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Arts & Entertainment

Playing With Hand Grenades in the Snow: An Interview with Werner Herzog

The German filmmaker speaks about his post-war youth, wreckless filmmaking style, the similarities between movies and soccer, and recent life as an Internet meme
By Peter Simek |
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This evening, German filmmaker Werner Herzog will speak at the Winspear Opera House as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s “Hear Here” speaker series. As I wrote in this month’s print edition, in recent years, Herzog’s popularity and persona as a filmmaker – his thick Bavarian accent popping up in everything from The Simpsons to viral videos about Pokemon – has taken on a life of its own. It is a role that, Herzog admitted in a conversation this morning, has caught him somewhat off guard.

“It has gotten completely out of hand,” he says, “An avalanche of young people who want to learn from me.”

We spoke about why that might be, about his approach to ideas and filmmaking, his particular experience growing up in post-war Germany, and arrival on the international stage at a time when young German filmmakers were taking the world of cinema by storm. The secret to filmmaking, he says, is that there is no secret. Like soccer, one of Herzog’s early loves, filmmaking’s charm is inexplicable.

The story of your early life in Bavaria is remarkable for a number of reasons, and one of them is the fact that you did not see a film until you were 12.

Eleven. Yeah, it was just a coincidence. A traveling projectionist ended up in the little schoolhouse that had one classroom. Of course it is unusual. All my peers who were in larger places had known what cinema was.

What was the experience like, seeing your first film?

I found it pretty unimpressive. And the films were bad, amateur films, which I remember. One was particularly bad. It was Eskimos building an igloo. And you could tell it was just movie extras and some people who didn’t know how to use snow and ice. They just did a bad job. You could tell as an eleven-year-old, having grown up a lot in snow.

In spite of the fact that you were fleeing the second world war, there is a temptation to imagine your youth in the mountains as something of a pastoral existence, with chores, snow, working the land.

No, we were displaced by bombardment of Munich, and my mother fled to the countryside and we got stuck there. She couldn’t find a job, couldn’t find an apartment in Munich. Munich was still, to a large degree, destroyed. So it was regular difficulties after the second world war. The village itself was untouched by war, there was no fighting.

I remember reading a story about you seeing the war only as the far-away flashing of a burning city.

It was not flashing, it was like a pulsing red and yellow. The horizon was pulsing in the dark night. But it was a remarkably good childhood. Meaning we were completely free. And we had to take charge of ourselves. And very soon I had to take charge of earning money.

Did you have extended family there, is that how you ended up in the town?

No, my mother just knew this place by coincidence, and we lived in a small attachment to a farm house where normally the retired farmers would stay after they hand over the farm to the oldest son, they would stay in this tiny little house. But in this tiny house there were other refugee families, so it was packed. Regular refugee situation.

At what age did you become aware of the context, of having to flee the war.

I think right away. Of course the war entered because American GIs arrived at the very end of the war. What was interesting was this place was the last remaining pocket of Germany of shrinking Germany. And because of that many SS men and many werewolves would be compressed into this area. They would normally throw their uniforms away and hide their weapons under the hay or in a barn and flee into the mountains in civilian clothes. I mention it because years after the war we still would find weapons, some hidden away, and still all functioning. And those were some of our toys.

How surreal.

No, it was quite natural, and quite pleasant to handle explosives, for example.

Just out of curiosity?

We knew it was dangerous and we knew we had to be careful but nothing ever happened.

Was that exciting, the danger?

No, it’s just the might. The might of a hand grenade, for example. To roll it into a sewage pipe and wait for what is going to happen.

You never knew your father?

Sure, of course. But he came back after the war and then divorced so I hardly knew him and I never had a close relationship with him.

Did you ever have an interest in pursuing more of a relationship?

No, in a way it never occurred to me. And it is not that I was missing a father figure. No one in my family – and I’m thinking of my brothers – was missing a father figure because we had adopted the role already very, very early on.

Thinking about this context  — the war, your youth in that moment in Germany – I read once that you were concerned when you started making films that your generation of German filmmakers would be perceived as a movement and you didn’t like the idea of the idea of being a member of a movement, or the idea of a “New German Cinema.”

