Bells from the Deep
- Lucki Stipetic
- Ira Barmak
- Alessandro Cecconi
companies
- Werner Herzog Filmproduktion
- Momentous Events (co-production)
- 1993 (1993)
- Germany
- United States
- English
- German
- Russian
Bells from the Deep: Faith and Superstition in Russia, is a 1993 documentary film written and directed by Werner Herzog, produced by Werner Herzog Filmproduktion.
Summary
Bells from the Deep is German director Werner Herzog's documentary investigation of Russian mysticism. The first half of the film is concerned primarily with Vissarion, a Russian faith healer claiming to be the reincarnation of God as was Jesus. Herzog uses primarily interviews with Russians and scenes from the religious services of the two holy men. Herzog also has several segments on the religion of Siberian nomads.
The second half of the film is primarily concerned with the legend of the lost city of Kitezh. This myth is about a city that was in peril of being destroyed by marauding Mongols, but whose citizens prayed for rescue. Hearing their prayers, God placed the city at the bottom of a deep lake, where it resides to this day. Some even say that one can hear the bells from the city's church. The story is recounted by a local priest and pilgrims visiting the lake.
Towards the end of the film, Vissarion blesses the viewers of the film.
Embellishments
Herzog, as he often does, embellished the story of the Lost City considerably, acknowledging his fabrications fully:
- "I wanted to get shots of pilgrims crawling around on the ice trying to catch a glimpse of the lost city, but as there were no pilgrims around I hired two drunks from the next town and put them on the ice. One of them has his face right on the ice and looks like he is in very deep meditation. The accountant’s truth: he was completely drunk and fell asleep, and we had to wake him at the end of the take."[1]
Herzog defends the fabrication as reaching a greater truth:
- "I think the scene explains the fate and soul of Russia more than anything else."
This is in keeping with Herzog's beliefs about truth in film.
The film also contains shots of pilgrims, which are in fact people ice fishing. The chanting Siberians are only performing religious services in one of their two major scenes. In the other they are simply singing a love song.
References
- ^ "Herzog on Herzog", by Paul Cronin (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2002)
External links
- Bells from the Deep at IMDb
- v
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- Filmography
- Bibliography
- Signs of Life (1968)
- Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
- Fata Morgana (1971)
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
- The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
- Heart of Glass (1976)
- Stroszek (1977)
- Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
- Woyzeck (1979)
- Fitzcarraldo (1982)
- Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)
- Cobra Verde (1987)
- Scream of Stone (1991)
- Lessons of Darkness (1992)
- Invincible (2001)
- The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
- Rescue Dawn (2006)
- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
- My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)
- Queen of the Desert (2015)
- Salt and Fire (2016)
- Family Romance, LLC (2019)
- The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969)
- Handicapped Future (1971)
- Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
- The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)
- How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
- La Soufrière (1977)
- Huie's Sermon (1981)
- God's Angry Man (1981)
- Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)
- The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985)
- Herdsmen of the Sun (1989)
- Echoes from a Sombre Empire (1990)
- Jag Mandir (1991)
- Bells from the Deep (1993)
- The Transformation of the World into Music (1994)
- Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995)
- Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
- My Best Fiend (1999)
- Wings of Hope (2000)
- Pilgrimage (2001)
- Ten Thousand Years Older (2002)
- Wheel of Time (2003)
- The White Diamond (2004)
- Grizzly Man (2005)
- Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
- Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010)
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
- Into the Abyss (2011)
- On Death Row (2012)
- Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016)
- Into the Inferno (2016)
- Meeting Gorbachev (2018)
- Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019)
- Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020)
- The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022)
- Herakles (1962)
- Game in the Sand (1964)
- The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1967)
- Last Words (1968)
- Precautions Against Fanatics (1969)
- No One Will Play with Me (1976)
- Portrait Werner Herzog (1986)
- Les Gaulois (1988)
- La bohème (2009)
- Incident at Loch Ness (2004)
- Of Walking in Ice (1978)
- The Twilight World (2021)
- Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir (2022)
- Lena Herzog (wife)
- Lucki Stipetić (brother)
- Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)
- Burden of Dreams (1982)
- Location Africa (1987)
- Plastic Bag (2009)