Cüneyt Çakırlar presented a paper (with Elif Akçalı, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey) on Werner Herzog's film-making at the international conference World Cinema and the Essay Film, at University of Reading (30 April - 2 May). The paper, titled ""A Form of Proto-Cinema": Aesthetics of Werner Herzog's Documentary Essayism", explored potentials and paradoxes of interpretation in Herzog’s recent
documentary practice. Capitalizing upon the various aspects of “the aesthetic”
embedded in his filmmaking (from the on-screen presentation of the subjects’
urge to create and re-invent to the fimmaker’s performative address at his “documentary”
aesthetic), the project aims to discuss the ways in which Herzog turns his documentary material
into a series of artful acts and “proto-cinema” gestures. What makes this
transformation possible especially in the documentaries Grizzly
Man (2005), Encounters at the End of
the World (2007) and Cave of
Forgotten Dreams (2010) is the filmmaker’s persistent interventions both as
director and participant observer in the pro-filmic events as well as his
highly stylised additions to the narratives during post-production including
his editing decisions, use of sound and voice-over narration. The subject matters that these
documentaries originally deal with multiply
and turn into remote questions both
voiced by the filmmaker’s on- and off-screen comments, and implied through his
filmmaking aesthetics. Rather than reinforcing a
documentary truth claim, Herzog’s subjective interventions in each film create
an alternate narrative prone to essay-films, which run next to these otherwise
participatory documentaries. The continuous juxtaposition between Herzog’s
subjectivity and the films’ photographed, quasi-objective realities including
the people and the landscapes creates an ambiguity in defining certain moments
from these films as they fluctuate between fiction and non-fiction, real and
represented, and natural and artificial. Focusing on his engagement with film form,
style, and the recurring themes of ecstasy, spirituality, scientific reason,
and the indifference of nature, we would like to address wider methodological
implications in Herzog’s practice. Tuesday, 7 July 2015
World Cinema and the Essay Film
Cüneyt Çakırlar presented a paper (with Elif Akçalı, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey) on Werner Herzog's film-making at the international conference World Cinema and the Essay Film, at University of Reading (30 April - 2 May). The paper, titled ""A Form of Proto-Cinema": Aesthetics of Werner Herzog's Documentary Essayism", explored potentials and paradoxes of interpretation in Herzog’s recent
documentary practice. Capitalizing upon the various aspects of “the aesthetic”
embedded in his filmmaking (from the on-screen presentation of the subjects’
urge to create and re-invent to the fimmaker’s performative address at his “documentary”
aesthetic), the project aims to discuss the ways in which Herzog turns his documentary material
into a series of artful acts and “proto-cinema” gestures. What makes this
transformation possible especially in the documentaries Grizzly
Man (2005), Encounters at the End of
the World (2007) and Cave of
Forgotten Dreams (2010) is the filmmaker’s persistent interventions both as
director and participant observer in the pro-filmic events as well as his
highly stylised additions to the narratives during post-production including
his editing decisions, use of sound and voice-over narration. The subject matters that these
documentaries originally deal with multiply
and turn into remote questions both
voiced by the filmmaker’s on- and off-screen comments, and implied through his
filmmaking aesthetics. Rather than reinforcing a
documentary truth claim, Herzog’s subjective interventions in each film create
an alternate narrative prone to essay-films, which run next to these otherwise
participatory documentaries. The continuous juxtaposition between Herzog’s
subjectivity and the films’ photographed, quasi-objective realities including
the people and the landscapes creates an ambiguity in defining certain moments
from these films as they fluctuate between fiction and non-fiction, real and
represented, and natural and artificial. Focusing on his engagement with film form,
style, and the recurring themes of ecstasy, spirituality, scientific reason,
and the indifference of nature, we would like to address wider methodological
implications in Herzog’s practice. 
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