J.J. Abrams' "Force Awakens" & Werner Herzog's "Herz aus Glas": Skellig Islands Connection

I do wonder if the end of Herzog's Herz aus Glas with its outward spiraling camerawork and back shot of a man in robes atop Skellig Michael was an influence on J.J. Abrams' end of The Force Awakens. The set-up is remarkably similar. Watch this old YouTube video, which, I am very thankful, is still available as of Christmas 2015.

Without giving away anything of the latter film, it's interesting to note that both feature a painterly shot of a solitary, long-haired man looking out onto the water from nearly exactly the same point of the same island as the man portrayed in Herz aus Glas. Their dress and stance, the camerawork, and the shared sense of futurity seem either to spring from the same inspirational source, or else the later film deftly quotes in homage the 1976 German film.

As Jeffrey L. High in Who is This Schiller Now has pointed out, Lucas was probably influenced by Schiller (I had the privilege of hearing a talk he gave on Star Wars and Don Carlos a few years ago in Heidelberg). Maybe Abrams is, in a way, following in Lucas' footsteps and citing another – contemporary – German source: Werner Herzog's film – which further, as giulianocinema showed, echoes that famous Caspar David Friedrich painting every student of German Romanticism and the long 18th century knows so well. I'm using giulanocinema's image here:

Happy Holidays. And may the birds be with you.

Mit heiterem Blick sitzt er immer noch und sagt mir heimlich: Lass Dein Schicksal sein wie ich: Unerforschlich fremd und Deins zugleich. Zu früh Dreschen ist schädlich und zersetzt eine verheißungsvolle Ernte. Eine Prise Eitelkeit nur reicht völlig.

Mantras that stay

Fugitive hours stare blankly from the coloured bindings of the books on the desk. Writing seems to be a task with no telos, a flight with no aim but the snatch of blue between the clouds. A little Buddha holds up his alms bowl and smiles and behind the cheap figurine I hear the real croaks of the handless woman on the corner, in her wheelchair, tirelessly chanting her mantra: Spare Change. She'll haunt us into the ground.

A Lost Civilisation

Strange, the last time I was here it rained too. Most of the hollow ostentation of the city vanishes when this weather descends upon us. The windows of this corner room remind me of that: where on sunnier days in the distance the sky merges blue with the water, today it is all diffused white rain, relentlessly colourless. One day not long ago there were great white waves – even from here the water looked like a hoary old man. Maybe it was mustaschioed Poseidon greeting us from afar. Maybe Atlantis really is nearby after all, under the Shining Waters perhaps?

From the tenth floor of this city it sometimes seems the clouds are running away from their own weather, only to be swallowed up and disappear into the white rain.

"Ich muss erst nach Hause, mich hübscher machen," sagte er bei jeder Begegnung wenn er befragt wurde, was er vorhatte. Das Rhythmische seiner Existenz war erstaunlich. Damit zusammengemischt war ein zusammenhangsloses Ausschweifen. Denn egal wie kaputt ein Mensch ist, gibt es in ihm eine Grundtendenz, sich auszubalancieren.

Sogar die Uhr am Nibelungenturm geht richtig

En rouvrant mes yeux pleins de flamme
J'ai vu l'horreur de mon taudis,
Et senti, rentrant dans mon âme,
La pointe des soucis maudits;


La pendule aux accents funèbres
Sonnait brutalement midi,
Et le ciel versait des ténèbres
Sur le triste monde engourdi.