Content vs. Construct: The "Trillness" of Documentary Film

Michael Moore is often portrayed as a morbidly obese, left wing nut, hellbent on criticizing the radical right in his award winning documentaries. Despite the brutal judgments, his films raise very legitimate questions and analyzes aspects of American government, society, and culture which deserve critiquing. However, Moore and his films are often criticized for being inaccurate, hyperbolic, or repressive of opposing views. His 2002 film, Bowling for Columbine, investigates America's obsession with guns and, further, our culture of fear and violence. Moore sets out to answer the questions of why America has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, despite our similarities to other free world countries with lesser homicide rates. It is a valid question to ask, and Moore attempts to answer it by interviewing both "average" and "elite" Americans, as well as analyzing the American mainstream media.

Although Moore proposes an answer to this question, it is by no means the answer, and many individuals will probably view it as a "radical" response or even might call it a conspiracy theory. Regardless of your opinion, the actual documentary itself, both with the content of the information presented and the way this content is presented, illicit a strong reaction in any "type" of viewer. Yet, most people would agree that documentaries are supposed to present an unbiased truth and realness of the subject that it is presenting. While Moore is presenting a multifaceted issue, shouldn't the trillness (truth + realness) of the subject be preserved and accurately presented? As much as we would like to believe that documentary film makers are presenting the topic of their film in a complete and unbiased manner, the truth of the medium of documentary filmmaking is that the way in which the viewer comes to "know" the "facts" completely relies upon the director and editor of the documentary. By analyzing the content and the construct of Moore's documentary, we can critique the reliability and consequential power that documentary truly possess.

Throughout the two hour presentation, Moore interviews an eclectic array of individuals who play different parts in the epic story of America's relationship between guns and violence. Some of these individuals are victims of the Columbine shooting, members of the Michigan militia, a brother (and possible accomplice) of one of the Oklahoma City bombers, some random Canadians, and Charleston Heston--head of the NRA. When Moore is interviewing the more "radical" individuals, he appears to be more candid in his motivation for interviewing that certain person. For example, throughout the entire film, he has been criticizing Chareton Heston (head of the NRA), but when he begins his interview, he shows Mr. Heston his (Moore's) NRA membership club and speaks highly of gun ownership. However, by the end of the interview, he intensely questions Heston's decision to protest gun laws just days after Columbine. Although Moore's questions and critiques are most often completely justified, he is certainly asking questions to get a certain response--the radical folks should say something ridiculous that will make the already questioning audience see them in a "crazy" or "incorrect manner". The individuals who have been afflicted by guns should be asked questions which will cause them to share emotional stories or pleas. The "average joes" should say something ignorantly endearing which will demonstrate the overall ignorance of the typical American.

Not only do these interviews seem very well thought out, but they are both edited and placed throughout the documentary in a very strategic and effective manner. You will almost never see the entirety of an interview in a documentary. This is, of course, for sake of time, but it is also for sake of the construct of the documentary. If a Columbine victim were to say something in support of anti-gun control, this would effect Moore's construct that all victims of gun violence want stricter gun control. I'm not saying that the edited parts of the hundreds of interviews that Moore and his crew did would completely destroy the argument of the movie, but it would certainly give an opposing view of the subject, which is something that Moore is often criticized for never doing. Further, the interviews are very brilliantly placed throughout the movie to elevate the emotional construct which the film and the makers create. Right after the tragedy of Columbine is brought up, an interview and segment with the Michigan Militia (a group of every day dudes who are passionate about protecting themselves and their families with a copious amount of guns) is displayed.

Moore, quite brilliantly, combines the ridiculous with the serious, ignorance with facts, and tragedies  with first person accounts. By doing so, the viewer's emotions get mixed with facts, and it's quite difficult to not buy into the message being dissipated. After the first time I watched this movie as an impressionable 17 year old, I immediately became passionate about criticizing the media's fear mongering and wanted to "wake" up the rest of America. I think that's something really interesting about these sorts of societal/cultural critique documentaries--unless you have researched the facts of both sides of the arguments, it becomes very easy to be swayed by what has just been presented to you through emotional (often graphic) cinematography and persuasive narrating. Descartes' methodology for proper use of reason immediately comes to mind. I also ask, can and should documentary making be seen as an art? Or should it purely be an objective display of facts, such as a National Geographic or "Thin Blue Line"-eque documentary? As an individual who is both captivated by documentaries and documentary making, I am prone to believe that there can be healthy medium between fact and art, which I will refrain from calling "fart".

Ben Fritz (a random blogger I found with some criticisms of the movie) articulates Moore's "distortions of the truth" and contradictions within Moore's argument:

"Repeatedly, though, he returns to the issue of fear in the movie, claiming that excessive coverage of gun violence by the media makes Americans scared of each other and therefore more violent. This circular argument doesn't make any sense either. On the one hand, Moore has made an entire film purporting to investigate why the U.S. has the highest rate of gun violence in the developed world. He then attempts to answer the question by theorizing that the media provides too much coverage of gun violence, causing citizens to fear each other. If gun violence is really so bad, though, shouldn't the media be covering it and don't citizens have something to be afraid of? And if the media is indeed over-covering the issue and America is safer than we think, why did Moore make this film?"

(http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html)

It is clear that Moore has an agenda, and has developed somewhat of a thesis for his film, and then has attempted to support and prove his thesis through interviews, facts, and analysis. But is this an accurate way to defend your beliefs? Should you be able to pick and choose the dialogue which you take into account? Should a director only display emotional video clips which kind of force the viewer to agree with the message of the film? 

In the end, Moore, like most documentary filmmakers, is attempting to tell a real story. It is clear that he is very cautiously picking what he chooses to show, and then acting like that is the truth. However, the limitations of documentary filmmaking make this an issue throughout the entire medium. Because of this, viewers should take a personal sense of responsibility to take these films as a "jumping off point" for research and true understanding. The power of analytic, or, "fart" documentaries shouldn't be to simply educate viewers on a controversial topic, but should encourage the viewers to remain curious and seek complete understanding through extended research and contemplation. 

An Analysis of Plato's Allegory of the Cave as it Relates to "Super Size Me"

The documentary that I watched for this week's theme was Super Size Me. It follows filmmaker Morgan Spurlock as he embarks on a journey of eating three McDonald's meals per day for an entire month. By the end of the film, Spurlock has gained 24.5 pounds, his cholesterol has shot through the roof, and he is suffering health problems that reveal their extremity on the faces of the three or four doctors he consults during the process. Super Size Me not only serves its purpose as a sharp awakening to the intensely unhealthy food that McDonald's serves its patrons, but as a visualization of research about American obesity (especially among youth/teens) and why it has been on a steady incline (marketing focused on children, cafeterias serving fast food, etc.). Spurlock's film was well reviewed by critics, but not hailed as one of the members of an elite tier of sophisticated, darker documentaries such as Man on Wire or Grizzly Man (both options for our class this week). Putting aside this categorization, I believe that many, if not most, documentaries fail to provide the "dragging of one further from the cave" that Plato describes as the end goal of education in his "Allegory of the Cave," even though they have the same potential value as a scripted movie.

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" describes the process of reaching understanding. In his most famous metaphor, Plato depicts a group of people who have been watching shadows for the entirety of their lives and shows the process of one member of the group realizing: first, the shadows are caused by light around some objects; second, the objects' movement is caused by humans; third, those humans manipulated the objects in imitation of The Forms (or the outside world); fourth, that the ability to see the outside world is caused by the Sun. The process of the man being dragged along this journey is supposed to imitate the process of education; that the ultimate good is not merely knowledge, but understanding. It is important to note that understanding is different than knowledge in that one can have knowledge of a subject, or a cause and effect without understanding why either exists. That "why" is crucial, and it would seem that documentaries, first defined as factual reports or records, cannot provide the Platonic "dragging," but this is untrue; they have that potential.

Recall for a moment what we learned from Aristotle about tragedies, they allow us to experience emotions, specifically pity and fear, that would otherwise be unbearable to experience in reality. The imitative nature of art is what allows this process to occur. Therein lies the problem of the Documentary genre.

