Word+Image essay by Beth Tesfay

Word and Image Bethlehem Tesfaye Critical Contextual Studies

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Aguirre, The Wrath of God Director: Werner Herzog Movie 1922

Grizzly Man Director: Werner Herzog Documentary 2005

Nosferatu the Vampyre Director: Werner Herzog Movie 1979

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The Nightmare Artist: Henry Fuseli Medium: oil painting Dimensions: 1.02m x 1.27m 1781

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This essay inspects the work of film director, Werner Herzog and painter Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare, applying the theory of semiotics to examine how the artists express boundaries in their work.

Herzog’s historical drama, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, known for its improvised documentary style, immerses the viewer into a doomed expedition through the Amazon.

Herzog’s camera work follows the crews’ decent into madness, making “us recognise the camera’s role as a participant in this expedition”1. Thus, placing us in the same position to share this helpless experience. Denoting Aguirre, centre frame, he stares towards the jungle. Occurring after a long monologue to which he ends “together we shall rule this entire continent … who else is with me?”2 Aguirre, holding a monkey in his hand, leans back, raises his arm, signifying that he is about to throw the monkey. Slightly blurry in the image, the monkey’s raised hands connote a lack of control due to Aguirre’s grip. In this action, Aguirre asserts his power one last time after declaring his grandiose “imperialist desires” which “could be read as expressions of a reactionary-romantic yearning for a more powerful future nation whose politics have the pull of aesthetic spectacle can end a psychotopographic excursion trapped in an endless, doomed present.”3 Aguirre’s expression: furrowed eyebrows, slightly open mouth, eyes starring into the endless Amazon surrounding his small raft, emotes a sense of yearning as he faces his impending doom.

Herzog altering the narrative, intensifies the tragedy to the viewer who has closely witnessed this journey. In this frame, Aguirre foregrounds the river and the jungle; the abundant nature that envelops the characters, leaves them at natures will. Herzog captures his crazed solitude as he stands alone with nothing but nature to surround him.

Grizzly Man is a perfect example of Herzog’s “fascination with how people make sense of the world, a receptivity toward what they think they know, and what we can never know about their frameworks of cognition.”4 Going through over a hundred hours of footage from Timothy Treadwell’s summers in Alaska, Herzog delves into the life of Treadwell and presenting conversations of the boundaries of natural law in the wild, going to “geographical as well as spiritual extremes”5. The still denotes Treadwell walking down the side of the river with two bears following behind him, he begins to turn to check behind, possibly at the bears or the camera. Engulfed by the green hills, immersed in nature, almost living like the bears he walks with, Treadwell captures a rich scene “that the studios and their union crews could never dreams of”6. The still signifies his comfortability in this setting, a situation that would be terrifying to the regular person. The close relationship connotes how Treadwell sees himself as one of the bears conveying “a romanticism that looks inward in order to gain insight rather than to escape”. Treadwell’s role as a director, actor and bear lover is enact as he performs this walk for the camera. The ease of this interaction denoted as the bears follow Treadwell, could be an exhibition of power, as he transgresses natural laws. This connotes how “Treadwell believes he grasps nature’s internal essence,” allowing

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Gregory A. Waller, “Aguirre, The Wrath of God”: History, Theatre, and the Camera, 1981, South Atlantic Review, South Atlantic Modern Language Association 2 Werner Herzog, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, 1972 3 Laurie Ruth Johnson, Forgotten Dreams: Revisiting Romanticism in the Cinema of Werner Herzog, 2016, Boydell & Brewer, Camden House 4 Paul Arthur, Beyond the Limits, 2005, Film Society of Lincoln Centre 5 Paul Thomas, Going to Extremes, 2012, University of California Press 6 Werner Herzog, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, 1972

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him to cross boundaries of man and animal, a hubris described “as an embodiment of what Freud calls a form of narcissistic identification.”7 Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampire “presents a different way of considering species boundaries”7. The still denotes Dracula knelt over Lucy with his teeth near her neck, connoting that he is about to bite her. His hand over head and the other over her breast (or heart), asserts his grip as she lays helplessly on her back. This also connotes sexual undertones and signifies Dracula’s wishes for love; wanting to “partake of the love which is between you and Jonathan… The absence of love is the most abject pain.”8 Dracula’s desire for Lucy’s love that presents as a “strong vitalising energy, an emotion of force and fearlessness,” that his placement of his hand on her heart could signify. The signifiers within the still: Lucy’s pale skin, long hair, white nightgown, surrounded by fallen flower petals, exudes innocence and purity juxtaposing Dracula’s haunting presence. Though she appears helpless, her face does not promote fear, instead she is calm, accepting, almost too passive, starring at the ceiling. Dracula’s leering shadow promotes an ominous presence in the room that is shrouded in darkness, engulfing Lucy, foreboding no hope for her. The moment forms a nightmare come to life, but she does not scream like usual. The stadium of the image connotes a sense of tragedy through the exposure of the Count’s face, signifying his submission to nature. Her deathly pale skin resembles that of Dracula’s as if she were already dead, connoting that they are morbidly connected. “The relationship between Dracula and Lucy” is “between lack and abundance, sterility and vitality.”9 Lucy’s pure love is alluring to Dracula’s hallow life which results in his downfall.