Yes, I never felt comfortable with it. I think none of us felt comfortable to be considered as part, and I say it in quotes, of a “movement” because we so different in style and in character and in stories that fascinated us. But I in particular felt very, very uncomfortable and I did not join in many of the things that were going on collectively. I was not part of the Oberhausen Manfesto. But I was considered a candidate. I had the feeling that they were all very mediocre figures that were around and I didn’t want to join them. And I didn’t want to join the collective distribution company that was founded. I had some of my films distributed through them, but I was not one of the founders and owners of the company.

Why did you want that distance, was it just so you could be considered on your own terms?

Mostly it was because, and it is awful that I am saying this, but I had the feeling that the founders of the Filmverlag [der Autoren] – the distribution company – were quite mediocre.

Still, there was a moment when there are so many filmmakers coming out of Germany, and I’m wondering why at that time. And I know there is a lot there in terms of the broader culture of that moment, and what your generation was wrestling with.

I think there was a void in German cinema after the war. There was nothing really going on. And we were the first ones who grew up after the war. We could start to express ourselves in cinema, and we could start writing our screenplays and founding our production companies. Everybody had his own production company.

I remember [filmmaker Rainer Werner] Fassbinder came to me and wanted me to produce his first films and showed me his first short films. And I said, “Rainer Werner, are you crazy or something? This is great stuff you have – just imagine in ten years from now you are still with me who is hovering over you and producing your films. Are you crazy or something? You roll up your sleeves and start your own production company.” Which he did the very next day. And he was happy with it, and I was happy with it. Of course when he worked there was always a confusion of production companies. Sometimes an actor of his films quickly formed a production company, produced one film – it was more like a chaotic avalanche that he created, but he was self-determined.

How conscious or aware were you that you were of this generation, that there was this gap in German cinema and that was what your role was, a rebirth or a reclaiming?

Yes, reclaiming legitimacy. That was one of the main things that connected us. There was a connection, yes. Because German cinema had lost itself in the barbarism of the Nazis. Or, if they were not lost and adopted the barbarism, they were driven out of the country into exile. Or they very few of them ended up in concentration camps. So it’s cultural legitimacy.

How do you think that manifested itself in your earliest films, or did it need to be explicit in any way?

No it didn’t explicitly postulate, that this is something against what the Nazi barbarism had postulated and done. I just started off by doing films that had value in its own right and just simply showed to the world that there was something new coming up. It was not that I wanted to make something new because of the Nazis, I just showed that I wanted to make something new because I was new.

Tonight you are set to talk about the creative process of making films. Where does the film idea start, at what point do you know that an idea you have is enough for a film?

It is damn hard to describe and I’ll probably struggle with it tonight. Because what I’m trying to explain is where do creative impulses come from. What triggers it? How does it go step-by-step or how does it function? And since I have never really looked into myself it is not easy. In case of Aguirre, I know it was leafing through a book at a friend’s place and I found 14 lines about a conquistador and immediately thought it was big. And the following day when I stared to write we were on the bus with the soccer team [Herzog played semi-pro soccer before becoming a filmmaker], and everybody drunk and everyone yelling obscenities with the two barrels of beer we had brought along on our journey to Italy. Bad news for a screenwriter.

And then there you are, with your head down, writing.

That’s one of things that always astonishes everyone, that I can completely focus no matter what. We have a plane crash during Fitzcarraldo, and garbled messages all morning, dramatic situation and we are trying to figure out how many people were on it, where did it happen. Can we send out the search party or not? It was clear after enough information that bit-by-bit we could gather, we cannot help it. [The plane is] 200 miles away from us. And [actor Klaus] Kinski during that time is screaming and yelling at me for an hour and a half. And I said, let’s go and do some shooting. And we did very, very focused shooting, knowing that there was a disaster, and Kinski still screaming because his coffee this morning was lukewarm only.

