Doc Corner: Werner Herzog's 'Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin'

by Glenn Dunks

Is it a coincidence that I watched Werner Herzog’s Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin on the same day as Nomadland? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe it was more just serendipitous that I turned my screener of Herzog’s film off just before leaving the house to go and see Chloé Zhao’s Oscar favourite. Maybe I am just feeling emotional about the very idea of being out in nature and enmeshed in a broader human existence, but both left me quite affected.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this double feature left me with the desire to walk home under the glowing blue sky with earth and tar and grass and cement under my feet...

Herzog’s film is ostensibly a biography of Bruce Chatwin, a man who could be equally described as an anthropologist, archaeologist and surveyor of ethnography understanding. Although Wikipedia quite glibly labels him as but a “travel writer”. Hmmm. The film charts his life, beginning with his fascination of a clump of skin he believed to from a dinosaur (it was in fact that of a giant sloth, not as exotic but a species that is no less extinct) through to his death at age 49 of AIDS-related illness (Chatwin was bisexual, described by Herzog as “alarmingly handsome” whose good looks could seduce anybody).

As one would expect, we get the required passages on his time studying and writing 1977’s In Patagonia, probably his most famous book. As you would expect, Herzog, known for his expressive and flowery language, has a ripe ol’ time here. And it’s to his credit that even in these early passages he is able to make this into something rich and textural. But Nomad is not just a standard bio-doc that it so easily could have been. Despite his reputation, Herzog is a filmmaker whose whims can occasionally lead to documentaries that are somewhat forgettable (Lo and Behold and Meeting Gorbachev most prominantly). Especially since he makes so many and often so frequently; Nomad is one of three released in 2020; I also reviewed Fireball back in September.

But Nomad is indeed something more. Herzog and Chatwin were friends, first meeting in Australia in the early 1980s. Herzog was filming his dramatic feature Where the Green Ants Dream about land titles of the country’s Traditional Owners, and Chatwin was researching Aboriginal songlines and the work of Ted Strehlow. It is here where Nomad splits in two. Yes, it is the story of a greatly admired scientist and his work, but for Herzog it is something more introspective. Nomad is easily his most personal and emotional film in over a decade since Encounters at the End of the World. It’s also probably one of the most personal of his career.

As Herzog explores their friendship—Chatwin was a big fan of Herzog’s films, particularly Fitzcarraldo, even before they met—he finds himself grappling in the process with his own legacy as an explorer of some of life’s most mysterious people, places and things. His hands visible shaking with age, and at one point even crying on camera, it’s obvious that as he approaches 80 years old, he is reconciling his own life within that of his kindred spirit, Chatwin. “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot”, says Herzog, and it’s clear that he sees this life as something bigger than just the existence that you or I may know it as.

Herzog even adapted one of Chatwin’s books, The Viceroy of Ouidah, to the big screen before the author’s death. That film was 1987’s Cobra Verde and there’s a very amusing David Bowie anecdote in there, too. He also made 1991’s Scream of Stone, inspired in part by Chatwin’s life (and his famed brown leather backpack), one clip of which will bring back Free Solo nightmares for some. On his deathbed, Herzog screened the gaunt and delirious Chatwin scenes from Herdsman of the Sun about African tribesman who dress in drag and use make-up to impress the women in a courtship ritual.

As is his want lately in films like Into the Inferno and Fireball—in fact, I’m sure he made Nomad and that latter film at the same time given they both share extensive sequences in the Australian outback—Herzog travels the world following Chatwin’s journeys. Another feat of cinematic nomadicism (a word I think I just invented; I like to think Herzog would approve). In some of the most revealing scenes, Herzog sits opposite a Chatwin historian, trading stories and reading journal excerpts (there is even a Herzog script for Cobra Verde with Chatwin’s hand-written notes in it). In these scenes, Herzog is often seen awkwardly holding things up to the camera for us to see, out of focus and even sometimes out of frame. Moments like this may normally come off as frustrating, as if he were editing in a rush. Not how I see it. Rather, it’s something so personal to Herzog that he couldn’t bear the thought of cinematic language potentially destroying that connection. They are extensions of one another. It actually quite profound.

Herzog’s career is an intimidating one. With so many strange detours and elaborate experiments, not to mention his fluid shifting between fiction and documentary, means it can often be hard to really get to know the man himself. With Nomad, we learn not just about its titular subject, but that of the filmmaker, too. I found this film to be one of such deep resonance and which aches with wonder that, especially when watched in a locked down 2020, had be clamouring for adventure.

Release: On VOD and blu-ray as of a few weeks ago.

Oscar chances: At this stage, I don't think the documentary branch feel in any real hurry to give Herzog a second nomination. But remaining prolific will no doubt mean he is surely—SURELY!—getting closer to an honorary statue very soon.

Comments

[thevoid99]

Werner Herzog... a god of cinema