« Script Notes | Main | October Country »

October 24, 2011

Conquest

While we were in Montana last month, Bill Ross was reading Conquest Of the Useless, Herzog's diaries during the production of Fitzcarraldo. I was also reading it, whenever Bill wasn't, and when I got back to Texas I ordered my own copy. Now I'm in Chicago, finishing it up, and there was one passage in particular that I grabbed hold of. It's not the best in the book, by a long shot (and Herzog is nothing if not quotable), but it had an immediacy that I responded to. It's dated October 8, 1979 - a year and some months before I was born.

For a moment the feeling crept over me that my work, my vision, is going to destroy me, and for a fleeting moment I let myself take a long, hard look at myself, something I would not otherwise do - out of instinct, on principle, out of self-preservation - look at myself with objective curiosity to see whether my vision has not destroyed me already. I found it comforting to note that I was still breathing.

Posted by David Lowery at October 24, 2011 1:20 AM