Dwelling in Active Serenity: Nature in Werner Herzog’s Cinema

Abstract

This article puts Werner Herzog’s films in dialogue with Martin Heidegger’s philosophy to answer the question of how to dwell, to be at home with nature. I argue that an apathy–empathy aporia blockades the discussion of the nature–human relationship in Herzog’s cinema, which tends to view his representation of nature as either entirely apathetic to human flourishing or totally identifiable with being human. Both versions of nature fail to do full justice to the nuanced vision of nature in Herzog, especially its dynamics and problematics as a safe place. To address this problem, I will closely read and compare three of his films across his career: Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (1972), Grizzly Man (2005), and Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010) in the light of Heidegger’s philosophy. Drawing on Heidegger’s thought on dwelling, technology, being-in-the-world, temporality, Gelassenheit, and Care, I move away from the standard paradigm and reinterpret the nature–human relationship in Herzog as a negotiation between the homely and the unhomely in search of an equilibrium I call “active serenity.” Thus, this article is both a film-philosophy experiment with Herzog and Heidegger and a contemplation of the antagonism between humans and nature, which underlines our modern world.