As an octogenarian, the iconic filmmaker stands as a enduring figure that operates entirely on his own terms. Much like his quirky and mesmerizing films, Herzog's newest volume challenges conventional structures of composition, blurring the distinctions between reality and fantasy while exploring the very essence of truth itself.
The brief volume presents the director's views on veracity in an period flooded by digitally-created misinformation. The thoughts appear to be an elaboration of Herzog's earlier statement from 1999, including powerful, cryptic viewpoints that cover rejecting cinéma vérité for clouding more than it reveals to shocking remarks such as "choose mortality before a wig".
Several fundamental principles shape his vision of truth. Initially is the notion that pursuing truth is more valuable than actually finding it. As he puts it, "the journey alone, moving us closer the hidden truth, permits us to engage in something essentially unattainable, which is truth". Furthermore is the idea that bare facts offer little more than a boring "bookkeeper's reality" that is less useful than what he calls "exhilarating authenticity" in guiding people grasp existence's true nature.
Should a different writer had written The Future of Truth, I imagine they would face harsh criticism for mocking out of the reader
Experiencing the book feels like listening to a fireside monologue from an entertaining relative. Within numerous fascinating narratives, the strangest and most striking is the account of the Sicilian swine. According to the author, long ago a hog was wedged in a straight-sided drain pipe in the Italian town, the Italian island. The pig stayed trapped there for a long time, living on scraps of food tossed to it. Eventually the pig developed the shape of its pipe, transforming into a type of semi-transparent block, "ethereally white ... wobbly as a big chunk of jelly", taking in sustenance from above and eliminating refuse underneath.
Herzog employs this tale as an metaphor, connecting the trapped animal to the dangers of extended space exploration. Should humanity embark on a expedition to our nearest livable planet, it would take hundreds of years. During this time Herzog envisions the courageous explorers would be obliged to reproduce within the group, turning into "genetically altered beings" with little comprehension of their journey's goal. Ultimately the space travelers would transform into light-colored, maggot-like beings similar to the Palermo pig, equipped of little more than eating and defecating.
The disturbingly compelling and accidentally funny shift from Mediterranean pipes to interstellar freaks offers a demonstration in the author's concept of ecstatic truth. Because followers might learn to their dismay after endeavoring to verify this captivating and scientifically unlikely geometric animal, the Palermo pig seems to be mythical. The search for the restrictive "accountant's truth", a situation rooted in simple data, misses the meaning. How did it concern us whether an confined Sicilian farm animal actually turned into a trembling wobbly block? The actual lesson of the author's narrative abruptly is revealed: restricting creatures in limited areas for prolonged times is unwise and creates freaks.
Were anyone else had authored The Future of Truth, they might encounter harsh criticism for odd composition decisions, rambling comments, conflicting ideas, and, frankly speaking, taking the piss out of the public. In the end, Herzog devotes five whole pages to the theatrical plot of an musical performance just to demonstrate that when artistic expressions contain concentrated feeling, we "channel this ridiculous essence with the entire spectrum of our own emotion, so that it seems curiously real". Nevertheless, because this volume is a compilation of distinctively Herzogian musings, it escapes severe panning. The brilliant and imaginative version from the source language – where a mythical creature researcher is described as "not the sharpest tool in the shed" – somehow makes the author more Herzog in approach.
While much of The Future of Truth will be recognizable from his earlier works, movies and interviews, one somewhat fresh component is his meditation on digitally manipulated media. Herzog refers repeatedly to an algorithm-produced perpetual conversation between fake audio versions of the author and another thinker on the internet. Since his own techniques of attaining exhilarating authenticity have included inventing quotes by prominent individuals and casting artists in his non-fiction films, there is a potential of inconsistency. The difference, he argues, is that an discerning person would be adequately able to recognize {lies|false
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