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This essay was written with Rosamel Benavides-Garb.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769 – 1859) made many discoveries in diverse fields of natural science, and his influence is still being felt a century and half after his death. He had a voracious appetite for measurement. Minerals, animals, plants; nothing escaped his attention. “Everything interests us,” he says in the 2006 Venezuelan film “Aire libre.” With the tools of early-19th Century Europe, Humboldt tried to put together something that still eludes Hawking today: a theory of everything. In such a theory, everything is a matter of systemic connection. Measures may be particular, but the implications are always general. Toward the end of his life, Humboldt assembled what he had learned in his magnum opus, “Kosmos.”
If everything is part of a system, what about the individual? What about Humboldt himself? “Aire libre” dramatizes the first leg of Humboldt’s celebrated South American expedition. The result sheds some light on a modern man who has been studied like few others, yet remained enigmatic.
Humboldt and his “Beloved” (Aimé) friend Bonpland (1773 – 1858) make landfall in Venezuela near the town of Cumaná. We never see the ship that took them across the Atlantic, only the modest canoe taking them to shore. They have not come to conquer and colonize, but to see, hear, touch, and measure, to experience and to learn. In other words, they have come to live.
The Frenchman Bonpland seems more advanced in his connection with life. He is sensual (and sensuous); he sings, makes love, and goes native with a readiness that the Prussian baron views with a mixture of envy and befuddlement. The two friends are soon joined by the local school teacher Pedro Montañar. In a way, Montañar has gone beyond Bonpland; he has a wife and a baby, and he has found a way to transmit to others (local children and foreign scientists) what he has learned.
The three men represent different approaches to life. No individual is complete, as no individual piece of the cosmos can be, but when they join together to explore the river, they achieve an extraordinary synthesis.
On one of their initial excursions, Humboldt still projects the cold objectivity of science. Noting the loud croaking sounds in the night, Montañar offers “We say they are the souls of the dead.” Humboldt gently explains, “It’s frogs. Perfectly normal. There’s a swamp nearby.” Bonpland seeks the middle ground: “Doesn’t it sound like crying to you?” Insisting on scientific explanation, Humboldt goes psychological: “It’s well known, darkness blurs perception and heightens the imagination.”
As the voyage continues, Humboldt evolves. He still “objectifies” what he sees. He measures the height of local tribespeople. But he begins to discover joy as he learns to imitate and participate. In one poignant scene, Humboldt figures out how to perform a mock mano-a-mano with a village warrior without overstepping the boundaries of the ritual.
The great adventure is set against a backdrop of danger. The Spanish colonial authorities suspect the scientists of being spies. True enough, Humboldt and Bonpland carry French revolutionary ideas in their baggage. They protest against colonial rule, inspire the independence movement, and are horrified by the inhuman treatment of the local population. With charm and diplomacy, Humboldt and Bonpland manage to defuse conflicts. Yet, one day far up the Orinoco, the tension erupts in brawl. The men, including Humboldt, Bonpland, and a Spanish officer there to keep tabs on them fall into the river. Humboldt cannot swim. Bonpland drags him to the bank but fails to revive him at first. Humboldt finally comes to and the voyage continues. The film, however, comes to an end because the important points have been made.
Humboldt has left us thousands of measurements, a vision of the unity of nature, and some great stories. His measurements have long been surpassed, but his vision is still an inspiration, and the story of his journey leaves a revealing suggestion about happiness. Happiness lay consistently in all the activities Humboldt did not measure. He stumbled into happiness, Dan-Gilbert style. Playing, singing, and loving. Humboldt’s devotion to his friend Bonpland was love, a sentiment that Humboldt successfully shielded from demystification. As Humboldt’s sexuality remains a puzzle today, so it did in the film. When Humboldt sets out to address the question of his “virility,” he is interrupted by an earthquake and, at another occasion, by an alligator.
If Humboldt was happy, he was happy because he lived boldly, and he did not regret the risks he took. As Bonpland said to him: “To regret is to die a bit.” By comparison, the type of advice currently popular in psychology is tepid. “Count your blessings,” “Take care of your soul,” or “Avoid overthinking” is for the timid (sorry Sonja). Go to church and have a dinner party.
To Humboldt, life was a river, and the Orinoco made it real. Get in there and hope for the best. One way or another all your molecules will find their place in the Kosmos.
Rosamel Benavides-Garb teaches Latin American Literature at Humboldt (yes!) State University in Arcata, California. In 2009, he presented a critical analysis of "Aire libre" at a conference on Humboldt at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2008, JIK spent a semester at the Universität Marburg, made possible by a Research Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Thank you, Alex!
