in March, 2016 in Munich). Courses include "the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance." For the students, Herzog has said, "I prefer people who have worked as bouncers in a sex club, or have been wardens in the lunatic asylum. You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn't mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that's what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia." In an appearance on a UK television debate program called Intelligence Squared Herzog states: "The poet, the filmmaker, the musician... must not avert his eyes. We should not be sitting in the library and study it as an academic subject. I think the poet has to live a real, solid, pure, raw life out there in life itself." He goes onto say that the poet must even observe and try to understand all aspects of culture - even the most base and vulgar.
In this film, Herzog brings us interviews with scientists, computer experts, technologists, robotics engineers, and game-designing microbiologists, and he also features the stories of ordinary people with extraordinary relationships to the internet like internet and video game addicts and others who live without the internet for other reasons.