Fuseli’s painting, The Nightmare, is a Romantic creation that would become an essential depiction of Gothic horror “and provided a key reference in contemporary discussions of taste and imagination.”10 The painting signifies a manifestation of a nightmare denoted in the incubus, sitting on top of a sleeping women with a horse in the background creating a stadium of perversion due to the sexual connotations of the painting. The horse, peering through the curtain, its empty white eyes, connotes a crazed stare as if it were consumed with madness. Through the signifiers of her upper body sprawled slightly off the bed, her thrown arms, slightly open mouth, lying on her back (which was said to encourage nightmares), the women appear. A scene later depicted in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, “lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down… Her bloodless arms and relaxed form”11. Fuseli’s work largely connects to “contemporary sensationalist literature, specifically the gothic novel”12 later influencing literary icons such as Shelley and Poe. The women’s body language connotes a sense of openness that could be interpreted as sexual or vulnerable to hostile beings. The chiaroscuro creates a juxtaposition between the right and left side of the painting, denoting the horse in great darkness emphasising the sense of perversion/ Contrasting the brightness of the women’s side, draws attention to the hyperbolic body language, connoting her innocence and vulnerability. The incubus, said to

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Laurie Ruth Johnson, Forgotten Dreams: Revisiting Romanticism in the Cinema of Werner Herzog, 2016, Boydell & Brewer, Camden House 8 Werner Herzog Nosferatu, 1979 9 Kent Casper, Susan Linville, Romantic Inversions in Herzog’s Nosferatu, 1991, Wiley, American Association of Teachers of German, The German Quarterly, Vol 64, No. 1, pp. 17-24 10 Martin Myrone, Henry Fuseli and Gothic Spectacle, 2007, Huntington Library Quarterly Vol.70, No. 2 11 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 12 Martin Myrone, Henry Fuseli and Gothic Spectacle, 2007, Huntington Library Quarterly Vol.70, No. 2

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““ride” his victim, or at times even assume the shape of a horse”13 acts as a punctum, slightly off centre between the two figures, that render a malevolent face commanding attention through its hauntingly ghoulish stare.

Herzog’s belief that “real cinema should always try to define our images, and it should also try to define our human condition”14 resembles that of Fuseli’s introspection of dreams.

Both use this introspection to play with the boundaries of reality and nature.

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Lawrence Feingold, Another Nightmare: “The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches”, 1982, The University of Chicago Press, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol 17, pp. 49-61 14 Werner Herzog, Lawrence O’Toole, Werner Herzog Interviewed by Lawrence O’Toole, 1979, Film Society of Lincoln Centre

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Bibliography • Arthur, Paul. Beyond the Limits. 2005. Film Society of Lincoln Centre.

• Casper, Kent. Linville, Susan. Romantic Inversions in Herzog’s Nosferatu.

1991. Wiley. American Association of Teachers of German. The German Quarterly. Vol 64. No. 1. pp. 17-24.

• Feingold, Lawrence. Another Nightmare: “The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches”. 1982. The University of Chicago Press. Metropolitan Museum Journal. Vol 17. pp. 49-61.

• Fuseli, Henry. The Nightmare. 1781.

The Nightmare | Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (dia.org) • Herzog, Werner. Aguirre, The Wrath of God. 1972.

• Herzog, Werner. Grizzly Man. 2005.

• Herzog, Werner. Nosferatu the Vampyre. 1979.

• Herzog, Werner. O’Toole, Lawrence. Werner Herzog Interviewed by Lawrence O’Toole. 1979. Film Society of Lincoln Centre.

• Johnson, Laurie.R. Forgotten Dreams: Revisiting Romanticism in the Cinema of Werner Herzog. 2016. Boydell & Brewer, Camden House.

• Myrone, Martin. Henry Fuseli and Gothic Spectacle. 2007. Huntington Library Quarterly Vol.70, No. 2 • Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. 1818.

Lackington, Hughs, Harding, Mavor & Jones.

• Thomas, Paul. Going to Extremes. 2012. University of California Press.

• Waller, Gregory A. “Aguirre, The Wrath of God”: History, Theatre, and the Camera. 1981. South Atlantic Review. South Atlantic Modern Language Association.

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