Review: Werner Herzog gets personal with 'Nomad,' an examination of writer and kindred spirit Bruce Chatwin

I had never heard of the British writer Bruce Chatwin before watching Werner Herzog’s documentary about him, “Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin” — and now, I’m kind of obsessed with him, though not nearly as obsessed as Herzog is during this thought-provoking and surprisingly heartfelt tribute from one madman to another.

Herzog visits the places that Chatwin, a travel writer with a yen for following nomadic peoples, liked to frequent — from Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in South America to central Australia, with stops in Wales and Wiltshire, England.

The two men met a few times before Chatwin’s death from AIDS in 1989. Herzog says that Chatwin was driven to go to strange places and meet interesting people. In the film, Herzog says in his famously morose German accent, “I will follow a similar quest for wild characters, strange dreamers and big ideas about the nature of human existence.” 

Those who know Herzog’s films, and don’t just know him from “The Mandalorian,” are saying to themselves, “Yup, that’s Werner, all right.”

A Chatwin story about a childhood memory of his grandmother having a swatch of dinosaur skin sent Chatwin on a quest to Punta Arenas, in Patagonia — and it takes Herzog there, as well. Chatwin’s book, “The Songlines,” and his obsession with the songs of Australian aboriginal people, sends Herzog down a similar path — though with a significant difference, as Herzog takes pains to talk to aboriginal people, to show sensitivity to their much-abused culture.

Herzog’s observations about Chatwin, arrange into chapter headings in the film, are backed up by two people who knew him well: His biographer, Nicholas Shakespeare, and Chatwin’s wife, Elizabeth. Through them, we see artifacts — like Chatwin’s many notebooks — and a sense of the man behind the writings.

Herzog also has personal recollections of Chatwin. One is a fascinating tale of how Herzog came to own Chatwin’s rucksack, and how it ended up with a role in Herzog’s 1991 mountain-climbing drama “Scream of Stone” — and remains in Herzog’s possession to this day.

Another memory is from the production of Herzog’s 1987 drama “Cobra Verde,” adapted from Chatwin’s book “The Viceroy of Ouidah,” about a 19th-century Brazilian rancher who becomes a bandit and west African slave trader. Chatwin, then in poor health, visited Herzog on the set in Ghana, where he was tickled by the attention to his book’s details — and appalled by the tyrannical behavior of Herzog’s star, Klaus Kinski. (It was the last film Herzog and Kinski worked on together, and their breakup is explored in Herzog’s 1999 documentary “My Best Fiend.”)

Herzog finds in Chatwin another restless artist, a man whose appetites and curiosity match his own. That curiosity seems to be contagious, because after being exposed to it in “Nomad,” I find myself compelled to learn more about Chatwin’s work and his determination to go to all the places he could.

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‘Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin’

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, August 28, in the Salt Lake Film Society’s SLFS@Home virtual cinema portal. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language and mature themes. Running time: 90 minutes.