"... and now we have the Disneyfication of landscapes, of human existence, of storytelling, of our relationship with wild nature. The bears are cuddly and you have to hug them and you have to sing to them. That’s the tragedy of Timothy Treadwell, in 'Grizzly Man,' a tragedy of misguided philosophy. When somebody espouses New Age ideas, I always lower my head and charge."
Said Werner Herzog, quoted in "Werner Herzog Has Never Liked Introspection/A conversation with the filmmaker about the place of literature, the toll of war, and the conviction that his writing will outlast his movies" (The New Yorker). I see he has a book coming out soon, called "The Twilight World" that is, in part, the true story Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who fought, from a position on an island in the Philippines, for 3 decades after WWII had ended.
Herzog met Onoda in real life. He was in Japan, and had actually turned down an invitation to meet the Emperor. He didn't want to see the Emperor, because he would have been required to "speak only in formulas and polite, prefabricated dialogue." So who did he want to meet? He said, “Onoda.”
But I had the feeling that the tragedy of settling into a fictitious life may not have been such a tragedy after all. I have the suspicion that he lived a fulfilled life. And, of course, what fascinates me is not only how Onoda settles into a fictitious life but how basically all of us do, within our cultural norms. In his story, the deeper structure of what makes a human being becomes more visible....
I think he was reluctant, after thirty years of waging a solitary war, to acknowledge that there was no war. This is why he insisted that the young man who found him, in 1974, should return to Japan and mobilize a former major of his unit, who would then come back to the island and issue competent military orders for him to desist hostile activities. The end needed to be formalized and ritualized—only then would the war be over. But the astonishing thing is that he still hoped that the major would tell him, “This was all made up, we just wanted to test your perseverance.” He hoped that the end was an illusion....
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"He hoped that the end was an illusion."
He is not the only one.
By the way, is Herzog the actual Most Interesting Man in the World?
Herzog's an obsessive man with practical skills.
He hoped the end was an illusion.
Especially after they told him, "Um....I wouldn't say we...won...exactly. Nnnnn...no, you couldn't really call it a draw either..."
Bla bla bla.
Bob Boyd said...
"Um....I wouldn't say we..won..exactly. Nnnnn..no, you couldn't really call it a draw either.."
Well they Could Have given him the same BS they gave my coworker whil growing up in South Carolina..
"The War has just entered, the Economic Phase"
Not once (not EVER!) did my coworker entertain the notion that the south lost..
Polar bears, Romanticism, Disney, Treadwell, New Age philosophy, Herzog as author, the Japanese Emperor ignored, Onoda's ongoing war, reality versus ritual, and desire for illusion in life.
My college roomie used to connect subjects this way, but not with such coherence, and only after dropping acid.
“and only after dropping acid”
No thanks, but I would like to try some of that LSD I’ve heard about.
It is always good to remember that when you meet an animal, its two primary concerns are (a) if you are a threat and (b) if you are food. Any other relationship you want to create requires overcoming both. There is a lot more margin for error in that endeavor if you are dealing with a chipmunk than if you are dealing with a bear.
Sebastian: If Werner Herzog is the most interesting man in the world, it's only because Hiroo Onoda died in 2014.
Remember the jokes in the 70's about any over-grown area, right down to a lawn that really needs mowing--"there are Japanese soldiers in there who don't know the war is over." Hard to believe I'm at an age where WWII vets, who were in the prime of life when I was a child, are almost all dead. Time is relentless.
I've always wondered what Onoda's life was like alone in the jungle all those years. Presumably, he kept up his duties. Going out on patrol, keeping his gun clean and his uniform starched. Did he ever attack anyone? If he had, what would the consequences be?
Anyway, this post inspired me to go look it up and there is a movie. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
The idea of a lonely Japanese military man still patrolling decades after the war was over was once so famous, they parodied it on "Gilligan's Island." (I doubt they're still re-running that episode, since he was portrayed -- in a then-common, now clearly offensive caricature -- by an Italian-American actor who was later in "The Godfather.")
Could have quoted the emperor's own words: The war has gone not necessarily to Japan's advantage.
Surely SNL (WSNLWSF) did something with this?
Of the 15,000 Polar Bears in existence in the 70's only 26,000 remain today
I thought Grizzly Man was one of Christopher Guest's better movies
As is so often the case in urban circumstances, first responders risked their own lives several times to try to convince Timothy Treadwell to leave his camping area before the bears grew hungry. Kudos to Herzog for giving them the space to speak.
There are real men who run towards trouble to save innocents and idiots, and then there are stupid and insane leftists who create trouble and wallow in it.
How many top sequels has Herzog made?
The only Herzog movie I recall with much clarity is "Aguirre," and not for the best reasons. I didn't see the one about bear dude (bear-dude?) but I recall Jonah Goldberg's* warning that in spite of all the propaganda, bears really just want to eat your face. And like the Firesign guy, I see a bear coming my way, I cross to the other side of the street.
*Long ago, and when you're right, you're right.
“It is always good to remember that when you meet an animal, its two primary concerns are (a) if you are a threat and (b) if you are food. Any other relationship you want to create requires overcoming both. There is a lot more margin for error in that endeavor if you are dealing with a chipmunk than if you are dealing with a bear.”
Which is why I upgrade from carrying a 9mm G19 with hollow points here in AZ for coyotes (we have a small dog that they show interest in) to a 10mm G20 with bear loads in MT. We routinely have black bear in the neighborhood there, and brown bear on the ridge to the north. No one leaves their trash out either. Live and let live.
There are real men who run towards trouble to save innocents and idiots, and then there are stupid and insane leftists who create trouble and wallow in it.
I suppose it can also happen on the Right, but somehow I don't find as many examples of it.
I read Into The Wild years back - the book by the guy who wrote Into Thin Air, the chronicle of that horrible Everest season in which so many people were trying to summit simultaneously, a bad storm was predicted, but everyone had paid so much money and the outfitting companies had so much riding on it that almost all attempted the summit anyway and many died. Into The Wild was the story of a young man who wanted to "live off the land" in Alaska, and headed into the Alaskan outback, so to speak, with a big bag of rice and no significant knowledge, only to starve to death in an abandoned school bus(!). The book presents this guy as some kind of modern-day hermit-prophet. But even on the heels of the rather excellent writing, all I could think of was, "What an idiot."
What an interview! Thanks for the link. Favorite exchange:
Q: Are there moments in your films that you would take back?
A: There are, but I cannot. I threw away all my outtakes because a carpenter doesn’t sit on his shavings.
New Age? Where’s that Refulgent Crack at?
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