Every Night the Trees Disappear

by Alan Greenberg

  “But you must drink it like a Bavarian,” he said, “like this.” He straddled the mug over the back of his hand and wrist to let the thick brew spill freely down his throat. I did the same and found the green beer pleasantly mellow and sweet.

  After the first few rounds of beer, the team sat down to savor the feast. The Priest sat with his legs upraised on a corner table, his head beneath a candle, playing a Spanish guitar. The atmosphere was gay, and everyone was a bit drunk. Some thought they were making mordant remarks; others thought they were hearing them.

  A clamor for music erupted when the Priest retired an inappropriate lament. The soundman, Haymo—who worked as a jazz musician in Munich between film jobs—pounded out a demonically persuasive rhythm on a chair. His assistant, van Anft, bared his harp and jammed with him. The room rocked with van Anft’s blues tempo and riffs. Amid a frenzy of wall beating and table scratching by the roused team members, a shapely, costumed woman began a soft, seductive dance in the shadows. The psychoanalyst studied her behavior carefully.

  Now Herzog ambled over the benches to get closer to Haymo and van Anft, who by now were churning their music mightily. He thrust his index finger pistonlike at van Anft and let loose with a muscular chant, as if he could invoke hidden spirits for greater force. Over and over Herzog repeated this, inciting the possessed van Anft as the team danced and drummed.

  Then the group took turns singing favorite verses from old Bavarian songs. Herzog, shivering badly and hoarse from his swim in the frozen Vils and from filming in the old, cold castle immediately afterward, stood in the center of the transformed, candlelit tavern and bellowed an invented song of his homeland. He strove with all his heart to fill it with life, and in doing so to be gay and feel closer to the others and be like them a little in their way, to share their unity of gladness. As I observed, I felt something touching me, something intimate and sad.

  For two hours, the tireless musicians performed. Taking a breather, Herzog and I sat talking in a corner. Herzog recalled that while he was in the African desert in Cameroun, local authorities suspicious of his film production seized the camera gear and threw the entire team, Herzog included, into jail. The jail cell was repulsive beyond description, he reflected with disgust. Just less than twenty feet square, it was packed with Africans even before the Germans were shoved in. In the middle of the awful cell was a stinking bucket into which the prisoners defecated. Herzog said that whenever one of the black men squatted over it, the other blacks laughed and sang vulgar songs to humiliate him. But when one of the white men squatted over the bucket, things were completely different. There was nothing but silence.

  Then Herzog told me that his cameraman Jörg had spent four years in an East German prison. He was caught trying to free his lover from the police state, and he refused, despite enduring much torture, to reveal her name. I watched the cameraman dance with one of the women across the room, an easy smile creasing his kind face as he gracefully shuffled and swayed.

  At last the music faltered, and no attempts to revive it would succeed. The harp that had so forcefully driven the delirium sighed and resigned, and as the inebriated team stumbled about, two dogs in the backyard pen started to howl. Herzog remained alone on the bench. He was bothered by his severe bronchial problems but, even more, by some impatient heaviness, as if someone were standing on his neck with frozen soles. Such dejection made him indignant.

  “You should not think that happiness is what I’m after,” he asserted in protest, “I think that’s not a goal for me.”

  “Come on, let’s go. It’s over.”

  We made our way through the crowd and left.

  The following day, the first scene taking place at the inn was shot. A relatively simple scene, it was a soporific conflict between the equally stupefied Wudy and Ascherl. The dull match would culminate with Ascherl slamming Wudy’s head with a beer mug. To prevent the actor from feeling any pain, the set designers created two special steins of brown sugar.

  Herzog hypnotized the actors. He made them repeat their altercation twice without the mugs, then directed them to have the real fight as the camera rolled. Ascherl reached over and smashed Wudy with his mug, the fragments from the shattered sugar flying like bullets about the room. Wudy, deeply entranced, didn’t feel a thing. A lump arose on his crown as blood trickled to his nose.

