Image: Captured from DVD by Staecker (talk), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14767149
The photo here shows Werner Herzog, the well-known German film director, with Lotte Eisner, the leading German film critic during the Weimar period in Germany in the years after the First World War. Herzog has produced, written and directed more than fifty feature and documentary films during his career, published more than a dozen books and directed as many operas. His work often focuses on the dark, more weird sides of life, and can be unflinching in its detail. On the other hand he has an intense imagination.
In 1974, still young and in the early stages of his career, a friend informed him that Lotte Eisner, his mentor as a film-maker, was seriously ill in Paris and likely to die. Herzog’s response was immediate: ‘I said that this must not be, not at this time; German cinema could not do without her now: we would not permit her death…..My boots were so solid and new that I had confidence in them. I set off on the most direct route to Paris, in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot. Besides, I wanted to be alone with myself. What I wrote along the way was not intended for readers. Now, four years later, upon looking at the little notebook once again …. the desire to show this text to others unknown to me outweighs the dread, the timidity to open the door so wide for unfamiliar eyes.’
So between 23rd November 1974 and 14th December 1974 Herzog walked -with the occasional lift and bus journey- the 500 miles from Munich to Paris-approximately 20-30 miles a day. He had grown up in a remote Bavarian mountain village. Even so he had set off in early winter with nowhere to stay; propelled by a will-power and overwhelming desire to see, and save, his long -time friend. Some walks including this one, have touches of irrationality in their origins. At one moment he looks up at a passenger jet and says to himself he could have been in Paris in 90 minutes. He walks on. As Robert Macfarlane says, ‘Only Herzog could have written this weird, slender classic.’
In brief, Herzog was, boots apart, ill-prepared for such a journey of about 500 miles across central Europe. During the first part in Germany there is a huge snowstorm : Thursday 28th November: ‘Wet, driving snow falls intensely in front, sometimes from the side as well, as I compulsively lean into it, the snow covering me immediately, like a fir tree, on the side exposed to the wind. Oh how I bless my cap.’
The second part of the journey in France is dominated by rain: Monday 9th December: ‘In Joinville a conspiracy hovers over everyone’s head. As yet about uncertain about the route today, probably straight towards Troyes, possibly via Wassy. The cloud situation has hardly changed since yesterday, the very same thing: rain, gloom. Noon in Donmartin le France: I ate a little. The countryside is boring, hilly, bare, ploughed wet fields. In the furrows cold water has gathered, at a distance all dissolves in cloudy drizzle. The towns are still spread far apart, seldom a car. The walking’s working. I’m completely indifferent as to where and how far I’ll walk today.’
Nearing Paris the conditions worsen- Wednesday 11th December: ‘ My fingers are so frozen that I can write only with a great deal of effort./All at once driving snow, lightning, thunder and storm, everything at once, directly overhead, so suddenly that I was unable to find refuge again and tried instead to let the mess pas over me, leaning against the wall of a house, half-way protected from the wind. Immediately to my right at the corner of the house, a fanatical wolfhound stuck his head through the garden fence, baring his teeth at me. Within minutes a layer of water and snow was lying hand-deep on the street, and a truck splashed me with everything that was lying there.’
There are occasional moments of relief. Earlier in the journey Sunday 1st December: ‘This is the First Sunday in Advent, and in less than three days I can reach the Rhine./For the first time some sunshine again, and I thought to myself this will do you good, but now my shadow was lurking beside me and, because I was heading west, it was often in front of me as well. At noon, my shadow. It cowered there, creepingly, down around my legs, causing me in truth such anxiety.’
Throughout the journey Herzog briefly describes the people he meets, his route and sometimes the towns and villages, empty buildings, personal memories and towards the end, his hallucinations-his mind is wandering as he walks. His journey covers a part of central Europe at the centre of the fighting in two world wars
He arrives in Paris and Lotte Eisner is alive and expecting him; she goes on to live for several more years. Read this short journal of his journey and you may well conclude that he was the luckier to be alive. In 1974 most of Herzog’s great films were still ahead of him and he is still alive today.