Up The Creek

HERZOG DIARY 1

The original conception was Peter’s “Werner Herzog Eats 2 Pints of Stewart’s Ice Cream”
An expedition up a Hudson River tributary, in some way a homage to/spoof of ‘Aguirre’ and ‘Fitzcarraldo’. My inevitable thought (as ‘Werner’) is also of the overlapping documentaries ‘Burden of Dreams’ and ‘My Best Fiend’. And a bit of Herzog’s role as the gloomy, feckless father in ‘Julian Donkey Boy’.

We set out with no more information than that, and a little conceptual baggage, viz: there would be two canoes, and one camera (this debate, one or two cameras, was quite lively) everyone except Taima and Jeff would appear in the film as a character (because they both had to leave early) and we would swap the camera around so that all of us filmed something.
We took on the characters of Werner, Walter, Wilhelm, Piotr and Berto. Foxy the dog became ‘Fuchs’, though I guess ‘Fuchsle’ would be a better translation. Can you call a dog ‘fucksly’?

The ‘story’ would evolve as incidents occurred. My jejune mind kept thinking of James Fenimore Cooper.

The day was sunny though it threatened thunder, and around 90 degrees.

We paddled off down Catskill creek, past marinas and onto the Hudson, heading south for about a mile, then ran aground (a-mud, actually)
Canoes were dragged through the mud, and we found an odd Sheriff’s sign stuck up out of the mud most improbably. It said ‘WAKE’.

Up the creek, Joe had to be shot (needed to leave)

Then we proceeded (Peter, Russell, Will, Robin, Foxy) in one canoe upstream as the tide receded

We disembarked and set off on a plod through the mud/jungle/mosquitos etc

Berto (Robin) collapsed in the mud and had to be left behind
Wilhelm (Will) freaked out and ran into the trees
Piotr (Peter) got stranded pushing ‘Werner’(Russell) off as the tide turned

Werner returned alone, Foxy having mysteriously vanished

Unfilmed was the capsized canoe

We have about 90 minutes of raw footage

Peter wondered whether we could film another day of the planning stages of the trip, or should we deliberately limit ourselves to only that footage (remember rules can be broken)

Eventually, it was decided that Peter, myself, Will and Taima would each edit the same footage independently, to produce a kind of ‘Rashomon’ like film. No length was mandated, but about 5 mins each was agreed on.

So, what the other three are doing, I know not.

My first thought was to cut together all the footage I liked, and stick to an absolutely strict chronology.
This ‘bout a bout’ ran 45 minutes.
But while watching, what struck me was the walking through mud, and not the ‘staged’ dramatic dialogue scenes, all improvised in improbable foreign accents, by the way.

I spent some time cutting Joe’s breakdown and murder traditionally, then decided it would be better to offer a different explanation, i.e. that there had been no murder, and that ‘Walter’ was alive and well. As we had – nonsensically – taken a long shot of the two of us walking along chatting AFTER the assassination, this made sense. Werner’s commentary would be about exaggerated rumours of accidents and crimes…
Later it occurs to me to remove these scenes altogether, but am I second guessing the others? That they will include the killing? Then I deny it? Or omit it? Interesting.

I have also decided to find some random Germans and film them as my new producers for a new venture. This means new footage, but if I follow my chronological rule, I can do this, if I add the edit at the end as an epilogue. I can also show my trusty slave ‘Berto’ is still alive, as I have handily brought him along with me.
There are also rivers and creeks here to extend my obsessions.
It’s now the 10th August and I have not sorted out the story yet.

After listening to the actual sound quality and the words spoken, I make the decision to not use live sound except as background, but to voice-over the whole thing. On the condition (I hate voice-overs) that what I say and what we see are in some degree of contradiction. At best, and straightest, like Jacques Cousteau, or parts of some of Chris Marker’s work (like ‘Mammoth’). Dissonance, but smoothed away so it’s not obviously dissonant.

I have spent hours trying to find a distressed and non-automatic look for the film, so it appears to have been shot on super-8. Not using the automatic ‘film look’ filters. Think I have that now, so am leaving it till last. You can get so lost in tweaking and rendering and re-jigging that you forget to actually have a film to tweak.

The other thing I notice, again, is that the story elements fade very quickly after a few viewings. What is strong about a film emerges slowly, once the narrative is accepted or ignored. And what comes out of this is not the spoof or homage element, but the very real slogging through mud, the insects, the heat, and the occasional beauty when everyone shuts up.

Can I make the film segment only with these expedition bits??

In these beat films, what I don’t like (a general dislike) are the following even though I realize they are useful as guidelines, maybe what I want are no guidelines, some obligation to flounder.
a) mockumentary
b) spoof
c) homage
d) making-of

all of these seem to remove the main justification for doing a spontaneous film, i.e. to capture a moment on the fly. By giving such a framework, a lot of that lightness is lost, and two elements can creep in – cheap(easy) humour and plagiarism – I mean direct, ‘can I copy that shot?’ plagiarism

Another thing is that I find almost all mock/spoofs rather disrespectful, whereas I actually have a lot of respect and affection for old Werner H.

Any film is a documentary of what falls before the lens… always a document about the people involved as actors, and the landscapes. This is why I hate studio sets, this part of the form is left blank.
Spoofs are for bar-room conversations. Fun to talk about but why waste film?
Homage is empty, unavoidable subconsciously anyway, so why duplicate an extra layer consciously?
And Peter himself even introduced the motto “don’t let the making-of get in the way of the making”

OK where does that leave me?

A bunch of guys flailing through mud and occasionally getting hysterical.
Shots of jungle and river
A somber voice over (‘Werner’) undercutting the images.

Promising? I’ll watch it all again tonight.

To be continued…