Documentaries are real, that is, there is usually no script or acting involved. Super Size Me, for example, involves nothing more than a plan to combine Spurlock's gluttonous journey with information about the fast food industry and the current nature of obesity in the U.S. This manifests itself in an on-screen product with a factual basis that no one is likely to dispute, but that provides little more than base knowledge about one subject. Spurlock is choosing to go on a fast-food rampage, the parts of the movie that follow him, to me, have the least value. Because we understand his motivation, there is little to be gained from the effects of McDonald’s on his body that is higher than factual and physical data. More interesting are the interviews of students on where they like to eat their meals and how often they eat fast food-but the movie still does little to help the viewer understand "why." I believe that this is due in part to the way that we watch documentaries. Because the movie is perceived as real, and as revolving around its facts, the deeper interactions within are either less apparent to the viewer, or too extreme (think Aristotle) for the viewer to comprehend without the use of imitation. Of course, seeing a man like Petit from Man on Wire explain the nature of success in the last few minutes of the movie should be more powerful, valid, and valuable, than a made-up character or plot device doing the same, but this is simply not the case.

The “Allegory of the Cave” shows the importance of an idea, as opposed to its tangible counterpart. Art and film are valued in part for their ability to represent complex ideas in a way that allows the viewer to reveal them for him or herself. It is not that documentaries lack the ideas, but that they are bare-free from the veil of imitation. Ironically, this makes them harder for the viewer to digest, so we usually walk away from documentaries with more knowledge than understanding.

A Sociopath's Truth

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Herzog’s “On the Absolute, Sublime, and Ecstatic Truth” both discuss a fundamental part of human experience: the search for truth. Plato’s work makes it clear how our understanding of the world is limited by the way in which we perceive it. If all we can see are shadows, then that’s all we can know. As we’ve discussed in this class before our sensory systems are not perfect. Our brains do not take a photograph of the world and imprint it. We are, in fact, bounded by our need for emotional salience (ask me after class and I’ll talk your ear off of the neuroscience behind the role of emotion in sensationg, perception, and memory), creating a necessarily biased view of the world. Similarly, Herzog makes the distinction between the facts of a situation and the truth of it.

The Thin Blue Line (1988) is a documentary about the arrest of an innocent man for a cop’s murder in 1976. There are two main characters in the film and the crime, Randal Adams and David Harris. In the beginning of the film, the filmmakers make sure to appear objective. First Adams gets to state his opinion, then Harris, and then the many cops who believed Adams was the murderer. However, as the film progresses, there are many choices that make it clear that the filmmakers believe in Adams’ innocence. By participating in this progression, the film allows for the viewers’ sense of skepticism (Of course an accused man will plead innocence, but that doesn’t make it a fact), while eventually convincing them of the filmmaker’s version of truth.  

This film very clearly shows the difference between objective facts and perceptual truths. Adams’ lawyers provide the version of the truth that appears to be most closely tied to the facts of the situation. They sit their, dumbfounded that others’ couldn’t see the logical progression from the real facts of the case to the truth that it was Harris and not Adams who killed the policeman. They are the ones’ to point out the biases inherent in the case. The facts were that Adams was a 29 year old man with no history of violent or criminal behavior, and no true tie to the gun or the car, and Harris was a 16 year old boy with a violent past and a stolen car. However, the truth of the situation, as told by the lawyers’, was that a cop’s murder deserves the death penalty, and a 16 year old would not, at this time, be tried as an adult.

 The police never mistrust their beliefs throughout the film. For them, it is the truth that Adams committed this crime. As the viewer, we see this belief distort their perceptions of Adams’ behavior. They claim he seemed heartless and unemotional, as if they were talking about something meaningless instead of a cop’s death. They claim this reaction means he had no remorse, that he was a cold-blooded killer. However, without the assumption of his guilt, what that might mean is that he had nothing to do with the killing. Our biases lead to our perception of truth. Our understanding of man’s behavior is colored by our own behavior and emotions.

Even more disturbing is David Harris’ truth. When he kills a man after breaking into the man’s house and kidnapping his girlfriend, he blames it on the man himself. It was the man’s fault for coming after him with a gun. Towards the end of the film he blames his father for his shortcoming, claiming that he felt unloved and his crimes were just a cry for attention. Finally, in the last scene, he makes it clear that he feels no guilt for Adams’ situation. He calls Adams an unlucky man, and says that maybe if Adams’ had let him stay at the hotel, none of this would ever happen. No matter what the facts say, for Harris the truth is that he is not responsible for these actions. He was pushed into them by other men’s actions, his lies were the result of injustices done to him. This kind of retelling of the truth suggests that Harris was not just a scared 16 year old. He was a young sociopath, ready to manipulate the world.

