#ecstatic truth

Werner Herzog has often praised the book "The Peregrine" by J.A. Baker as one of the greatest books of the twentieth century, and has alluded to the fact that Baker had great flight envy.

“Baker desires to become the hawk. He does have flight envy… He wants to fly and —. So do I. I’ve wanted to fly all my life.” he said in an interview.

Through his writing, Baker doesn't merely observe the Peregrine, he becomes it. And I think that Werner Herzog does that too.

His life's work is to seek the adequate images and the ecstatic truth, and he has toiled for it all his life, climbing volcanoes, hauling a ship over a mountain, surviving in the jungle etc.

But then there's Kaspar Hauser. He doesn't strive for the ecstatic truth, because it is the only truth to him. “It dreamed to me…” he said, treating his dreams as reality. He was happier in bed, doing nothing but exploring his inner world, than going outside and being part of the "society".

To me, Werner Herzog envies Kaspar Hauser. He envies his innocent eye, and his ability to think only in terms of ecstatic truth. The truth Herzog spent his whole life chasing, that came naturally to a boy who spent most of his in a cellar.

Maybe historically, he didn't really envy him, and was just fascinated by Hauser's story. But that's the accountants' truth. The Ecstatic Truth I have gotten from the film is that:

"Every Man for Himself and God Against All" is to Werner Herzog, what "The Peregrine" was to J.A. Baker.

i recently read Kazuki Tomokawa's memoir, and the above excerpts made me think of how many people, like myself, who first heard this album not knowing anything about it, not even knowing the language, who were completely stunned from the first track to the last: Tomokawa managed to re-create his "bolt from the blue" (cf. Valéry's task of the poet), he managed to transmit that lineal resonance.

(also: "the poet is an agent of destruction, a virus" lol

(perhaps a latent one))

SUBLIME CINEMA #234 - HERZOG’S STROSZEK

Some of Herzog’s best films are like odes to madness. One can only wonder how he got others, actors and crew, to go along with him, since so much of his work was transcendently bonkers. How he got such hilarious, spontaneous performances, and found some of these people is beyond me too - some of the most unique characters in all of cinema history are found in Herzog’s movies, and yet they barely feel like characters, and more like Herzog just came across them on his journeys, and cast them on the spot. 

those who forget and those who keep re-membering.

for instance, Tu Fu's crows:

in his later poems:

("my old friends")

in his last poems:

an endnote:

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin