reframe

While Walking, Write

// February 8th, 2006 // Art, Music & Poetry

“Actually, for some time now I have given some thought to opening a film school. But if I did start one up you would only be allowed to fill out an application form after you have walked alone on foot, let’s say from Madrid to Kiev, a distance of about five thousand kilometres. While walking, write. Write about your experiences and give me your notebooks. I would be able to tell who had really walked the distance and who had not. While you are walking you would learn much more about filmmaking and what it truly involves than you ever would sitting in a classroom. During your voyage you will learn more about what your future holds than in five years at film school. Your experiences would be the very opposite of academic knowledge, for academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion.”

And thus Walter Herzog ushers my blog into a seasonable start for 2006. Herzog himself walked on foot from Munich to Paris to visit an ailing friend, critic Lotte Eisner. Furthermore, he once ate his own shoe after losing a bet to fellow filmmaker Errol Morris. Morris was interested in making a film about a pet cemetery (Gates of Heaven) and Werner believed Morris was not ambitious enough to make the film. This story was the subject of a documentary by Les Blank called Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

Below are stills from his 1992 film Lessons of Darkness, which comprises destructively beautiful footage of the Kuwaiti oil feels after the first Gulf War.