Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World (2007) probes questions of power, domination, and, more specifically, agency through encounters with scientists, “professional dreamers,” and Antarctic landscapes. Icebergs “broadcast,” seals sing, volcanoes demand etiquette, and neutrinos exist “in their own separate universe.” Yet as humans avail themselves of “nature” only to realize their agency is limited, Herzog’s subject matter—Antarctica—resists the modulation he envisions. The filmmaker’s agency is challenged by a non-appropriable force, prompting him to usurp control and stage what his documentary’s narrative seemingly refuses to show. Herzog tries to control his material and exert his agency to the point that he fabricates—but the subject rejects his attempts at artistic dominance, generates its own agential pull, and, much like “nature” with respect to humans, resists Herzog’s endeavors.

Bibliography

Werner Herzog, Encounters at the End of the World (Chatsworth, CA: Image Entertainment, 2008).

Werner Herzog, A Guide for the Perplexed, ed. Paul Cronin (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014).

Eva Horn and Hannes Bergthaller, The Anthropocene (New York: Routledge, 2019).

Bruno Latour, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climate Regime (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2017).

Bruno Latour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2018).

Martin Blumenthal-Barby is Professor of Media Studies and German Studies at Rice University. He is the author of three books. Inconceivable Effects (2013) probes the relationship between ethics and language, while The Asymmetric Gaze (2016/2024) examines the link between surveillance and cinematic spectatorship. His most recent book, Arendt, Kant, and the Enigma of Judgment (2022), is a nuanced extrapolation of Arendt’s theory of judgment through her readings of Immanuel Kant. His current project explores the relationship between visual media and notions of agency.