Cyclebears

The Grizzly Man was fantastic. I think it changed my life. You must see this movie. I cannot be objective about Herzog's work. I thought White Diamond was life-changing as well. But for some reason I feel that Grizzly Man touched my DNA as few works of art have. I think it is partly because I have a sentimental part of me that reacts to scenes of mountains and forests, akin to the Rocky Mountains, and I've forgotten that internal aspect of myself, living in a metropolis as I do. But Herzog is investigating what life is, as he always has, with astounding consistency.

What exactly is that consistency? I don't know. Herzog films from his gut. But it is an exceedingly complex and focused gut. A gut that was tempered by his upbringing in the backwoods of Bavaria, and an ecstatic religious experience at the age of 14. He is not interested in the world as much as he is interested in the mind. That is why he changes the details of the facts—conforming them to his idea of truth. (This gut is also funneled through his mind, a mind of extraordinary conviction. A mind that was “fortified by philosophy.” What philosophies these might be, I don’t know. He has never gone into specifics. They may be his own. In that case it is the idea that there is no harmony in the universe. That “the only harmony is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder.” As a younger Herzog despairs to the camera in the documentary Burden of Dreams. He literally reiterates this philosophy in Grizzly Man.)

There is some stuff to talk about. About the idea of some things being more real than others. This involves Herzog, Keats, and maybe Thomas Bernhard. (For me? For you, does the idea of some things being more real than others work for you? Or is all reality equally real? Or is it all a dream? Or is it both? (In angryandsloppy-land, if you think it’s all equally real or all a dream, then you’re wrong. I’ll explain why later.)