Nomad: In The Footsteps Of Bruce Chatwin

Dir: Werner Herzog

2019

****

Werner Herzog’s Nomad: The Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, is an ode to his beloved friend, the celebrated adventurer and writer who died in 1989 at the age of 48. My first thought was why had Herzog taken so long with his tribute, but as the film progressed it became clear that the German director had been referencing his friend in nearly every film he’s made since. When Chatwin was near the end of his life, he gave Herzog the rucksack he’d carried on all of his travels. Thirty years later the filmmaker set off on a trip inspired by Chatwin’s dangerous and magical journeys with the very same backpack behind him. Herzog recalls how, when making 1991’s Scream of Stone – a film based on an idea from mountaineer Reinhold Messner, who Herzog had worked with in his documentary The Dark Glow of the Mountains - he used the backpack as a cushion while he nearly froze to death after getting caught in a blizzard with a couple of other crew members. While he doesn’t confess to the bag saving his life – the other crew members didn’t have anything to sit on and they all survived – he was comforted by it and felt that Bruce was somehow close to him. It is clear that Bruce was very dear to him and that the adventurer has never been far from his thoughts. It feels like this was a promise to a friend, like Rescue Dawn was to little Dieter who wanted to fly. The film isn’t as sentimental as it would be with any other director though, which will come as no surprise to Herzog fans, but it is far more emotional than I would have expected from him. The film is all the more moving for its subtlety. Herzog’s trip, following in his friend’s footsteps, begins in the Patagonian cave where Chatwin’s ancestor discovered the skin and bone of a brontosaurus, although it later transpired that it was actually the skin of a 10,000-year-old giant sloth, which the writer wrote about in 1977. Chatwin's boyhood fascination with the skin was enough to inspire the South American voyage that produced his first book, In Patagonia. The film isn’t so much a biography of the adventurer, more a journey retracing his steps with a few memories and thoughts thrown in, a bit like W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, but very much in Herzog’s unique style. "Bruce Chatwin was searching for a strangeness" Herzog explains, making the pair kindred spirits for sure. Herzog follows Chatwin’s path down to the bottom of the world, talking with many people along the way including the granddaughter of the man who found the brontosaurus/sloth skin, Nicolas Shakespeare – Chatwin’s biographer who shows Herzog the adventurer’s personal museum of artifacts and an Aboriginal scholar who didn’t totally agree with everything Chatwin did in regards to his culture. We learn of Chatwin’s collection of strange objects, some of which inspired his journeys. Opposite to most quests, he would start with the artifact, then go in search of its history along with whatever other unrelated stories came with it. Herzog follows some of these treks, and is similarly fond of tangents. He goes to Neolithic sites in Wales where blindfolded pilgrims commune with forces they think travel through ley lines. He photographs ancient cliff paintings and contemplates the carious colored handprints left behind by ancient civilizations. In a fascinatingly balance chapter, he goes to Australia and speaks to Aboriginal elders about the songlines that gave one of Chatwin's books its name. In a scene similar to one in his earlier documentary Grizzly Man, Herzog listens to a recording of these songs but refuses to share them with the viewer, after he speaks to a scholar who believes outsiders should never hear the ancient songs these tribes created and who condemns Chatwin’s book. Herzog has made a point about this sort of thing before, the clumsiness of early explorers and the effect their rambling has had on ancient civilizations. Between each adventure Herzog talks to Chatwin’s late wife, how she felt about his affairs with men and what life has been like without him. He also talks of his own relationship with Chatwin, one of mutual respect, brutal honesty and encouragement. It feels like they admired each other but could also be quite competitive. Chatwin sounded like he could often be as blunt as Herzog, telling him when he didn’t much care for his films. "When he came to see my new film at the time’, said Herzog, "the first thing he said was: 'Werner, I'm dying.' I said, 'Yes I can see that.'” It sounds harsh to us but I’m sure it wasn’t ever meant as such to them. That said, there is a sadness to Herzog’s voice when he tells of how, on his deathbed, Chatwin sent Herzog away, telling his wife that he had no desire to die in front of him. This clearly had nothing to do with their friendship and everything to do with the memory Chatwin wanted Herzog to have of him, but I can’t help but think Herzog would have wanted to have been beside him holding his hand and telling him interesting things. I had no idea of their friendship and I found it fascinating how both men’s careers intertwined over the years. This is  a classic Herzog documentary but with far more emotion than I’ve seen from him before, making it quite a journey. I feel privileged that he shared this special friendship with us.