Lessons of Darkness

Lessons of Darkness
"Has life without fire become unbearable for them?"
Directed by	Werner Herzog
Written by	Werner Herzog
Produced by	Paul Berriff Werner Herzog
Starring	Werner Herzog
Cinematography	Simon Werry Paul Berriff Rainer Klausmann
Edited by	Rainer Standke
Distributed by	Hemispheric Pictures LLC
Release date	1992
Running time	50 min
Languages	German English Arabic

Lessons of Darkness (German: Lektionen in Finsternis) is a 1992 film by German director Werner Herzog.

An effective companion to his earlier film Fata Morgana, Herzog again perceives the desert as a landscape with its own voice. Virtually devoid of commentary, the imagery concentrates on the aftermath of the first Gulf War - specifically on the Kuwaiti oil fires.

Herzog uses truck-mounted shots as in Fata Morgana, static shots of the workers near the oil fires, and many helicopter shots of the bleak landscape. Herzog's sparse narration interprets the imagery out of its documentary context, and into a poetic fiction: the workers are described as "creatures" whose behavior is motivated by madness and a desire to perpetuate the damage that they are witnessing. A crucial "plot point" involves the workers, shortly after succeeding in stopping the fires, re-igniting the flow of oil. The narration asks, "Has life without fire become unbearable for them?" The film begins with a quotation, attributed to Blaise Pascal: "The collapse of the stellar universe will occur-- like creation-- in grandiose splendor." The text in fact was written by Herzog for the film, and attributed to Pascal to give the film's opening a certain mood.

This technique of re-contextualizing documentary footage was reused in Herzog's later film The Wild Blue Yonder.

Soundtrack Listing

• Edvard Grieg - Peer Gynt
• Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 2
• Arvo Part - Stabat Mater
• Sergei Prokofiev - Sonata No. 2 Op.56
• Franz Schubert - Notturno op. 148
• Giuseppe Verdi - Requiem
• Richard Wagner - Das Rheingold
• Richard Wagner - Parsifal
• Richard Wagner - Gotterdammerung

External links

• Lessons of Darkness at IMDb