“I have a rifle in my tent. If you try to leave this jungle now, you’ll have eight bullets in your head before you reach the first river bend. And the ninth bullet will be for me.”
–Werner Herzog to actor Klaus Kinski on the set of Aguirre
German filmmaker Werner Herzog has always fascinated me. What else can I say about a man who, after being shot in the stomach by someone with an air rifle while being interviewed in L.A., responds only by calmly stating “It was not a significant bullet.”
Or a man who cooked and ate his own shoe after losing a bet with a fellow filmmaker (which was filmed and can be seen in the short film “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe”).
Or a man who once responded to an audience booing his film at the Berlin Film Festival by simply telling them, “You are wrong.”
Or of his tumultuous relationship with his frequent collaborator, the eccentric actor Klaus Kinski. Both men together for many years produced wonderful art even as they plotted each other’s murder.
Then, of course, there is the infamous tale of Werner Herzog’s sudden appearance at the site of an automobile accident involving actor Joaquin Phoenix. As Phoenix lie semi-conscious after flipping his car, a tapping came from his window. “Just relax,” the voice said. “I’m fine,” Phoenix replied. “No, you’re not,” Herzog answered. Herzog immediately pulled Phoenix from the wreck and phoned for an ambulance. Then without notice, he vanished.
Most recently Herzog announced he will be offering his own film program, though one that tends towards more philosophical aspects of filmmaking, such as how one uses film to create “illumination and an ecstasy of truth.” In addition, students will also learn “…the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance.”
The man is a never-ending source of captivating tales and thought-provoking quotes. I’d like simply to share a few of the latter with you now. Agree with them or not, you can tell these come from a guy who thinks and feels very deeply about things, a man of true passion.
“Your film is like your children. You might want a child with certain qualities, but you are never going to get the exact specification right. The film has a privilege to live its own life and develop its own character. To suppress this is dangerous. It is an approach that works the other way too: sometimes the footage has amazing qualities that you did not expect.”
“Coincidences always happen if you keep your mind open, while storyboards remain the instruments of cowards who do not trust in their own imagination and who are slaves of a matrix… If you get used to planning your shots based solely on aesthetics, you are never that far from kitsch.”
“I do not believe in the Cinema verite. Sometimes a really good lie is better than any truth.”
On the Peruvian jungle: “The trees are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don’t think they sing. They just screech in pain. …Taking a close look at what’s around us, there is some sort of harmony: it’s the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder.”
On working with Klaus Kinski: “It was worthwhile for what you see on the screen. Who cares if
every grey hair on my head I call ‘Kinski’?”
“I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality to be very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk.”
“I have the impression that the images that surround us today are worn out, they are abused and useless and exhausted. They are limping and dragging themselves behind the rest of our cultural evolution. When I look at the postcards in tourist shops and the images and advertisements that surround us in magazines, or I turn on the television, or if I walk into a travel agency and see those huge posters with that same tedious and rickety image of the Grand Canyon on them, I truly feel there is something dangerous emerging here. The biggest danger, in my opinion, is television because to a certain degree it ruins our vision and makes us very sad and lonesome. Our grandchildren will blame us for not tossing hand-grenades into TV stations because of commercials. Television kills our imagination and what we end up with are worn out images because of the inability of too many people to seek out fresh ones.”
“You will learn more by walking from Canada to Guatemala than you will ever learn in film school.”
“I shouldn’t make movies anymore. I should go to a lunatic asylum.”
A graduate of Temple University's English program, Jeff Havel can be frequently found on street corners swatting furiously at the air and yelling at tall buildings. A righter of wrongs, a doer of goods, a hoarder of sheep, Jeff is currently available for freelance writing work as well as the finest burlesque performances money can buy. 
