THE STORY OF ABSALOM
Relaxing with a dictionary one night in Munich, I discovered that weasels habitually suck the yolk out of an egg while leaving the shell intact. Then I reached for my journal, which I maintained for historical purposes and nothing else, and wrote, “There is a strong sense of not being able to know and of becoming more real because of that.”
Next I put on some music, and a song composed by a Spaniard named Mudarra about four hundred years ago moved me deeply. The title of the lament was “King David Grieved with the Death of Absalom.” I picked up the telephone and dialed Herzog’s number because, as I told Herzog, I did not know the story of Absalom. Herzog, a bit surprised, told me.
“Absalom was the most beautiful man in the land,” Herzog began. “He was fearless, fair, and his head was covered with strands of golden hair. He left his father and began to perform certain feats, certain audacious acts that his father, King David, would not approve of. Eventually David was offended by Absalom, and he sent his men out in search of his son. Absalom fled. Flying through a distant forest, Absalom’s beautiful golden hair got caught in the limbs of a tree. He stayed hanging from the tree until his pursuers found him, and he was immediately slain.”
“So the father grieved for the death of his son?”
“Yes,” said Herzog. “The king grieved.”
The Scenario
LANDSCAPE
The picture opens in a circle, but it doesn’t show the whole screen. As in old photos, we have a round section of landscape set within a rectangular frame. There are dark woods on the hill, one behind the other: Mount Osser, the Lusen, Mount Rachel. The sun sinks behind the woods. A perfect, lamentable harmony.
And a panic-stricken scream from Ludmilla.
Sounds of sipping, as if someone were drinking without a cup. The picture narrows to a point and leaves us in darkness for a moment.
INN
Inside the inn there is great turmoil. By and by we realize that a kind of strange and collective madness is breaking out. It is not noticeable all at once, but we feel it gradually.
Hias and a stranger, his bundle on the table, sit by themselves in a corner. Hias is isolated from the other men. He is completely introverted; he doesn’t notice anything around him. The prophecies drag out of him.
STRANGER
And then?
HIAS
Then the Little One starts a War, and the Big One across the ocean extinguishes it. Then you won’t get a loaf of bread for two hundred florins. Then a strict master comes, who will pull people’s heads up over their heads, with their skins. After the War you think there will be Peace, but there won’t be.
Paulin lights the candles on the tables. The faces light up, flushed. At the bar the men are standing with beer mugs in their hands; they have quiet and enchanted faces.
We see Wudy at his usual spot; he is tearful.
WUDY
I miss Ascherl.
AGIDE
You shouldn’t have smothered him.
WUDY
Ascherl should be with us today.
AGIDE
Then you will have to go out and join him. He can’t come in.
WUDY
Bring me some Ascherl.
Wudy shoves himself away from the table and gets up from his bench. He exits.
We see Hias with the stranger again.
HIAS
Believe or don’t believe—that’s your affair. I say what I see. Whether it comes to pass, I don’t know.
STRANGER
Yes, all right, and then?
HIAS
The farmers will dress up like townspeople. And the townspeople will be like apes. The women wear trousers and boots. The farmers will stand on their dung heaps with polished shoes. The farmers will eat cake and talk politics.
Wudy returns. He carries dead Ascherl on his shoulders.
There is quiet expectancy. Only Gigl seems to be unaffected.
GIGL
Quit that lunacy!
WUDY
Who’s gonna play us some dance music?
The stranger rises.
STRANGER
I’ll play for this couple here.
He takes a radleier from his bundle, goes to the bar, and plays dance music.
Wudy relieves himself of the stiff Ascherl, hugs him, and starts to dance with him. The onlookers make gestures of religious frenzy.
MANSION
Meanwhile, the glass-factory owner has been overcome by a serene, relaxed kind of madness. He feels the arm of the stabbed Ludmilla on the floor.
FACTORY OWNER
She’ll be cooled off soon, and then she won’t break any more.
He lifts her. Adalbert opens the door. The factory owner carries Ludmilla out in his arms. Adalbert follows. The door remains open.
Crashing of broken glass.
Toni awakes from his swoon in a state of semiconsciousness. He resumes playing the fantasy on his harp. His glance wanders to the empty easy chair with no comprehension, then to the empty stool, then to the open door. He now closes his eyes while playing.
The factory owner comes back alone. He steps to the big pool of blood on the floor. He pulls off his ruffled shirt and soaks it in blood.
FACTORY OWNER
This is the pure mixture. What good are factories anymore?
He has difficulty putting on his shirt, having turned one sleeve inside out. He slips into the sleeves as they are. From the fireplace he takes a burning log. When he passes Harp Toni with it, Toni opens his eyes. Like someone waking from a hypnotic sleep, his perception, his intelligence, and his state of orientation return to him. Full of terror, he jumps into the strings of his harp, tumbles down with it, and can’t free himself properly.
