Director Werner Herzog filming Encounters at the End of the World on
location in Antarctica with cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger.
In the Oscar-nominated documentary, Herzog journeys to Antarctica's
McMurdo Station to find out what it is that drives its 1,000
inhabitants to want to live and work in this remotest of glacial
landscapes.
The set of Herzog's latest movie was one of the most inhospitable
locations he has worked on. Previously, he has scaled volcanoes,
suffered calamities in jungles on three continents and filmed in war
zones; even so, he says, there was something elementally terrifying
about the reality of a working day in Antarctica.
Herzog's Encounters is a portrait of a harsh environment and the
people who live there - research scientists, philosophers and
vulcanologists.
Herzog was invited to film on the southern icecap by the US agency the
National Science Foundation, which offers a limited number of grants
to artists.
He proposed using a two-man crew - a cinematographer, plus himself as
soundman - which meant he saw off a rival proposal from Titanic
director James Cameron, who wanted to take a crew of 36.
There are the expert divers who drill 30ft vertical holes through the
icecap to access its frigid, sci-fi underside, and then dive below to
film. "These people only seem odd because when you look at the media
and magazines, there is this kind of uniformity of people. Down there,
you have characters who do not fit into magazines"
It takes a film-maker truly dedicated to extremes to travel to
Antarctica, but Herzog's films have never been for the faint hearted.
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