Performance, Landscape, and Shamanism in Werner Herzog’s 'Of Walking in Ice'
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.35568Keywords:
Werner Herzog, Lotte Eisner, shamanism, pilgrimage, Erving GoffmanAbstract
This article examines Werner Herzog's 1978 diary Of Walking in Ice (Vom Gehen im Eis) as fundamental in establishing his eccentric public persona as an artist. His decision to walk from Munich to Paris in an effort to save Lotte Eisner's life is read as a shamanic performance. Herzog records this performance as an incantation played out across the magical backdrop of the Germanic forest, its periphery, and towns along the way. His performance speaks to the connection between himself and Eisner, of the importance of continuity in art, and of the artist's role as an outsider. Ultimately, the publication of Herzog's performance allows for a permanent shift in his public persona.
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References
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Cline, Kurt 2010 The Shaman’s Song and Divination in the Epic Tradition. Anthropology of Consciousness 21(2): 163–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-3537.2010.01027.x
Danfulani, Umar Habila Dadem 1995 Pebbles and Deities. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Eliade, Mircea 1959 The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt Brace.
----- 1972 Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Frazer, James George 1995 [1890] The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Fredrickson, Laura M., and Dorothy H. Anderson 1999 A Qualitative Exploration of the Wilderness Experience as a Source of Spiritual Inspiration. Journal of Environmental Psychology 19: 21–39. https://doi.org/10.1006/jevp.1998.0110
Gebauer, Gunter, and Christoph Wulf 1995 Mimesis: Culture, Art, Society, translated by Don Reneau. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Goffman, Erving 1956 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Harrison, Robert Pogue 1992 Forests: The Shadow of Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226318059.001.0001
Heidegger, Martin 2002 [1950] The Origin of the Work of Art. In Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track, edited by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes, 1–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
----- 2009 [1936] Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry. In The Heidegger Reader, edited by Günter Figal, 117–29. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Herzog, Werner 2010 Cave of Forgotten Dreams. IFC Films.
----- 2014 [1978] Of Walking in Ice [Vom Gehem in Eis], translated by Marje Herzog and Alan Greenberg. London: Vintage.
Herzog, Werner, and Paul Cronin 2002 Herzog on Herzog. London: Faber and Faber.
Herzog, Werner, and Moira Weigel 2010 On the Absolute, the Sublime, and Ecstatic Truth. Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 17(3): 1–12.
Holloway, Julian 2003 Make-Believe: Spiritual Practice, Embodiment, and Sacred Space. Environment and Planning A 35: 1961–74. https://doi.org/10.1068/a3586
Konijnendijk, Cecil C. 2008 The Forest and the City: The Cultural Landscape of Urban Woodland. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8371-6
Legat, Allice 2008 Walking Stories: Leaving Footprints. In Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot, edited by Tim Ingold and Jo Lee Vergunst, 35–50. London: Routledge.
Maddrell, Avril, and Veronica della Dora 2013 Crossing Surfaces in Search of the Holy: Landscape and Liminality in Contemporary Christian Pilgrimage. Environment and Planning A 45: 1105–26. https://doi.org/10.1068/a45148
Mayer, Gerhard 2008 The Figure of the Shaman as a Modern Myth: Some Reflections on the Attractiveness of Shamanism in Modern Societies. The Pomegranate 10(1): 70–103. https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v10i1.70
Messerli, Alfred 2005 Spatial Representation in European Popular Fairy Tales. Marvels & Tales 19(2): 274–84. https://doi.org/10.1353/mat.2005.0034
Olwig, Kenneth R. 2008 Performing on the Landscape versus Doing Landscape: Perambulatory Practice, Sight and the Sense of Belonging. In Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot, edited by Tim Ingold and Jo Lee Vergunst, 81–92. London: Routledge.
Paterson, Mark 2007 The Senses of Touch. Haptics, Affects and Technologies. Oxford: Berg.
Prager, Brad 2007 The Cinema of Werner Herzog: Aesthetic Ecstasy and Truth. London: Wallflower Press.
Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich 1856 Die Naturgeschichte des Volkes als Grundlage einer deutschen Socialpolitik. Stuttgart: Cotta.
Schama, Simon 1995 Landscape and Memory. London: Fontana Press.
Schellhase, Kenneth C. 1976 Tacitus in Renaissance Political Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tacitus, Cornelius 1999 Germania, edited by James Rives. Oxford: Clarendon.
Wilson, Jeffrey K. 2012 The German Forest: Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Zipes, Jack 2003 The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Published
2018-10-15
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Bader, G. (2018). Performance, Landscape, and Shamanism in Werner Herzog’s ’Of Walking in Ice’. Fieldwork in Religion, 13(1), 8-21. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.35568