  After being attended to by Herzog and one of the costume women, Wudy got clobbered again. Again he just sat there, never moving at all, not even wincing or flinching. The blood flowed more heavily now. Herzog examined Wudy and found his skull to be moderately slashed. But the hypnotized Wudy insisted it didn’t hurt whatsoever. He felt nothing.

  Wudy had suffered a mild concussion. When Herzog lifted the hypnosis, the actor trudged slowly out of the inn, rubbing his head and occasionally issuing dull groans. He ignored the Priest in front of him, who was trying haplessly to fix his hand-cranked sixteen-millimeter movie camera.

  The Scenario

  INN

  A simple, ample chamber. Heavy wooden boards on the floor, which are very light in color from too much cleansing. Several long rough wooden tables without backrests. In the background, the counter; on the side, some beer barrels. On the wall, a small blackboard scribbled with chalk, as if for bowling. Few patrons. Silence reigns amid the beer drinking.

  The inn is rustic, but without all the attributes of the “rustic” as seen today in inns with an artificially backwoods touch.

  The room on the whole gives an impression of scantiness and has a taste of the customers’ poverty. At one of the tables, Wudy and Ascherl sit opposite one another, holding beers. It is evening; a candle flickers on the table. Both men are mute.

  They stare at each other. They look through one another as if they were looking through glass.

  WUDY

  It will all be over for you tomorrow, Ascherl.

  Ascherl waits; it is slowly sinking in. Wudy empties his stein.

  WUDY

  And I am going to sleep this drink off over your corpse.

  Ascherl peeks out from his deep absentmindedness for a moment.

  ASCHERL

  Hey, master—bring Wudy another beer!

  WUDY

  I shall sleep on your corpse.

  The innkeeper shuffles over and takes the empty mug. Wudy squirms heavily in his chair; his tongue weighs tons.

  WUDY

  Hias has said that I’ll sleep on your corpse. Hias sees the future.

  ASCHERL

  On the condition that I’ll sleep in the hay. And first I would have to fall down on the threshing floor. And then you would have to fall on top of me; it will be over for you, too, if you don’t fall softly.

  The innkeeper brings the fresh stein of beer. Wudy positions it exactly on the watery circle left by the previous one.

  WUDY

  You’ll be done for, and I’ll sleep.

  Ascherl drinks. He is so far away nothing can reach him anymore. Wudy broods.

  WUDY

  That’s it.

  GLASS FACTORY

  A cavernous, hall-like chamber, in the center of which the round furnace is set. The furnace stands on a round brick platform that is scarcely one meter high. On this platform the glassblowers work all around the furnace. About forty men have room to work there. The furnace itself is circular with a slight hump, a little taller than a man; nine openings are posited in its circle, from which the liquid glass is withdrawn. Movable shields have been placed near the openings to protect the glassblowers from the heat. In the furnace there is such an unimaginable heat that a blinding glare leaps from the glowing holes.

  On the edge of the platform—that is to say, a bit farther below—the hands are working. There are different wooden molds that can be opened, and they are filled by the glassblowers with a molten lump. Also, water basins made of tin for cooling. The hands wear heavy leather gloves.

  At the edge of the platform, beer mugs are all around. The heat is tremendous. There is continuo
us drinking. The men are wearing leather aprons.

  In the background, leaning against the wall at a right angle, is a cooling furnace with two holes. The newly made pieces are put into the furnace to be cooled off slowly for hours. Usually there is a constant coming and going between the two furnaces.

  We see the hall, the furnace, the men. Hardly any movement; a great Paralysis seems to have overcome them.

  In one of the glowing holes, the fire minder, Agide, slowly inserts log after log. We realize it is senseless work. The workmen don’t work—they brood. They brood in postures of brooding. The flames blaze from the furnace.

  Agide keeps tending the fire. Against the glow, he is as black as a paper silhouette.

