Wild child
My intermitent Herzog-fest continues this week with a very exclusive screening (attended only by me and my own two wild children, silent and skunk-scented) of the 1975 film "Jeder Für Sich und Gott Gegen Alle" – "Every Man For Himself and God Against All" – or, as it's known in America, "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser."
I first saw this film in about 1984, when it was shown as part of BYU's astonishingly fabulous international cinema program. It was my first exposure to Herzog, and I still remember a scene near the beginning that made an enormous impression on me, an image of a field of rye rippling and waving in the wind under an overcast sky. And of course the story of Hauser himself was and still is fascinating – this completely feral, utterly unsocialized guy who was found wandering the streets of a German town in 1828, after having spent the first 17 or so years of his life locked in a dim cell no bigger than a twin-size bed, with no windows or furniture and never any contact whatsoever with anything outside his room. Like, NOTHING. It's hard to imagine anyone being that isolated, but his story is well-documented.
Looking for more information about him, I came across this Web site dedicated to the phenomenon of feral children. The stories are heartbreaking and strange, and fall into several categories – raised by animals, confined children, isolated children, hoaxes, etc. Wow! I had no idea this was such a common experience. The "confined" stories are sad, but not so surprising – these are kids who were kept chained to beds, locked in closets, etc. – familiar because this kind of abuse does show up on the news every once in awhile. "Isolated" children are kids who were either lost during some kind of social unrest, or abandoned, or escaped abusive situations, and lived alone outdoors for awhile. "Raised by animals" is the category I'm most interested in – these kids spent their youngest years living with and living as animals – dogs, wolves, monkeys, even sheep and cows. Krazy!
The upshot of it all is that Mowgli and Tarzan notwithstanding, kids who are not socialized by other humans in early childhood do NOT grow up to be pure-hearted, high-minded, Noble Ideal Humans unspoiled by the evils of society. They just end up permanently deformed in almost every way that counts – physically (most are severely malnourished), mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. This idea that you can take someone who's undergone that kind of experience and "love" them into health, or "teach" them to be normal, functioning humans – apparently, that's not how it works. I knew a little bit about this from studying language acquisition, but I guess I hadn't realized how completely and permanently a person could be messed up by things that happen (or don't happen) when they're very small.
I like to believe that people really can change at any time of life – not that the effects of intense experiences would just magically "wear off" after awhile, but that no matter what's happened or how bad it is, things can always get better. Maybe not as good as you would like, but better than they are right now. I like to believe that people can learn, that what we do makes a difference, that it's worth the effort to try to help each other. I know from my own experience that change is possible – look at all the changes I've made just in the last six months!
But sometimes I wonder. Maybe I've only been able to do that because I've had advantages that not everybody has. I'm healthy, smart, materially secure compared to a lot of people in the world ... plus, I was taught that I could change, and encouraged to be always learning and growing. What if I'd been taught that I couldn't? What are the basic requirements for people to be able to learn? How can we help people who seem stuck in the past, stuck in their pain? Are some people really beyond help?
I just can't believe that that's true. I think everybody can be helped. Maybe those feral children can't learn to speak or walk or reflect on their own lives – maybe their lives will never have any "meaning" to them – but they can be protected, fed, taken care of.
Or is it better sometimes just to leave things alone? Sometimes, I guess it is. I remember once trying to save a wounded bird, and watching it die anyway, and realizing that my attempt to help had only stressed it out and prolonged its suffering. What if it wasn't a bird, but a boy wandering down a road, awe-struck and amazed, unable to speak, utterly innocent and alone – what would you do? Is handing troubled people over to the "authorities" the only way we know how to help each other anymore?
I first saw this film in about 1984, when it was shown as part of BYU's astonishingly fabulous international cinema program. It was my first exposure to Herzog, and I still remember a scene near the beginning that made an enormous impression on me, an image of a field of rye rippling and waving in the wind under an overcast sky. And of course the story of Hauser himself was and still is fascinating – this completely feral, utterly unsocialized guy who was found wandering the streets of a German town in 1828, after having spent the first 17 or so years of his life locked in a dim cell no bigger than a twin-size bed, with no windows or furniture and never any contact whatsoever with anything outside his room. Like, NOTHING. It's hard to imagine anyone being that isolated, but his story is well-documented.
