Science Communication in the Films of Werner Herzog

Abstract

Science documentary film and television programming generally conforms to modes of representation that are expository in order to interpret and present information as truth. German Romanticism reacted to Enlightenment era reductionism and rationalism by taking into account aesthetic or experiential modes of inquiry that challenged reason as the ultimate kind of intelligence. Early German filmmakers like Murnau used Romantic motifs to critique the technological advances of the industrial revolution. In contemporary cinema Werner Herzog’s films draw on techniques and motifs from the Romantic tradition. Herzog makes films that run counter to and subvert accepted modes of scientific documentary film and television techniques. I perform a close reading of Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World (2007) and Wild Blue Yonder (2005) with respect to questions about how science and scientists are portrayed. I discuss the relationship of Herzog’s techniques and motifs to In the Shadow of the Mountain, the film that I produced with Hugh Barnard as the creative artifact of my Masters thesis.