Werner Herzog's Of Walking on Ice, a fever-dream of a book, one (mule-like) man's febrile pilgrimage to save an ailing friend. Herzog was contacted and told that his mentor Lotte Eisner was dying of cancer, and he became possessed with the idea that if he walked to her in Paris from his Munich home she would live. The account is frayed and hallucinatory: Herzog walks through blizzards and rain, sleeps in barns and empty holiday homes; the landscape consumes him, space is blurred by motion, dominated by the force of exorcism and the need to arrive. This is walking as sacrament, what Chatwin called a 'poetic activity that can cure the world'. The book's power doesn't come from great writing, although it does have a certain haunting descriptive power, rather it comes from its status as an event, a document of a journey of belief. Eisner was waiting to receive Herzog on his arrival. Her recovery was complete and she went on to live 10 more healthy years.

The book isn't in print as far as I can tell (the cheapest copy on Amazon is £234!) - hence the odd picture above; but it's well worth tracking down (I know for sure the British Library have a battered copy as it is now soiled with my grubby paw prints).

沃纳·赫尔佐格 Werner Herzog（1942 -）。享誉国际的新德国电影大师之一，与文 德 斯（Wim Wenders）、法斯宾德（Rainer Werner Fassbinder）齐名。赫尔佐格1942年出生于慕尼黑，1962年起开始制作、拍摄电影与短片，1 968年他的第一部长片《生命的讯息》 （Signs of Life）获柏林影展银熊奖；1972年《天谴》 （Aguirre，the Wrath of God）被英国《视与听》杂志评为年度十大佳片之首，他也成为国际影坛最受瞩目的德国青年导演；1974年《人人为自己,上帝反众人》（The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser）获戛纳电影节评审团大奖；1982年又有 《陆上行舟》（Fitzcarraldo）获戛纳电影节最佳导演奖。 他同时还拍摄了大量深具影响力的纪录片，包括获奖无数的《灰熊人》（Grizzly Man）、《白钻石》（The White Diamond）、《在世界尽头相遇》（Encounters at the End of the World）、《凝视深渊》（Into the Abyss）、《忘梦洞》 （Cave of Forgotten Dreams）等片。

赫尔佐格的作品大多以狂热、孤独的狂想者为主人公，强调人力与天意的对抗，很多作品有寓言性质。

洛特·艾斯纳 Lotte Eisner（1896-1983），知名影评人、电影史学家，1896年出生在柏林。1933年纳粹政权上台后艾斯纳逃往法国, 德军占领法国后她在集中营度过了一段时间。 1945 年起，艾斯纳担任法国电影资料馆档案管理长一职，直到1975年退休。战争期间她从德军和犹太商人手中走私大量德国电影拷贝并保护起来，在法国电影资料馆一角复制了二十年代的柏林。她是最早肯定并积极推介“新德国电影”的影评人，被称为“新德国电影 之母”。1983 年，艾斯纳去世，终生未婚，也没有子嗣。 次年文德斯将《德州·巴黎》（Paris, Texas）题献给她，赫尔佐格亦将电影《人人为自己，上帝反众人》献给她。