Friday, April 23, 2010

Rogue Film School - some feedback

I've had some really nice responses to my Werner Herzog/Rogue Film School blogs, and just want to share a couple. My friend Delia Falconer, a wonderful novelist (The Service of Clouds, which she's probably better known for, but my favourite is the exquisite, deceptively simple The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers, which I've linked to here), wrote this:

"I can't claim serious cinephilia, but, my god, WH has had a huge impact on me as a fiction writer, so I really responded to your piece. I remember walking past the Valhalla one afternoon, stopping in to see The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (never heard of Herzog, just thought at 20 the title sounded like the sort of serious thing I ought to see): I was bored and confused for the first 20 minutes, then -- what a revelation. I've thought a lot about why I love WH's films so much and I think much of their power for me is in their avoidance of close-ups. I love the distancing, the lack of movement in a lot of his medium and long-shots, as if I'm almost watching a different medium, something pre-Renaissance, from before humanist traditions, let alone film, which I find enormously exciting: it's something that I've tried to capture in my second book.

"I also love his juxtaposition of narrative strands, (Bells from the Deep being a personal favourite), and his balancing of those strands with the long shots of that frozen lake; and his use, at the risk of sounding pretentious, of the "filmic-ness" of film itself. There is that extraordinary moment in Grizzly Man, where he just runs Treadwell's set-ups of a sun-struck Alaskan glade, which becomes unspeakably haunting. He says something quite fantastic in his voice-over, which I think is: "Sometimes things have their own magic, their own mysterious stardom." That seems right to me for poetry, and also, at times, for prose-poetry..."

Lost Thoughts of Soldiers link:

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Thoughts-Soldiers-Delia-Falconer/dp/1582435286/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272007892&sr=8-6

Another friend, the artist Emma de Clario, had this startling and beautiful revelation back in January when I first posted about the weekend:

"mmmm... he had a relationship with my mum when I was eight or so, he was in melbourne making a film with paul cox and I remember him reading my sister and I stories at bed time.......I remember because he read fairy tales in the old fashioned way, they were terrifying and magical, he was too."

In a message this week Emma added, when I asked for permission to recycle her January post:

"it was 1980... in melbourne, nth fitzroy...mum met him through paul cox when they made that green ant film in the desert... she saw him for a year or so I think... most of it long distance... I remember her saying that he was too german!"

(Emma link: http://www.marsgallery.com.au/view-artist.php?id=67&gid=118&s=2 )

10 comments:

abeam said...

Hi!

I read you feedback about Rogue Film School some weeks ago. I myself was accepted at Werner Herzog's Rogue FilmSchool, however i was unable to meet the financial costs. I didn't want to "steal me in" due to the fact that i'm from europe. Ok, so here's my question about a quote:

> "Three million Americans say they've been abducted by aliens, 300,000 women that they've been gang-raped by them," he pronounced. "In Ethiopia, not one woman has been gang-raped by aliens."

He called such beliefs a "manifestation of collective psychosis"; such beliefs, he said, are in a category with, say, conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination. <

Is this quotable? I mean is this analogous or a 100% quotation - word for word?

Greetings from Austria!

Totem said...

abeam:

I'm sorry you couldn't make it to the New York seminar, it's truly a wonderful three days.

Anyway, I took copious and detailed notes. Herzog has a lovely, moderately-paced speaking voice, so this makes it easier. If it's in quotation marks, then I'm saying it's a word-for-word quotation, to the best of my note-taking abilities. So here, the actual phrase "manifestation of collective psychosis" is his, while the conspiracy theory/Kennedy point is my paraphrase from my notes of something he said. Best, Luke

abeam said...

Ah, i see!

And the part about the 300.000 women and Ethiopia?

"Three million Americans say they've been abducted by aliens, 300,000 women that they've been gang-raped by them," he pronounced. "In Ethiopia, not one woman has been gang-raped by aliens."

Word quotation, too? It´s in quotation marks : )

Luke, i find it rather cool that a man that preaches about stealing charges more than $ 1.000 for a 3 day seminar : ) But hey on the other side one then knows the value of the whole thing. Did it feel like the real deal? Like he wanted! to pass on knowledge? I'm an Herzog-Fan i guess and like his cinema-poetry. I mailed him and asked for free participation. Sure enough i didn't receive any answer. $ 2.500 for 3 days were too much for me. And then there's my struggle having passion for so many realms. Writing, film, sound, music, my life is a mess. If i'd have made the trip to NY, i would have made the choice to concentrate on film again. Sigh...

Anyway, thank's a lot for the 3day-info!

And please let me know if the above quotation is word for word, too!

Philipp

Totem said...

Hi Philipp,

Yes, to be clear: also the alien abduction/Ethiopan women etc -- that's an exact quotation.

And yes, it definitely felt like the real deal to me. And it's expensive, sure -- but he's been a hero of mine for so long, and he's genuinely unique with a more interesting viewpoint on art etc etc than most people...So it was definitely one of those situations where I thought, "I'll prioritize my money for this." And I was very happy to have done it. It's not like training, it's not like some "practical" film seminar -- it's more poetic and undefined than that -- yet very inspiring. I wouldn't have swapped the experience.

And if he can at least part-finance more films in these difficult film-making times, then good luck to him.

I get what you mean, though, how the costs would add up coming from Europe. But did you know he's doing one in Europe some time next year? (I don't know which country, but I'm sure I heard this.) So you could do it for cheaper.

luke

abeam said...

That's true. I think there might be one in London.

So the Herzog Seminar you visited was 2009?

Hey, thanks for answering my questions! Too tired to type right now... sleep.

Totem said...

No -- it January 2010 -- the first one ever.

abeam said...

Ok, that's great! About what you said in the last comment: Sure, then you had to do it and it was perfect for you as i see! Maybe another time for me. Who knows. How many folks were there? 50?

Totem said...

40.

Emma de Clario said...

Another strange twist of mortality and time, Luke, the time that you posted my childhood memory of Werner Herzog... My mother began a relationship with Paul Cox it seems deep and ongoing still.... ahh the twists of being human...

Emma de Clario said...

Another strange twist of mortality and time, Luke, the time that you posted my childhood memory of Werner Herzog... My mother began a relationship with Paul Cox.... ahh the twists of being human...