“I see a Giant,” he complained. “He is big, bigger than a monster. And he is terribly mean. He is ugly and nobody likes him. They hide; they wish he would go away.”
Preparations began for the next scene, which would feature Steinhauer, under hypnosis, doing a funny dance across one of the bridges. To camouflage some iron rails that would appear in frame, clumps of turf were needed. I climbed one of the cliffs until I reached a small, verdant plateau. When I looked back upon the chasm floor down below, things seemed entirely unlike the situation I’d been perceiving. Somehow a truer, more Emersonian view emerged. It was undramatic and inhuman, like imagination itself. It was as if I’d been too watchful all along to really see anything, to see this divine abyss of Via Mala and understand what Werner Herzog was doing there. But from the small, green ledge overlooking Herzog’s world—a cold, damp, gray world devoid of ornament, fancy, and fear—I saw. Sanctity has always defied much variation; the spiritual fact is forever unchanged. No peak is of sufficient height to break the arc of the sphere. Tearing off a shard of vegetation clinging to a rock, I thought, Herzog peoples emptiness, and this is his proof: he uses forms according to the life, not according to the form.
I climbed down from the perch with the yield of turf nestled in my arms. Over by the railing was the script girl, Regina, who was busy strapping wooden boards to some iron spans. Regina had met Herzog in Vienna just two months earlier. After a retrospective screening of his films there, Regina knew for sure what she must devote her life to. She begged Herzog for a position on his production team. He was taken by the intensity of her plea.
“Walk from Vienna to Munich,” he said, somewhat seriously. “That will tell me how much you want the job.”
Regina went home. Shortly thereafter, wearing painfully new boots, she trekked across the wintry, mountainous terrain. Eleven days and twelve Band-Aids later, she arrived at Herzog’s house.
Herzog called the actors and crew. As always, everyone responded eagerly to his command—everyone but Steinhauer.
“No, no—I refuse,” he shrieked. “You told me I would work only in the morning. You know I have my appointment in Cologne tonight. I’ve worked enough here. I refuse to do anymore. I demand that you take me to Cologne like you said.”
Herzog sat down with Steinhauer and patiently explained the situation to him. He told his actor he was sorry about the overtime but that Steinhauer’s contract required him to satisfy Herzog’s needs during the filming. Even though Herzog knew Steinhauer was bluffing about an appointment in Cologne, that he was merely cranky from the cold, he continued to implore him.
Still wearing his farmer’s costume, Steinhauer abruptly bolted up the steps in the general direction of Cologne. Herzog followed him. He caught up with Steinhauer on the road above Via Mala, then led him over to his van. As Production Manager Saxer joined them, Herzog said, “All right, Fritz—we’ll head for Cologne.” The trio got in the van and drove away.
A half mile up the road, Herzog steered the vehicle over to the roadside, dangerously close to the edge of a cliff. When it came to a halt, Saxer opened a door so the horrified Steinhauer could look outside. To leave the van would be to drop into the abyss. Herzog gave the orders.
“OK, Walter,” he told his Production Manager, “this is going to look like an accident.”
On the third and final day of filming in Via Mala, as the team lugged their loads to the bottom of the gorge, the psychoanalyst, Claude, resumed his reflections. He related an observation he had made during Herzog’s last visit with him in Paris.
“I was walking with him one afternoon in the woods near my home. Suddenly he grabbed my arm and pointed up toward a treetop. An arrow was stuck into the trunk high above. ‘What is that?’ he demanded to know. ‘An arrow,’ I answered. ‘How did it get up there?’ he asked. ‘I shot it up there,’ I said. ‘That’s amazing,’ he marveled. ‘Why did you do that?’ I explained that a stupid boy did not know how to properly use the bow. ‘So I shot the arrow to show him. I chose to hit that spot and succeeded.’ I walked on a few minutes later. Herzog stood in one spot for almost an hour, staring up at the arrow.”
“So?” I queried.