  The glow radiates from out of the picture.

  To the side, the melter, Wenzel, broods in a brain-racked posture and stares at the floor. Agide sits beside him. He carries the last log in his hands.

  AGIDE

  He did know how to write.

  Wenzel doesn’t move. He sits like a statue.

  AGIDE

  He could have written that down easily—

  Wenzel, as if made of ore, begins to stir.

  Having come back to life, he fumbles for his beer stein and drinks. He wipes off his mouth.

  AGIDE

  —how the Ruby glass is made.

  WENZEL

  Have you ever written a word yourself?

  AGIDE

  But he could have talked, that Muehlbeck.

  WENZEL

  Try to get a word from a dead man.

  The men become mute, the Paralysis overcoming them, as they grow into marble and ore.

  INN

  At the inn, Wudy and Asherl still sit facing each other. For a long time they gaze at each other torpidly. Apparently they’ve just quarreled, and neither knows what to say. Full of animosity, they stare through one another. Ascherl reaches for his beer mug, raises it slowly, and conks it on Wudy’s head, sending glass shards flying. Wudy remains sitting, motionless. The mug has crashed on him as if on stone. He looks at Ascherl as if he were dreaming. Ascherl, too, studies Wudy as in a dream. Long inertia. Delirious, Wudy lifts his fist and across the table punches Ascherl. Wudy has knocked over his stein. With great care, Ascherl seizes Wudy, who is leaning over the table with the upper half of his body.

  The innkeeper comes up from the side and grabs the two by their hair.

  INNKEEPER

  Break it up. Go sleep off your drink in the hay.

  He pulls the men up. Seen from the table, the innkeeper shoves the two past the counter and out the door.

  PAULIN’S ROOM

  The room is poor and bare, like a convent’s. But across the floor and over the table and chair, untidiness is spreading, which is oddly produced with only a few pieces of clothes, dirty wash, and some senseless haberdashery.

  A bed, lengthwise, where Paulin sleeps. Her mattress is stuffed with dried bracken.

  Knocking on the door. Paulin groans. The shout “Paulin!” from the hostess. Paulin tries to rise on all fours in her bed. Door opening, foot-steps . The hostess is coming to the bedside. She draws off the blanket with a single yank.

  HOSTESS

  Lying in bed naked again.

  She slaps Paulin’s behind.

  Paulin, confused and senseless, struggles out of bed.

  HOSTESS

  Get dressed.

  The hostess leaves. Paulin reaches for her dress on the floor.

  MANSION

  We see two regal rooms, which are adjoined. Choice furniture, exquisite china in a glass display case, and in another display, reddish glass. Paintings and heavy carpets. In the first room, a slender tiled stove from the Rococo era, with the tiles of the blackest ebony. It rests on graceful legs. At first glance, the rooms give an impression of nobility.

  In the room reigns an unearthly silence and emptiness.

  A closed door.

  The doorknob is pressed down. The door opens. The glass-factory owner enters. With exaggerated slowness, he steps to the center of the room and remains standing on the carpet. He listens into himself.

  FACTORY OWNER

  Adalbert!

  He leaves, drifts out the door. A strange scene, like someone who has lost himself on the stage. We look at the door, which has been left open. From outside, we hear the factory owner shouting “Adalbert!” again.

  THE INTERRUPTED DEATH

  OF FRIEDRICH

  One key character in the film Heart of Glass is never mentioned in the original script. This character is the father of the glass-factory owner, a demented old man with a hilarious laugh the living cannot know. He has sat in his tall easy chair for twelve years, thinking that if he were ever to arise, his spine would crumble into dust. Herzog put him in the film because the factory owner’s youth left him begging for credibility.