The factory owner leaves the room with the log.
Adalbert enters and spots Toni, who is fighting his instrument, then shakes his head with the indignation of a domestic. He seems to think this untidiness is indecent. He takes the stool and sets it in front of the fallen picture, steps on the stool, and hangs up the ancestor. He steps back to examine if the picture hangs straight. He puts back the stool.
He leaves the room. The door remains open. We can hear him calling from outside.
ADALBERT
Ludmilla! A pail with water and a rag to wipe the floor!
Thus he deadens the ugly sounds of the harp.
VILLAGE
The village lies in the dark; there is hardly any light in the windows. The factory owner drifts through the dark in pursuit of the flaming log in his hands. Some distant shouting and scraps of music blow over from the inn.
The factory owner heads toward the glass factory. We recognize in the light of his torch that he finds the entrance door locked. The burning log vanishes behind the glass factory.
INN
Hias sits at a table by himself.
At the bar in the background, we overhear a fight over whether or not everyone should continue to let Wudy play around with Ascherl.
Apparently only Gigl wants him to stop. The radleier is playing and stopping again.
Hias, closer; he is Complete Introspection.
HIAS
Everyone is building; they build and they build everywhere, endless rows, they build them like beehives. In the city they build houses with five and six stories; everywhere they build houses like castles and vicarages and schools like palaces. And the number of people goes up, not down.
Hias stops; no one has listened to him.
GIGL
Let the dead rest! Stop raving!
FIRST VOICE
Paulin’s gonna dance!
SECOND VOICE
She’ll dance on the table, naked!
HIAS
They make laws and impose taxes, those gentlemen, but no one can pay, and nobody cares anymore. Many things are decided but not carried out. The Lords sit together and invent taxes and laws. And then the people rise up.
THIRD VOICE
Over here; there’s room on Hias’s
table.
HIAS
One will come after the other.
The same view of Hias. Around and by him people sit down, madness etched upon their faces. They take no notice of Hias; they only notice Paulin.
THIRD VOICE
All right, Paulin, up on the table! Up!
We only see Paulin’s bare feet on the tabletop, not far from Hias’s hands. Someone pushes Hias’s beer mug aside to make more room. While Hias talks on, one by one, scraps of clothing fall to the table.
HIAS
They all fight. Whoever has something will be robbed of it. There is war in every house. No man can help the other anymore. The rich and elegant people will be murdered. Whoever has smooth hands will be slain. The farmers will put high fences around their houses and shoot at the townspeople from their windows. The townspeople beg, “Let me plow the ground,” but they will be slain. No man will like another man. When two are sitting on the same bench and one of them says, “Move over,” and the other doesn’t, it will be his death. That will be the time of the Clearing of the Benches.
We follow Hias’s gaze as it travels up to naked Paulin. Paulin hasn’t a single hair on her body, with which she confronts the frenzied people. Hias continues talking with face upturned.
HIAS
You won’t be able to tell the difference between summer and winter; everybody will have a different head. And the forest will get sparse like the beggar’s gown. The small shall be tall again.
FOURTH VOICE
You there with the instrument, keep playin’!
THIRD VOICE
Dance, Paulin!
A polka. Paulin lifts the soles of her feet, but timidly.
HIAS
When the Redcoats come with their red coats, you’ll have to run away as fast as you can, and take care that you carry a loaf of bread. Whoever has three loaves and drops one on the way mustn’t bend.
The music speeds up. Paulin’s feet dance more swiftly.
HIAS
Even when you lose the second loaf, you must leave it behind, because you’re in such a hurry, and you can subsist with just one loaf since things won’t last long. He who survives must have an iron head. People get sick, and no one can help them. The few who survive will greet each other as Brother and Sister.
VOICE IN DOORWAY
Fire! The factory is on fire! Fire!
All run to the window and to the door. Big clamor. The faces are lit by the fire’s glow. Some jump through the windows; the others press toward the door. Scolding, curses, cries of pain. Through the confusion we briefly see the blazing flames. From two windows the flames shoot up symmetrically.
Hias sits alone in the empty inn. Only Paulin is standing by the table, and she dresses herself in total tranquility.
The candles and the inferno together result in a two-way flicker. Through the open window, screaming and crackling penetrate. Hias watches Paulin dress and speaks.
HIAS
People make themselves at home as if they didn’t want to leave this world, ever. But overnight the Clearing of the World begins.
Hias pulls out his knife, and, while he’s elaborating, he carves something into the table, something that could be the Bavarian Forest, the Danube, the Rhine, or even England.