“Herzog’s coordinate points are strange,” answered Claude. “They have a psychotic character, although he is not by any means psychotic. He surrounds himself with madness. The people he knows and works with are primarily mad. Ultimately that is not very good for him, I think.”
The scene to be shot that day was the vision of the spectral Liar and Thief loping over the bridges. The camera was placed in the same spot where it had been previously, and now a long wait set in. Via Mala was bathed in its early-morning melancholy, but the scene could not be shot until a brief ten-minute period later on, when the sun would first peek out from behind the mountains. Herzog was looking for the gloom of gloom, with just a sliver of light.
To pass the time, everyone went their separate ways. The set designers explored the recesses of the gorge, the costume women hiked back up to the two bridges, the sound man, Haymo, started squawking like a goose while van Anft wailed on his blues harp, and Saxer scurried down the mountain roads he had known since childhood. Down in the pit were Herzog; the cameraman Jörg; his assistant, Mike; the script girl; the stills photographer; and Claude. Gazing up to the mountain ridge towering above, the assistant cameraman pointed excitedly, urging Claude, who he knew was a fanatical hunter, to look there as well.
“Claude—a chamois!” he exclaimed. “On the mountaintop, look—a goat! Go get it!”
As the psychoanalyst peered up toward the distant ridge, I felt an elbow poke my ribs. It was the assistant cameraman, giving me a wink and signaling me to point skyward. Claude continued to strain his eyes as one by one the others got the nod. Finally, unable to restrain his instincts any longer, the psychoanalyst left for the mountaintop.
An hour passed, and now it was time to prepare for the scant ten-minute shooting slot. The cameramen chose the lens and filter, Saxer returned with the black capes and broad-brimmed hats for the two specters, and Herzog figured out when to tell the men on the bridges to move across. With but a few minutes to go, Herzog summoned the production assistant, Joschi, and directed him up to the first bridge. He would be the Liar. Then Herzog called for Claude to take the cape and hat and follow Joschi. He would be the Thief. But while I stood on a rock lamenting that I would not play the Thief, someone said the psychoanalyst was atop the mountain searching for an imaginary goat. Only five minutes remained until the crucial time arrived. If Claude blew it, an entire day of shooting—and maybe this scene—would be lost. People bellowed his name. I started to race up the two hundred steps when down strolled Claude, baffled by all the commotion and anxiety.
“I was taking a piss,” explained the psychoanalyst. “The goat tasted good.” Then he grabbed his cape and hat, turned about, and played the Thief on the lofty bridge.
With the scene shot, Herzog surveyed the depths of Via Mala and decided to experiment with one last camera position. Sitting in the middle of the perilous cataract at the base of the chasm was an enormous round boulder, perhaps fifty feet from top to bottom. Beside it was a slightly smaller boulder, about ten feet away. The only way to mount the larger one was to run across a series of boulders, leap to the first big boulder, and, without breaking stride, leap over the rapids to the larger boulder, where a steep seventy-five-degree slope would have to be reckoned with by willpower and a loophole in the law of gravity.
Herzog descended and made the crossing. Spotting me taking photographs on land, Herzog demanded that I take the challenge as well. Decisively I complied. But upon reaching the chasm floor and seeing precisely the sort of task that Herzog had conjured, I began to entertain second thoughts.
“You can’t stop now,” shouted Herzog.
I gazed up at the immense walls of Via Mala. Scarred and stratified beyond the ages, its patterns looped and crossed and whorled like a colossal kaleidoscope. Standing awestruck on the rapids’
edge, I began to sway with dizziness.
“You have to jump,” Herzog yelled again.
Still lost at the brink, I heard a voice say “jump.” I jumped. A strong hand grabbed my wrist and held it firmly.
Back in my hotel room later on, near midnight, I wrote a poem. It began,
Misfortune feeds the innocent unwise
The men who bending stalk their simple needs
call them deeds—
It was a bad poem. After finishing it, I put my pen away and turned out the light. Then I went to sleep, with the door left open just a crack.