Apart from the story, I found my immediate negative reaction to Harris to be very interesting. From the first interview with him, it felt as if something was off. This is before he became the clear suspect in the case, before he made callous and unconscionable remarks. There was just something in the way his mouth moved, something in his eyes.  For me, the truth was that he was guilty before I even knew the crime. Now, consciously, I told myself that this wasn’t fair, that I didn’t know what happened, perhaps he’s an innocent. Maybe I watch too many of these kind of documentary shows, maybe I’ve watched too many interviews with serial killers, and am therefore seeing the signs in too many places. But even if he was innocent of THIS crime (which he wasn’t), there was still something off. This is a phenomenon I have even in my real life, and from anecdotal evidence I assume many others do as well. However, it’s clear that not everyone does this. The cop who kept looking up and taking care of Harris is an example of this. No matter what Harris did, the cop would look kindly on him. He was just a troubled teen, deep down he was really good. He just couldn’t control is actions sometimes. I’ve received this is in real life as well. They’re not bad people, they just are troubled. They can’t control themselves, it’s not their fault. They’re just a scared 16 year old boy. But in many cases, they’re not. This poor, damaged 16 year old boy has a body count of 2 people, and purposefully accused the wrong man of his own crimes, leading to his incarceration. And, because of his version of the truth, he doesn’t feel a lick of remorse.

How do we know if our truths will lead to crimes such as these? Will the pursuit and focus on facts that is pervasive in our culture help or hinder this?

Truth? or Truth.

When I think about the concept of truth, I always get stuck in how it should be defined. To me there seems to be at least two ways to classify truth. The first classification is the truth that an individual believes. I guess what I mean is that a person’s beliefs are truth for that particular individual. The second classification is what can be considered an objective truth, the way things really are. Truth pertaining to the individual is flawed. Centuries ago humans believed that the Earth was flat, but we were not lying to one another when we said this, we were simply ignorant of the fact that the Earth is round. It can be said that the objective truth is that the Earth is and has always been round, but the individual truth that most humans held at the time was that the Earth was and had always been flat. The reason why I draw this distinction between the two truths is because of the importance that individual perception has on us. It can be argued that there is only the objective sense of truth, and that if human perception contradicts the objective truth then that is just human ignorance. Our perception, though, is the critical distinction between individual and objective truth, for what is the difference between everyone believing the Earth is flat versus everyone believing it is round? In both scenarios, as far as humans are concerned, the belief is true. 

In the documentary film Grizzly Man, there are aspects of these two truths that can be investigated. The film is about the man Timothy Treadwell and his infatuation and obsession with grizzly bears. He lived among the grizzly bears in Alaska for thirteen summers, meeting his end at the hands of one in 2003. Treadwell valued the existence of bears as much as he did any other human. He considered himself a protector of their species and also somewhat as a friend. Treadwell believed that the bears were misunderstood and that if he could live as they do he could coexist with them. What is interesting and brings the concept of truth to the surface is that one of the park rangers in the film claims that Treadwell was actually a bigger threat to the bears than anything else. He states that as a result of Treadwell’s familiarity with the bears they no longer became cautious of humans, this creating the potential scenarios for poaching or bear on human violence. Here we can see an example of when individual truth and objective truth collide.

Two philosophical texts which I believe talk about individual and objective truths are Descartes’ Second Meditation and Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”. In the Second Meditation Descartes confirms that he exists because of the fact that he can think and contemplate about it. He also states that the only things we can be sure about are the things that we know. This point of view advocates individual truth in that only an individual can really determine what is true in for them. Contrarily, Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” advocates objective truth. He imagines a cave where human beings are locked away and the only things that they can see are the shadows on the wall. The shadows are obviously made from the light that shines into the cave. He says that when the humans see the shadows and hear the echoes of sound from outside the cave, they mistakenly believe that the shadows they see are the actual objects. He then releases a man from the cave and shows that they instinctively go towards the light. In this allegory, the light is truth (well technically it is the good) and is always shining into the cave, which represents human ignorance/perception, regardless of the beliefs of the humans. Plato believes that there is solely the objective truth, and that humans have different understandings of it. 

