Herzog's Fiction
+ a new poem
Hello from the Himalayas,
A personal update: I have been able to put some gnarly chores that were getting outta my control, back under the muzzle. I am having an externally-organizing and internally-contemplating week so far. Feeling easy, I also wrote a poem. It’s included in today’s note. In today’s note, I want to describe what Herzog’s Fiction is and why it’s important when we are shut out from our factual world or grow tired of it.
I’m a fan of Werner Herzog — the german filmmaker who makes unconventional documentaries to tell obscure stories. In making his documentaries, Herzog goes to extraordinary lengths to portray the real process that characters in his films go through, during their journey. One example of this was when Herzog enlisted a tribe of American-Indians to pull a whole riverboat up the hill which took three months — to tell the real journey of his main character Fitzcarraldo who dreamed about building an opera house on the top of the hill. But that’s only about the factual portrayal.
The other fascinating thing that Herzog does in his documentaries is inventing snippets that are not factual. It goes against the grain to sneak in made-up scenes in a documentary that’s supposed to cover only the real objective facts. For example, in his documentary(Lessons of Darkness) about the aftermath of the Gulf-war when the Iraqi army put the Kuwaiti oil wells on fire, he starts the film showing the landscape of mountain ranges and valleys covered in mist. The film has a quote in the beginning, “The collapse of the stellar universe will occur like creation with grandiose splendor.” — Blaise Pascal. In an interview, he revealed that both the quote and the landscape was made up. Blaise Pascal never factually said that and the ‘mountain-valley landscape covered in the mist’ was actually just tracks of trucks made in the sand which was overheating and steaming. This fictional addition served a particular purpose for Herzog’s telling of this story— this “made-up” scene granted the imagination and sensibility to the viewer that he/she needs to feel up-close to the vivid scene and experience a narrative very different than every factual news report about these oil fires.
When Herzog makes up a detail or a scene in a documentary, his made-up snippet is not a random addition to make the story more controversial or entertaining. What Herzog makes up is only fictional from an objective perspective, not from a subjective lens of a character in the film. What Herzog wants to give a sneak-peak into— by using these fictional additions —is what he calls ‘ecstatic truth’. This particular use of fictional elements in a documenting record —for the explicit purpose of revealing subjective feelings/emotions — is what I’m calling Herzog’s Fiction.
Herzog says we are starved for images. He calls for building a ‘grammar of adequate images’ to go beyond ‘the accountant’s truth’. When we grow tired of the unimaginative repetition of bare facts, we need to go beyond — into the subjective imagination. We need to feel and articulate the elusive feelings that make the objective facts meaningful to us. We need to use Herzog’s Fiction to find the ecstatic truth within us.
I wrote a short poem today.
This Rainy Midnight
White peacocks dancing in the clouds
raindrops skiing down the window glass,
the earthy fragrance is in the air
loopy music in my earphones is spitting bass.
I got drenched in the drizzle
and the cherry blooms asked me for a date,
I was lying awake on my couch
when this rainy midnight came knocking on my gate.
worms of stress are crawling out of my head
finding holes to escape the burning sunshine,
the texture of curtains is staying with me
and I feel fine.
Interesting Finds of the Week
I found this music that calms me—
Animation standards have come a long way in the last 2 decades.
Blue Sunset on Mars (picture taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover)
This cockpit video of a celebrated Lufthansa Pilot’s last flight landing of his career—
That’s it for today’s note. Thanks for reading.
Until Next Week,
Vinay
Things to Note
Housekeeping:
If you prefer this note to not end up into your Promotions folder, please add this address: daybrew@substack.com to your email app’s Contacts list.
From July, there will be a monthly purge. All those who haven’t opened a single note from the last 4 consecutive weeks, will be unsubscribed in the interest of keeping a tight-knit group made of people who care about what I write.
If you don’t find this newsletter relevant to your interests, please tell me to stop littering your inbox by clicking on the unsubscribe button at the end of this email.
Conversations: Schedule a 15-min freestyle conversation with me(pick a slot from Tue/Sat 5-7 pm UTC) to talk about something that has been on your mind recently.
Support: Feed my black-coffee addiction by becoming a Daybrew Booster or Share this note with a friend who’d be delighted to find this.
More: Learn more about me on my personal website or ping me on twitter.