The Scenario
ON THE FALKENSTEIN
An iris, like in old silents, and the image unravels with light. But we know that night is falling once again.
Hias sits on a rock on the Falkenstein, gazing over the landscape in trance, dreamlost. Over Rachel Mountain opposite him, the sun drops, huge and heavy. With a sluggish beat of his wings, the last raven passes, seeking shelter for the night.
HIAS
I see fire flowing in the brook and the wind pushing the fire on, and I see trees burn like matches. I see many people running up a hill; they stop on the hilltop, breathless and paralyzed; they turn to stone. One beside the other, a whole forest of stone. Then it gets dark and quiet, and I see that down below everything has perished, no living being is left and no house, just some debris. It is rigidly and deathly quiet. Yes, and then I see someone running on Waldhausstrasse with a burning branch in his hand, screaming, “Am I really the only one? Am I really the last?”
Hias breathes heavily while peering into the imaginary. Slow music ensues. Mist and the quavering sun above Rachel Mountain sink lower. The images emerge from the mist.
VISIONS
Above the wooded hills, fogs and clouds are spreading swiftly. They hover and wallow; the clouds speed on as fast as a train. The wooded countryside is sprawled, alien and flickering.
VOICE OF HIAS
I see how it shall be just before the end. The last birds can’t find the ground anymore. The soil has drowned.
We are looking at a rocky tower, erect like a pillow in the rain-veiled foam of the sea. Around it, white birds are circling; they settle; they start circling again.
VOICE OF HIAS
When the rock itself disappears, there will be no place left to sit on, only water. I see some pushing. I can see so many birds at once.
The Islas Guaneras. Several black islands in the ocean. When we look closer, we discover that these are not islands but unimaginable numbers of guano birds heaped on top of each other in the sea. Settlements of millions upon millions of birds.
A rock that is one of these “islands” is no longer visible. The sea is sullen, almost black; there are no waves but rather furrows, like the skin of a horse when jerking to chase off a horsefly.
VOICE OF HIAS
A rider goes over a beach, but I don’t know where: a beach beyond comparison. The rider is galloping away from us. He is chasing whole clouds of silver-white birds, which turn about in the sky in gigantic hordes. Now the whole sky is silvery with them; now they change direction, and all is gray. It is like billions of insects above the reed grass. It all begins when the reverend gentlemen start beating each other. I can see two adversary priests rowing on Lake Arber.
We look at Lake Arber, its water lying still like a black mirror. From different directions, the priests row toward each other. They meet at the middle of the lake and start beating each other in terribly slow and laborious movements. They swing their oars over their heads. Both wear gowns and big hats, like the priests in Italy.
VOICE OF HIAS
The trees are beginning to fall, and a burning cow gallops through the woods. In the forest, a large, aching fir tree sways to one side and falls to the ground. It crashes down with a hollow sound and swings up again. The sound of the crash is accompanied by the aching of another fir tree that swoons and falls nearby. With one vehement stroke, an entire stretch of forest collapses, from the Forlorn Bluff to the depths of the woods.
Hias’s voice is no longer audible; it drowns. We see an entire orchestra playing imaginary instruments. From the dimness, the visage of an infant flickers into form; it clings so firmly to a clothesline that it stays there, hanging on its own. We see that the baby is crying, but we don’t hear it because of the music.
We see a long line of paralyzed hens, one behind the other, beaks to the ground, all the way down a hall and out the door. The hens keep still, breathing heavily.
A dog is standing in the room like a statue and doesn’t move from its spot, trembling almost imperceptibly. Slowly the images become more intimate to our experience, but they remain all the more mysterious.
We are looking through an open door into a room, where some sort of drama is taking place, but we see just half of the room; the other half remains an enigma. People are moving around a table; they disappear; for a long spell, nothing; then, a woman flees out the door, panic-stricken. Then the door is locked from inside. We are left outside the neglected house, a short rattle from the door knob.
From out of a window, a strange sight. Through flakes of slow-falling snow, we see a beach, and beyond it the rolling surf. It is a sad, mournful picture: it is a Gloom.