The difference in belief between Treadwell and the park ranger show the distinction between individual and objective truth. Treadwell believed that he was protecting the bears by doing what he did. That is his personal belief and for him what he did benefited the bears in some way. The park ranger, however, believes that Treadwell was ultimately a danger to the bears and also that he crossed a line that should not have been crossed. I am unsure of Treadwell’s scientific knowledge of bears, and so I would say that he represents truth in the individual sense. He was ignorant in his understanding of bears, and that may be evident in the way that he died. The park ranger is probably more representative of objective truth in that he probably has some knowledge in the way bears act. The reverse of this is also possible in that maybe Treadwell understood bears more than anyone else because he lived with them, and just as the man who comes from the light is not honored by the cave dwellers, Treadwell’s observation of bear behavior is not considered much because of the perceptions we already have.

What is the truth?

            This week I decided to watch the documentary Grizzly Man. I had heard good things about it and some crazy things about the Grizzly Man himself, Timothy Treadwell.  Werner Herzog was the director of the film.  It discusses the life of Timothy Treadwell and his love and work for grizzly bears in Alaska.  Treadwell spent 13 years with the grizzly bears until his death at the hands of one of the bears that he loved so much.  He only took breaks in the winter during the bear’s hibernation period.  He would travel around the United States going to elementary schools and teaching kids about grizzlies and other wildlife.  Herzog was able to make an in depth documentary about Treadwell’s life because Treadwell took footage of himself in the wilderness of Alaska.   He shot footage of himself to educate the children, and he also used it as a journal and therapeutic tool.

            After I was able to get over the grizzly bears not being named Z-Bo, Marc, Conley, and the Grindfather (Tony Allen), the film provided a search for knowledge, truth, and reality through the life of Timothy Treadwell.  The documentary pegs Treadwell as the normal rebellious youth.  He starts off as an average all-American kid but goes to college and gets involved in drugs.  He moves to California and fails to establish himself as a Hollywood level actor.  As a child, Treadwell always loved animals.  When he found an opportunity to work with grizzlies he seized the opportunity.  Many people called him crazy and thought he was asking for a death sentence.  However, working with the grizzlies offered Treadwell the opportunity to heal himself and search for his own reality.

            Throughout the shots of Treadwell that Herzog chose for his documentary, Treadwell talked about the Alaskan wildlife as his home.  He clearly loved being there with the grizzlies and he even made friends with some very cute foxes.  He repeatedly differentiated between the human world and his world.  As the documentary progresses, Treadwell expresses more and more disdain for the human world.  Treadwell makes the animal world his own reality.  Although people continued to tell him that he should not be out there living with the grizzlies, he could not help but live out there.  It had become his world and his truth.

The story of Treadwell is similar to the story of the tribe that Herzog talks about in “On the Absolute, the Sublime and Ecstatic Truth.” In this story, Herzog describes how a tribe believed that they owned the land they were on because they had always been there.  It was their truth and their reality.  Although Treadwell had no connection the grizzlies and Alaska before his work there, he created the truth and the reality of his life in Alaska amongst the grizzlies.  Treadwell valued the life he had in the wild and the knowledge he gained from it.  However, he got progressively more and more “crazy” throughout the documentary.  It is clear that Herzog disagreed with some of Treadwell’s decisions and chose to portray Treadwell as a losing his grasp on reality and society.

Herzog, who I thought sounded too similar to Christoph Waltz for it not to be him, in his own creation of this documentary, established his own vision of truth.  He wanted to show that Treadwell could not overcome his dicey background and he eventually deteriorated as a human being.  The more time Treadwell spent with the bears, Herzog made it seem that Treadwell was trying to become a bear and lost his grip on reality.  This decline ensured his own demise.  He was unable to return to humanity and understand that grizzly bears are dangerous and human killers.  I wonder how much of what Herzog thought himself came through in his work.  I had heard that he did not show all of the actual clips of Treadwell in consecutive order.  So it is possible that in order to show a “deterioration,” he had to jump from year to year.

Of course, Herzog mentions the questionable truth of movies in his essay as well.  He claims that it is harder and harder to understand truth and reality with the advancement of technology.  The Internet, video games, and movies have complicated the real world.  They are able to recreate life, which seems very real, but is not what we consider society or real.  Herzog’s film Grizzly Man has to be considered as a part of this discussion.  We are unable to discern for ourselves whether or not Treadwell actually lost touch with reality, which lead to his ironic death at the hand of one of the animals he tried to protect.

