Performance, Landscape, and Shamanism in Werner Herzog’s Of Walking in Ice
Issue: Vol 13 No. 1 (2018) Special Issue: Spiritual Tourism
Journal: Fieldwork in Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Linguistics
DOI: 10.1558/firn.35568
Abstract:
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.
Author: Giselle Bader
References :
Blank, Les
1982 Burden of Dreams. Flower Films.
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.