Looking for more information about him, I came across this Web site dedicated to the phenomenon of feral children. The stories are heartbreaking and strange, and fall into several categories – raised by animals, confined children, isolated children, hoaxes, etc. Wow! I had no idea this was such a common experience. The "confined" stories are sad, but not so surprising – these are kids who were kept chained to beds, locked in closets, etc. – familiar because this kind of abuse does show up on the news every once in awhile. "Isolated" children are kids who were either lost during some kind of social unrest, or abandoned, or escaped abusive situations, and lived alone outdoors for awhile. "Raised by animals" is the category I'm most interested in – these kids spent their youngest years living with and living as animals – dogs, wolves, monkeys, even sheep and cows. Krazy!
The upshot of it all is that Mowgli and Tarzan notwithstanding, kids who are not socialized by other humans in early childhood do NOT grow up to be pure-hearted, high-minded, Noble Ideal Humans unspoiled by the evils of society. They just end up permanently deformed in almost every way that counts – physically (most are severely malnourished), mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. This idea that you can take someone who's undergone that kind of experience and "love" them into health, or "teach" them to be normal, functioning humans – apparently, that's not how it works. I knew a little bit about this from studying language acquisition, but I guess I hadn't realized how completely and permanently a person could be messed up by things that happen (or don't happen) when they're very small.
I like to believe that people really can change at any time of life – not that the effects of intense experiences would just magically "wear off" after awhile, but that no matter what's happened or how bad it is, things can always get better. Maybe not as good as you would like, but better than they are right now. I like to believe that people can learn, that what we do makes a difference, that it's worth the effort to try to help each other. I know from my own experience that change is possible – look at all the changes I've made just in the last six months!
But sometimes I wonder. Maybe I've only been able to do that because I've had advantages that not everybody has. I'm healthy, smart, materially secure compared to a lot of people in the world ... plus, I was taught that I could change, and encouraged to be always learning and growing. What if I'd been taught that I couldn't? What are the basic requirements for people to be able to learn? How can we help people who seem stuck in the past, stuck in their pain? Are some people really beyond help?
I just can't believe that that's true. I think everybody can be helped. Maybe those feral children can't learn to speak or walk or reflect on their own lives – maybe their lives will never have any "meaning" to them – but they can be protected, fed, taken care of.
Or is it better sometimes just to leave things alone? Sometimes, I guess it is. I remember once trying to save a wounded bird, and watching it die anyway, and realizing that my attempt to help had only stressed it out and prolonged its suffering. What if it wasn't a bird, but a boy wandering down a road, awe-struck and amazed, unable to speak, utterly innocent and alone – what would you do? Is handing troubled people over to the "authorities" the only way we know how to help each other anymore?
3 Comments:
this is interesting in light of the 19-year-old young man who just murdered 8 people in a mall in Iowa. I read today that the state spent $265,000 on his care and treatment, but the social worker said they didn't do enough, that they could have done more. (And this killer wasn't even feral--was it his parents' early divorce? step-parents? chemical?)
The BYU International Cinema WAS astonishing. I'm sorry I didn't appreciate it more when I was there. (They did cut Romeo's nude scene from Zeferelli's Romeo and Juliet however. Drag.)
We just saw Herzog's latest, "Rescue Dawn." You'd probably need to like war movies to really like this... but it was really lovely.
Can it really be possible that International Cinema, in the humble basement of Kimball Tower, was the very best thing about that place? Yes, I think that's quite possible. "Woman in the Dunes" at least once a year... the Tarkovsky fest... Carlos Saura's "Carmen" (minus, of course, a few seconds of post-coitally bared breasts).... It could have been an education in itself!
Fascinating post. I really had no inkling that there was such a thing as true feral children; I can't bring myself to click on that link right now, though.
Herzog is an amazing filmmaker. I had a similar experience to yours when I first saw Aguirre Wrath of God in college--the way he'd just leave the camera pointed at the water for way longer than "normal." Herzog has an incredible filmmaking intuition, although I think he may be a bit insane. Rescue Dawn is def. worth seeing, although it's hard to watch. Try to see it on the big screen if you can.
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