  The man selected to play the father was Wilhelm Friedrich, a nonactor whom Herzog met at one of his hypnosis sessions. Friedrich was a man given to periodic fits that often caused him to black out, which Herzog knew before choosing him for the part. Just before he was to appear before the camera, however, Friedrich complained to Herzog that he no longer wished to act in the picture, citing his fits and faints as justification for breaking the contract. Then, for refuge, he checked into a Munich hospital. When the hospital asked him to leave the next day, Friedrich fled to the mountains and went into hiding.

  The day prior to Friedrich’s scheduled work, Herzog received a telephone call on location in the Castle Walchsing.

  “This is Herr Friedrich,” the caller gasped. “I am in hiding and refuse to act in the film.”

  “Where are you, Herr Friedrich?” asked Herzog.

  Friedrich told Herzog precisely where he was. “It is a place in the mountains in Salzburg. I am in hiding and refuse to act in the film.”

  “But, Herr Friedrich—”

  “I am in the mountains near Salzburg. I am in hiding and refuse to act in the film. End-e! End-e!”

  As soon as Friedrich hung up, Herzog dispatched Joschi to the mountains outside Salzburg. He returned six hours later with Friedrich, who appeared on the set the following morning as planned.

  Friedrich’s task for the scene to be shot that day was to sit in the easy chair as his son, the glass-factory owner, floats around calling for his servant, Adalbert. The father simply rubs his hands and laughs his terrifying and forbidding laugh, an expression native to Friedrich. The laugh is, strictly speaking, a dolorous drone, a “haw haw haw” that staggers forth from his taut and trembling mouth.

  Herzog placed the tuxedoed Friedrich in a corner of the room in his easy chair, with a blanket draped over his bony lap. Intoning that Friedrich was feeling very, very tired, that he was restful and lapsing into a dreamlike state more pleasant than anything he’s ever known, Herzog hypnotized the gentle old guy in three minutes. Then he suggested to Friedrich that upon opening his eyes, he would look into the camera and imagine seeing the most ridiculous thing he could possibly think of, and whatever this strange thing was would cause him to laugh with utter glee until he could laugh no more.

  The cameramen brought the camera up close. Herzog put the clapboard before the lens and started the scene. On cue, Friedrich lifted his eyelids and gazed straight ahead. Slowly he raised his hands above his lap and rubbed them together. With his face deadpan, he began to laugh. Herzog’s eyes burst wide with astonishment, and the team members strained to suppress their reaction to the amazing event. Friedrich droned “Haw haw haw, haw haw haw” incessantly for a minute or more, finally breaking into an anguished grin before petering out, just like that.

  Herzog tried a couple more takes, and each was similarly effective. Then he leaned over the seated man and commenced to bring him out of his spell. He spoke to Friedrich in a reassuring tone, telling him that his weariness is lifting, that he would leave his dreamlike state in two or three seconds and awaken to find himself in Walchsing with Herzog and the film team.

  After t
wo or three seconds, he stared upward and, his face a mask of utter terror, seemed unable to focus on anything at all. Herzog calmly rehypnotized Friedrich, and the man relaxed. Five minutes later, Herzog tried to wake him again.

  Slowly Friedrich opened his eyes. His face contorted with fright; he looked up at the ceiling with a wild, uncontrollable glare. He obviously was locked in a state of disorientation and fear. Friedrich seemed to have emerged from his hypnotic spell thinking he was dead.

  Herzog reinstituted the hypnosis a third time, and the panic abruptly subsided. Friedrich kept gazing at the ceiling, but now he did so with awe, with understanding. He was calmer; the face began to sag back to normal. He seemed to be thinking that he was dead, and he found it to his liking. Friedrich shifted in the easy chair until he felt comfortable. Then, with Herzog hovering overhead, he lowered his eyes from the ceiling for the first time. He looked over at Herzog; then his eyes collapsed in dismay. Anguish smeared his face. He looked to his left, at the blackened window. On the other side, a bird tried to peep in. Three tiny plants were perched on the sill.

  Damnation. I am not dead after all, Friedrich seemed to think.

  The Scenario