Dwelling in the Abyss: Society in Werner Herzog and Martin Heidegger

Abstract

This article articulates a dialogue between Werner Herzog’s films and Martin Heidegger’s philosophy to illuminate human dwelling. In the light of Heidegger’s ideas of dwelling, thrownness, they-self, authenticity, abyss and being-towards-death, I look into the abyss of society as represented by Herzog, considering dwelling with humans in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) and Into the Abyss (2011) as dwelling through language and dwelling in proximity to death. This article’s primary purpose is to redress society’s overly negative connotation as monstrous and unhomely in Herzog and, against the predominant critical interpretations and Herzog’s self-commentary, discover the homely therein. Specifically, this film-philosophy dialogue will shed important light on both Herzog and Heidegger. Heidegger’s philosophical thought enables a creative and insightful reading of overlooked yet significant aesthetic forms in Herzog’s films: the motif of tears in Kaspar Hauser and the jump cuts and close-ups in Abyss. Meanwhile, Herzog’s films work out Heidegger’s paradoxical and etymological wordplay of the abyss that also grounds. Not only do the films affectively effectuate and interrogate the terror and promise of human dwelling in artistic terms, but Abyss also breaks the Heideggerian category of mortality and gestures towards Hannah Arendt’s idea of natality.

Keywords

• Heidegger
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
• Into the Abyss
• language
• death
• Arendt