Country: WEST GERMANY
This short nine
minute film would be totally insignificant were it not for the fact that it
marked the debut to filmmaking of Werner Herzog. The barmy Bavarian was a mere
twenty years old when he wrote, directed, produced, and edited this somewhat
amateurish effort. It is fair to say that Herakles
was an exercise; an experiment on Herzog’s part to see if he could actually
make a film. But even at this early stage Herzog’s decision to shoot on 35mm
film shows that he had ambitions that far exceeded the humble nature of this
production. But Herakles was an
instructive lesson, especially for a young man who largely existed in a world
without cinematic reference points, and whose influences were extremely
limited. In this film Herzog explores the art of editing, and although Herakles is little more than an
editorial exercise, it does contain a few images that will be of interest to
Herzog enthusiasts.
A coup for the
film was the participation of Reinhardt Lichtenberg who in 1962 was crowned Mr.
Germany, and it is Lichtenberg who is the locus of attention in the sequences
that explore the training programme of the modern bodybuilder. Herzog’s
relatively static camera not only shows the rippling torso’s of these self
styled supermen as they pump iron, but also shows the narcissism that forms a
logical flipside to their grunting endeavours. The meat heads pose in front of
mirrors, and on stages, and clearly relish the presence of the camera, but the
overriding sensation is of a self-contained and self-absorbed world in which
reality is measured by size and definition. Herzog highlights this selfishness
with a series of impressive shots culled from film libraries; a huge rubbish
dump, uniformed women marching in unison, surprisingly graphic footage of an
accident at a motor race in which members of the audience were killed, traffic
jams, and fighter planes dropping their deadly payload to explosive effect.
But what this
juxtaposition is intended to highlight remains unclear. At the same time as
Herzog equates the bodybuilders to man-made disasters, he includes on-screen
questions which quote six of the twelve labours of Hercules. The bodybuilders
are both selfish narcissists, and figures of modern myth, heroes to be admired
for astonishing feats of strength. The
repetitive machine like actions of the bodybuilders, and the profusion of
mechanical devices featured in the juxtaposed images is perhaps some statement
on stereotypical national characteristics; and it is impossible not to view
images of bodily perfection and mass destruction without the vague spectre of
the recent past. There is the merest suggestion in Herakles that Herzog is trying to make a major or profound
statement, but the director has been uncharacteristically tight lipped on the
meanings of this film. In fact Herzog has spent most of his later career
dismissing it as a pointless failure.
The earnestness
of the imagery however does suggest certain pretentiousness on the part of the
young filmmaker. It’s not quite as self-conscious as a student film, but it is
clear already at this stage Herzog prefers to deal in metaphors. Although the
themes of the film would not resonate throughout his later career, the images
of human beings under enormous stress (either voluntarily as with the
bodybuilders) or involuntarily (as with the victims of the accident) would
become a major pre-occupation. The bodybuilders invite and welcome the
pressure, they embrace it eagerly, and in them we can perhaps see a hint of
Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre. At this stage though we only see pessimism, satire,
and cynicism...it would be a few years yet before Herzog would completely
embrace the fevered world of dreams, and realise the importance of landscape as
a reflection of our inner being.
© Shaun Anderson
2013
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