HIAS
A snake of the lowest army of Redcoats comes across the woods and up the Danube, headed for the Rhine like the other army lines. Now there are so many doves that rise from the sand, I can’t count them. They drop a large black box over the headquarters. There is a larger spot where nothing is alive anymore—no man, no animal, no grass. No soldier of the three army lines shall survive. From the Orient, a huge bird appears and shits into the sea. The sea rises as high as a house and boils. The earth trembles, and a big island half drowns. The big city with the iron tower is in flames. But the fire was started by the people themselves. And the city is leveled to the ground. In Italy, the Clergy are murdered and the churches collapse. The Pope is sitting in a cell. During his flight he consecrates a goat as bishop. The people are starving. The three days of darkness draw nearer. When the black box drops, a green and yellow dust arises. The poor people turn black, and their flesh peels off their bones. The weather will change. Vineyards will be grown in our region, and unfamiliar fruit.
We hear Adalbert calling “Ludmilla!” outside, the shouts coming closer and closer.
Adalbert comes into the inn; he’s so utterly out of his senses that he could be called almost normal again.
ADALBERT
Is Ludmilla here?
He sees the open windows and closes them authoritatively, one after another.
ADALBERT
Ludmilla!
He takes a beer mug that had tumbled to the floor and puts it on the counter.
Hias rises. The dimwit Paulin is beside him.
HIAS
Ludmilla is lying dead in the master’s office. Toni is playing her one piece after another on the harp.
OFFICE
A faint flicker from the factory inferno permeates the office and turns the room into a place with an atmosphere of specters and horror. Toni plays the harp.
We now see Ludmilla in the darkness on the floor amid broken glass. Now and again some light flits over her.
The door opens slowly. Adalbert sneaks in with a candle in his hand. He looks about, catches sight of Ludmilla. He draws her away from the broken glass by her leg, puts her dress in order, crosses her hands on her breast, and puts the candle at her head. He tiptoes out and closes the door behind him.
THE BLUFF
Back in Frauenau, just outside Czechoslovakia, Herzog and I were skimming through some magazines before breakfast. I read aloud a news report that said scientists had discovered the ultimate elemental entity, something smaller than atoms, smaller than quarks, even smaller than strangeness. The scientists called their discovery “charm,” but they couldn’t say why because they “really hadn’t found it yet.” Herzog, meanwhile, was looking at photographs. He called my attention to a photo of a foolish man with a lazy grin creasing his face.
“That is the King of Spain,” he noted.
As I began to compare another fellow in the photograph to James Joyce, who also had wrinkled, pendulous eyelids, a man suddenly cried out, “The wolf is in the field beside the inn!”
For weeks a wolf had been terrorizing the region, devouring chickens and deer, attacking and biting children. Determined to capture the wolf, Herzog dashed outside, followed by the cameraman, the script girl, the herdsman, and me. He drove his van into the woods, then stopped and ran off to a clearing where the wild animal could be seen, running in fits and starts. When Herzog stepped close to the wolf, it stopped and bared his teeth, then abruptly turned and scampered off. Herzog trudged back to the van.
“That wolf is very thin and hungry,” he reported. “The innkeeper should put some food behind the inn for him.”
That day’s shooting took place in the glass factory. The set was well prepared; the set designers painted the huge chamber black for a cavelike effect, the cameramen erected a complicated ramp system for the dolly to roll across, and the Production Manager orchestrated the entire operation with the cooperation of the factory management and its workers. But once the shooting commenced, it was instantly apparent that problems were at hand. The glassblowers could not take the film seriously, disregarding Herzog’s requests as some sort of joke. The team was annoyed, and tension filled the air. Only after Herzog climbed up to the metal rafters above the furnaces did the glassblowers pause. Herzog addressed them firmly, his voice gentle yet perfectly timed like a good orator, and he persuaded them to work earnestly. The shooting was a strenuous ordeal, but the scene was completed successfully.
That night, the assistant cameraman projected photographs he’d taken around the world. With Herzog and a few others present, the first image was proudly projected against a wall. It was a perfectly composed shot of a sunset, partially seen through a pair of sunglasses.
“
So-and-So Cognac,” chided Herzog.
Another photo was projected, this one showing two people strolling along a beach, again at sunset.
“So-and-So Cigarettes,” derided Herzog.
The assistant started to get pissed off. Next came four shots in a row of birds on a rooftop.
“Enough. Birds are boring,” Herzog scorned.
The seething cameraman proceeded with a series of mad dogs fucking in a dusty field, their eyes like knives, their muscles tight and straining. Herzog shut up for awhile. A photo went up of a vainglorious old Spanish dame, looking quite bizarre with thick red lipstick carefully smeared around her mouth from nose to chin, and with heavy black mascara smeared just as carefully around her eyes from brows to bags. This was followed by yet another picture of the mad dogs violently screwing each other. Herzog said this reminded him of his film Even Dwarfs Started Small.
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