Δράση
I’m not sure why Herzog, at 14, growing up among the ruins of a bombed out Munich, could imagine himself directing a film, but he could. He was agentic enough to realize that the fact that kids until then had never been allowed to make films was just a problem, and thus could be presumed solvable. Herzog’s puberty was late—he looked like a young child until he was sixteen—so he assumed the producers would never take a bet on him if they saw him; he would have to make and negotiate deals over letter and telephone.
After three years of trying this again and again, he managed to get two film producers interested. They liked one of his proposals and were willing to accept Herzog as a first-time director. A meeting was booked.
Herzog recounts the meeting in Paul Cronin’s A Guide to the Perplexed:
When I walked into their office, I saw the two of them sitting behind a huge oak desk. I remember it second by second. I stood there as they looked beyond me, waiting, as if the father had come into town with his child. The first one shouted something so abusive I immediately wiped it from my memory, while the other slapped his thigh and laughed, shouting, “Aha! The kindergarten is trying to make film nowadays!” The entire encounter lasted fifteen seconds, after which I turned and left the office, knowing full well I would have to become my own producer.
Two days later I filled out the necessary paperwork, paid a few dollars to register the company, and founded the Werner Herzog Filmproduktion.
Ο Henrik Karlsson εξερευνεί στο blog του την έννοια του "agency". Δεν έχω βρει λέξη στα ελληνικά που να καλύπτει πλήρως το νόημά της - θα το περιέγραφα ως το χαρακτηριστικό εκείνο που κάνει κάποιους ανθρώπους να αντιλαμβάνονται το περιβάλλον τους ως κάτι το οποίο μπορούν να επηρεάσουν, παίρνοντας πρωτοβουλία και ασκώντας κριτική σκέψη και δράση. Ίσως «δράση» είναι η κατάλληλη Ελληνική λέξη.
Το ενδιαφέρον είναι ότι για κάποιους ανθρώπους είναι έμφυτο - όπως ο 14χρονος Herzog ή ο 19χρονος Σαββόπουλος που μετακόμισε άφραγκος στην Αθήνα για να γίνει μουσικός. Οι περισσότεροι άλλοι πρέπει πρώτα να το συνειδητοποιήσουν και ύστερα με κόπο να το μάθουν κάποια στιγμή στη ζωή τους.
Συνεχίζοντας το παράδειγμα του Herzog και τη δημιουργικότητα που του ξεκλείδωσε ο στόχος του να κάνει τις ταινίες που είχε στο κεφάλι του:
Herzog had his eyes clearly locked on the goal, capturing the images he knew the film needed, and he didn’t care if the way he did that was “unprofessional.” Doing it “the proper way,” as the team insisted, would have been too expensive and time consuming—he would never have been able to amass a body of work so rich and beautiful as he has if he had followed the Hollywood process. The professionals, having too many preconceived ideas about how to go about things, wasted resources and missed the light in the trees.
Πολύ καλό.