The documentary Lessons of Darkness, directed by Herzog, opens with a quote by Blaise Pascal:

“Der Zusammenbruch der Sternenwelten wird sich–wie die Schöpfung–in grandioser Schönheit vollziehen.”

See Lessons of Darkness (1992) (<– Kewl new YouTube/Google link embedding feature!)

This translates to “The collapse of the star worlds will–like creation–take place in magnificent beauty.” I take this as a reference to the Big Bang, only in reverse, though the consensus among cosmologists (first evidenced by Hubble) is that the universe will expand and die with a whimper, not a bang. For the people of Kuwait, however, the post–Gulf War destruction WAS more Pascalian than Hubblean.

Fred Raskin, who I happen to known, told me that a good documentary is structured like a commemorative war tapestry. It progresses from left to right, giving the big picture, then periodically zooms in on details, pans around, then zooms out to resume the flyover.

Project 1 for a Course I took on video production with Raskin as guest commentator.

1. Version he was critical of because it was merely a hodgepodge of “beauty shots”: Project 1: Jump Cuts
2. Revised version, based on his suggestions, that he liked because it zoomed in on items of interest and took the viewer on a tour: DMDG 30 Project 1 Revised

Herzog uses this technique. Drone flyovers, panoramas of devastated landscapes, destroyed structures, and cameos of the victimized. There is limited commentary in the form of brief interstitial epical titles accompanied by a Wagnerian soundtrack.

Having lived through this period, ironically in the midst of a visiting professorship at a military academy, I experienced two stateside views of the war. One was the “Oorah” version, where we’d sit around in the Officer’s Club, marveling at black and white drone videos of plummeting smart bombs taking out targets with pinpoint accuracy, cheering our technological superiority, with no concerns regarding collateral damage because no animals were harmed in the filming and presumably those who most deserved it were getting it up the ass. There was a touch of nervousness–the base was on lockdown in the event of a terrorist attack, though this was before the Twin Towers garage bombing. Nobody thought that could ever happen, because it hadn’t since 1812.

The other stateside views were half hour evening updates by the network news outlets. It was the same story regardless of which station was reporting it. There’d be replays of the Oorah videos, accompanied by assurances from politicians and pundits. That bugged me a little bit, because I remember the assurances given during the Vietnam War on The Huntley–Brinkley Report in the 1960s–that everything was going according to plan, accompanied by graphics showing only tens of American infantrymen killed compared to thousands of Vietcong. We were the good guys and the scorecard indicated we were ahead.

Then Kent State happened, the Pentagon Papers, etc. I began to question government. I read Manufacturing Consent, which filled in the blanks.

By the time Desert Shield became Desert Storm, it struck me and most of my friends that Bush the 1st was initiating the action not just to preserve our stake in Middle Eastern oil but to cast himself as a wartime president. That always boosts political rankings. Too bad the economy took a nosedive prior to the election. By the time Bush the 2nd came along, we were all the wiser. The timing was right, the chads didn’t fall, and he would win reelection at the expense of the Iraqis. This was, in part, to fulfilled his father’s unfinished vendetta but mostly, despite “faulty intelligence” and “weapons of mass destruction” claims, compensating for bad grammar and (in his own words) a “gift of the mala prop (sic).”

For additional insights I consulted with my colleague, Leon Yacher, who has expertise on these conflicts. He observed that things were actually better in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, horrible as he was. He ruled with an iron fist, but kept the Sunni, Shia and Kurds under control. It was safe to walk the streets, the economy was booming, and the grocery stores were well stocked. Most Iraqis are nostalgic about the pre-Kuwait, pre-Iraq conflicts. Things in Iraq and Afghanistan are worse these days post the American interventions.

So given these perspectives, watching this documentary was painful. It reminded me of the futility of war, not factually with 6 factors nor graphically, like the Minard poster on Napoleon’s March in the Russian campaign of 1812 (Figure 1), but viscerally. Seeing the devastation and impacts on the people in stark isolation, not through the vaseline smeared lens of media accounts.

Will Herzog’s chronicle lead to change as Aristotle claimed such things ought to? Probably not. People are defeated, shell-shocked. Some in the film seem stoic, but probably not consciously so. Eons of foreign domination, religious subjugation, tradition, generation ethos of defeatism–leaves them powerless.

Figure 1: Minard Poster depicting the futility of war.

Herzog declared his cinematic aims in his “Minnesota Declaration”–summarized by ChatGPT (2024/07/07; 12:58 PM), to wit,

+++ ChatGPT

Here are the key points from Herzog’s declaration:

1. Cinema Verité: Herzog criticizes the so-called Cinema Verité, asserting that it lacks true verité (truth). It only reaches a superficial truth akin to that of accountants.
2. Fact vs. Truth: He distinguishes between fact and truth, emphasizing that facts sometimes possess a strange and powerful quality that defies belief.
3. Poetic, Ecstatic Truth: Herzog introduces the concept of poetic, ecstatic truth, which can only be reached through fabrication, imagination, and stylization.
4. Filmmakers’ Approach: He likens filmmakers of Cinema Verité to tourists taking pictures amid ancient ruins of facts.
5. The Moon and Life: Herzog muses on the dullness of the moon, the absence of smiles in the universe, and the harshness of life in the oceans.

+++ ChatGPT

For unapathetic Americans, Lessons in Darkness largely fulfills his visceral communicative objectives on each count:

1. It gives a first-person encounter with the devastation, driving it home, not a third-person camera-chase take, filtered by commentary.
2. Truth is in the eye of the beholder. This implies that facts–raw data–take primacy.
3. The background music and muted pallet set the tone. This is artistic license but certainly upbeat music and bright colors wouldn’t have fit the bill.
4. The sweeping panoramas, zooming in on details and face-to-face shots are encounters, not illustrations. The viewer has to formulate a take. Ze is drawn in in a participatory way.
5. The film might be described as a tinted film noir. It depicts the harsh reality of a war that was largely promoted by propaganda. The invasion, though ostensibly to save the people, was architected to advance American interests.

We are the worse for it and still paying the price.

🙂