I Will Die for the Truth

In the 2005 documentary, Grizzly Man, the audience journeys to Alaska with grizzly enthusiast Timothy Treadwell and follows his thrilling, yet dangerous life among the bears. This film, directed by Werner Herzog, is comprised of interviews with those associated with Treadwell as well as fragments of Treadwell's own recording. Apparent in the film, Treadwell was recording his time in Alaska in the hopes of developing his own documentary but died before he was able to produce anything himself. While living amongst the bears, Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, where killed by these unpredictable and savage creatures. Herzog is a famed documentary filmmaker and philosopher who's work aspires to encapsulate a deeper truth. If Treadwell had been able to finish his documentary, it would have been vastly different than the version that Herzog presented encompassing all the same events. Herzog's film focuses not the bears that Treadwell was completely infatuated with but instead allows the viewer inside the troubled mind of Treadwell and the reality of his adventures to Alaska. In the essay, “On the Asolute, the Sublime and Ecstatic Truth,” Herzog states that a deeper truth can be found in the fine arts than found in facts. Through the medium of film, Herzog feels that he is able to convey the profound truth of a situation to the audience that no other method can provide. Throughout the film, Treadwell is seen screaming about politics and becoming hysterical when simply talking about grizzly bears. These animals that he is surrounded by completely posses Treadwell and lead to his ultimate demise. In Treadwell's recordings it appears that he is completely isolated to live with the bears, but the film reveals that he was often accompanied by his girlfriend. The reality Treadwell attempted to depict was very different from the truth beyond the camera. Herzog portrays a very different truth to Treadwell than what Treadwell would have offered himself.

I have found that whenever people watch this movie they can walk away thinking that Treadwell was either insane or a passionate martyr for his cause. Because Treadwell was a radical and fanatical man, almost to the point of absurd, it is difficult for many people to look past their own judgements of insanity to appreciate the honest spirit underneath. Herzog's film aims to present Treadwell in the most honest way to the audience by showing every dimension of the complex man. In his essay, Herzog says that “we also gain our ability to have ecstatic experiences of truth through the Sublime, through which we are able to elevate ourselves over nature.” Grizzly Man attempts to depict the ecstatic truth of Treadwell by presenting the audience with not only the facts of his situation but also his drastic emotional outbursts and genuine inner-dialogue. Herzog's effort to communicate this deeper truth is very affective and honestly depicts Teadwell to the audience even if they don't truly understand him. In order to elevate the audience above nature, Herzog prioritizes sincere emotion over precise facts. Watching Herzog listen to the unsettling audio recording of Treadwell and his girlfriend's fatal attack provides a sincere experience of emotion for the viewer even if they never listen to the recording itself. The deep truth Herzog describes is found in moments such as those when truth is found in emotion instead of facts.

Truth found in the fine arts is not a truth that can be easily understood or agreed upon by everyone. The truth of a piece can be very different for each different onlooker and so the truth found in it is undefinable. Grizzly Man attempts to illustrate the honest essence of a man as to better understand the choices he made that lead to his brutal death. Following Treadwell's story from the beginning of his travels to the end can teach the viewer a lot about why Treadwell did what he did and hearing about his life through his friends can be equally revealing. This truth that Herzog is searching for can only be achieved by encompassing these many facets of Treadwell's life and personality.

It is obvious in that film that Treadwell has been disconnected from reality in many ways, but appears to have found some sort of deeper truth while living with it bears. Defining the sublime is nearing impossible because the entire point is that it is above nature and reality in every way so Treadwell achieving the sublime through his disconnect from our reality seems completely possible. This truth that Treadwell has found with the bears appears to many as a death wish or insanity, but Treadwell sees it as the only option for living his life. The life that Treadwell chooses to live is a life very different from our own and is therefor very difficult to understand but comes closer to the sublime than anything I have come across within out limited society. 

In Herzog's essay, he states that the only thing man has in common with the gods is the ability to reveal the truth. Through his documentary's Herzog does just that and focuses on finding the ecstatic truth within a narrative. Herzog says that our minds can comprehend reality through facts while our souls can actualize truth through the experience of the sublime. This profound truth may or may not existence in Herzog's films for you as a viewer, but it remains his goal to come closer and closer to the truth with every second of film he produces.