With Nomad, legendary German director Werner Herzog has no intention of making a straight-forward biographical film about his friend, the equally legendary British author, Bruce Chatwin, who died in 1989. Herzog approaches his subject obliquely, knowing that probing unusual angles will illuminate profound truths, the same method Chatwin used in books like In Patagonia and The Songlines. So Herzog uses certain episodes from Chatwin’s life as a catalyst to explore their shared curiosity for obscure people, places, and texts.
Chatwin was attracted to the dramatic stories of objects. This was the inspiration of his successful first book, In Patagonia, inspired by a scrap of ancient animal skin in his grandmother’s china cabinet. This piece of skin was sent by a cousin in Argentina and the family believed it to be a "piece of brontosaurus" but was, in reality, from a giant sloth. Chatwin himself is the object of fascination in Nomad, and Herzog endeavors to capture the magic and drama that came from the intersections of their lives—from their first meeting in Australia in 1983 (when they talked for almost two days straight), to years of artistic exchange, and a common belief in the power of walking to transform lives.
As always, Herzog is the main character in his film, and his narration, recollections, and interviews are front and centre. Herzog speaks with Chatwin’s widow, with Australian indigenous elders whose knowledge informed The Songlines, and with one of his biographers, Nicholas Shakespeare. Herzog and Shalespeare explore Chatwin’s archives at Oxford University, finding secret treasures which Herzog has never seen or read, including notes Chatwin made on Herzog’s screenplay for the film Cobra Verde (based on Chatwin’s book The Viceroy of Ouidah).
Chatwin, like Herzog, had complex opinions on the role of truth in art; Herzog’s films tend to be a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. In the essay “On the Absolute, the Sublime, and Ecstatic Truth” Herzog wrote, “Only in this state of sublimity does something deeper become possible, a kind of truth that is the enemy of the merely factual. Ecstatic truth, I call it.” This ecstatic truth, he acknowledges, is sometimes only attained through fabrication and imagination, or through spoof and humour. During his career, Chatwin was chastised for presenting conversations and stories as fact, which were later contradicted by his subjects. Knowing this, I had to wonder which stories in Nomad were real and which were embellished, not that this affects the impact of the film.
In Nomad, Chatwin’s soul is embodied by the beaten leather rucksack which exists to inspire, protect, and occupy the centre of outrageous stories. During the filming of Scream of Stone, Herzog claims to have spent fifty-five hours trapped on mountaintop, sheltered only by a snow cave and this rucksack. Both of these men had larger-than-life visions, and the mythology created in this film is an appropriate homage.
The film plays October 2nd, 2019 at 1:30 PM at International Village 10 and October 3rd, 2019 at 9:00 PM at International Village 9.