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What Is Truth in an Age of "Alternative Facts"?

On April 30, 1999, Werner Herzog walked to center stage in the Walker Cinema and unveiled his new manifesto on truth and fact in documentary cinema. Subtitled Lessons of Darkness, the Minnesota Declaration, as he dubbed it, outlined his concerns with documentary film and, for the first time, explained his concept of "ecstatic truth."

On the manifesto's 18th anniversary, we invited Herzog to respond to the titular question of this series: what is truth in times of "alternative facts" and "fake news"? His response: a new, six-point addendum to the Minnesota Declaration. To complement his new thinking, we’ve also posed the same question to four figures in the cultural sphere: critic Ben Davis, filmmaker Sabaah Folayan, artist RaMell Ross, and investigative journalist Eric Schlosser. —Paul Schmelzer, editor

“The Truth”: An Anti-Manifesto for Artists

Eric Schlosser

Moving Image

“The Truth”: An Anti-Manifesto for Artists

Artistic manifestos, including Werner Herzog's Minnesota Declaration, "contain varying proportions of hot air and bullshit," writes journalist Eric Schlosser, who notes that "stylistic choices of artists pale in importance beside the lies and deliberate misinformation being spread every single day for power, control, and profit." The author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness issues of a manifesto of his own, offering a call for artists to act in the age of Trump.
Goodbye, Pluto: An Elegy on Loss, Memory, and Photography

RaMell Ross

Moving Image Visual Arts

Goodbye, Pluto: An Elegy on Loss, Memory, and Photography

"Active looking and conscious making are both radical acts. They insist that truth is an inquiry and pursuit, a movement through subjectivity towards creation," writes RaMell Ross in an elegy on race, memory, photography, and his late mother, Gisele.
Beyond the Imaginary Politics of Objective Facts

Ben Davis

Moving Image Visual Arts

Beyond the Imaginary Politics of Objective Facts

"Politics is the work of inspiring people, of connecting with their emotions as well as their minds, and making them believe in a vision worth fighting for. No matter what facts you have on your side, you cannot win unless you mobilize people around them."
Pain, Bodies, and Emotional Truths

Sabaah Folayan

Moving Image

Pain, Bodies, and Emotional Truths

“The way out of the information spiral of ‘alternative facts,’ ‘fake news’ and the terrifying reality of our time, is to start paying attention, not just to the experiences of others but to our own psychological and emotional states.” So writes Whose Streets? filmmaker Sabaah Folayan.
Werner Herzog Makes Trump-Era Addition to His Minnesota Declaration

Werner Herzog

Moving Image

Werner Herzog Makes Trump-Era Addition to His Minnesota Declaration

Call it Lessons of Darkness II: In response to the Trump administration's coinage of the term "alternative facts," Werner Herzog offers a six-point addendum to his Minnesota Declaration on truth and fact in documentary cinema, delivered in the Walker Cinema April 30, 1999.