We have another flickering view through a second window of the somber scene outside. There, snowflakes are falling and sinking, and behind, a massive waterfall, like the waterfall of the Rhine. The flakes are falling and falling; the waters rush more and more.
After a lengthy gaze, the snow and water seem to come to a halt, and an odd sensation sets in: we are moving upward with the room. It is like staring at a brook from a bridge or like being on a train, when through the window the world seems to be moving, though it’s actually the train that moves. The images flicker and fade away; stillness reigns. Above Rachel Mountain, the sun sinks in the mist, glowing red.
Now we see Hias staring at the last crescent of the fireball, in total trance.
HIAS
The sun stings. And, next, someone sets fire to the glass factory. The factories burn because they have come to an end.
The picture fades.
CEMETERY
Unfolding from a distant point, the image rests in itself.
We see a newly made grave. Wreaths that have hardly started to dry in the wind. Few sounds from the village. Two magpies are quarreling. We feel that we are back with the action. At the right corner of the grave, Mother Anamirl, a little old woman with a face like a leathery apple that has passed the winter on a shelf. She is dressed in faded black. Kneeling, she prays with deep devotion, as in manneristic paintings of the early Renaissance.
The sun is shining.
No background.
OUTSIDE CZECHOSLOVAKIA
“It was a book of about twenty-five pages by Herbert Achternbusch,” Herzog said, reflecting upon the origin of Heart of Glass while driving along an icy road a mile from Czechoslovakia. “It’s a very simple work, intended for a film. But very stark, very concise. The story was really unimportant; hardly anyone would realize or understand that this was a script. Now it’s found in his latest novel. It’s part of a novel.”
Herbert Achternbusch is a writer and film director of considerable prominence in Germany. During the shooting of Heart of Glass, his film The Atlantic Swimmer premiered at a major Munich cinema.
Herzog related that Achternbusch was a good friend of his. “He is my friend because we have similar backgrounds.”
I asked Herzog what a heart of glass is.
“It seems to involve, for me, the meaning of a fragile state,” he answered with difficulty, “a very, very sensitive and, perhaps, fragile state—an inner state—of certain people. It also means a sort of transparency. And it means a sort of glacial quality, as if some people have feelings from the freezer.”
As Herzog spoke, I took out my camera and snapped some photographs. I noticed the image of Herzog’s eyes looming in the rearview mirror while the reflection of his hands flicke
red on the windshield. Then a giant gray stag, unlike anything I’d ever seen, raced out of the forest, loped over the icy road, and vanished in fright.
Herzog continued. “The owner of the glass factory says to Hias in the dungeon, ‘I like you because you have a heart of glass.’ That still doesn’t say if he has it or not. I still haven’t decided if Hias has it. But lots of people in the film certainly do.
“If Hias does have this heart of glass, it means that he is translucent. It means that he cannot associate in a warm way with other people because, as a seer, or as one who looks over and through such things, he has to keep some distance from them. And that makes him very lonely. He doesn’t have many human relations.”
As the news was broadcast by the Armed Forces Network, Herzog listened carefully to reports of Jimmy Carter’s odd rise to the pinnacle of American politics.
“Jimmy is a fool’s joke,” dismissed Herzog, adding that his favorite American politician was Donald Nixon, a brother of Richard Nixon.
A newsman stated that due to a decreasing birth rate, the German race would completely disappear in one hundred years.
“That’s untrue,” Herzog declared. “The German race will disappear due to obesity and boredom.”
Another newsman reported on an uprising sweeping through the people of South Africa and the imposition of martial law there. Herzog listened with alarm.
“I’ve become very sensitive to certain things,” he said while switching off the radio. “Very primitive things. For instance, during the crisis in Cyprus, the Turkish prime minister declared a state of ‘mobilization.’ He just declared it, and he took that word as his own. He used it as if it were a word like ‘fertilization’ or—I don’t know what else.
Every Night the Trees Disappear Page 4