[Laughing]

You think it is a joke but it is not. Or on a bus with people who are drunk. And it comes probably because in Munich we lived all in one single room, my mother and my two brothers – four people. But we always had our friends in this room as well. And normally I would be on the floor reading something and they would step over me and have fights. And a friend of mine who was love sick would cry at the shoulder of my mother. I could write something or I would read, and I was completely focused and absorbed in what I was doing. It is a quality that I probably acquired because of growing up in those very close quarters. And you can still place me on a crowded noisy bus, and I could still write a screenplay in the bus.

Last night at the Texas Theatre you said that Fitzcarraldo belongs to Bavaria, and I was wondering what you mean by that.

Oh, it is some sort of wild exuberance of fantasy. South American films would be quite different. American films would be quite different. Deep in the heart of everything, this is obviously a Bavarian film. I think you can see it clearly, in the sense of Ludwig II the last king of Bavaria who built the dream castles.

It seems like the way you describe that idea for Aguirre, or Fitzcarraldo, or the way you stumble upon [Grizzly Man subject Timothy] Treadwell, these ideas come out of single images or situations. Is there a way to describe what it is about the image or the situation, or conundrum or the metaphor that, when you come across it, has the potency to drive an entire film?

I can only answer it by saying that it has to do with being a storyteller, that you immediately know that this is big. I’ve seen it with a soccer coach, who watches a youth team of a high caliber and would spot a player of great talent within seconds. And you don’t know why this one. I was very good friends with one of the greatest soccer coaches in Germany ever, Rudi Gutendorf, but nobody would know him because it was the early time of the Bundesliga, and he later became coach of at least 35-40 national teams.

We watched a youth team of Bayern Munich, and he said, “There is one player here who will become one of the greatest players that you will ever see.” And I had no idea. There were some who looked like they were doing something spectacular. And he said, “No no, that little guy here. This little player here, who is a defensive player. Just watch him.” And I watched him, and I still couldn’t fully figure it out. And he became a captain of the German national team – Philip Lahm – and it is still difficult to see the greatness of this player.

I’ve really tried to look at players with the eyes of Rudi Gutendorf. And I have started to spot some of them myself. Or ski jumpers, I can fairly predict who is the world champion.

Have you seen the film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait? That was just filmed with Zidane framed in the shot.

But if there is only one player in frame all the time, it is a complete waste of time. Because you have to see him in context with the choreography. You have to see how a player moves with the others. Where is he? And why? And what does the ball do to him, and what does he do to the ball?

Is it too much to make a comparison to you seeing Bruno S. [who stars in The Mystery of Kasper Hauser and Stroszek] in a documentary and knowing immediately that you wanted to work with him?

Yes you know it instantly.

What was it about him?

Something that you see in the two films with him. There is something transcendent on the screen, a tragedy, a depth, a loneliness that is unseen and unheard of in cinema. And I know of all the great actors with whom I have worked – and I really have been with the best of the best – he is still the best I have ever worked with. It is very obvious.

But like Kinski he was difficult to work with as well

It doesn’t matter if it is difficult or not, you shouldn’t argue from that angle. Nobody cares if it was difficult to make a film. It is not a value in itself.

But is that difficulty part of the equation that makes the quality of the performance?

Not at all. Because, for example, Mick Jagger who I consider a great actor, and who hasn’t really been fully discovered yet, but I worked with him. He played a retarded Englishman [in Fitzcarraldo, a part that was cut out of the finished film], an English actor in the jungle who carries a very heavy barber chair strapped to his back, and settles down with it his throne seat. And he captures the attention of Fitzcarraldo delivering Richard III’s soliloquy. And it is so completely amazing, so unique. But Jagger, he would have a wild argument with a production manager about per diem, or anything, and I’m already having the slate ready, and within three seconds he is in the part. Three seconds.

The key – there is no key to it, because much of it is inexplicable. That is the charm of moviemaking, that is the charm of coaching a soccer team.

You seem to be thinking a lot about how to make movies, not only with your lecture tonight, but also with your online masterclass and rogue film school. Is there anything that prompted this? Does it relate to where you think cinema is today, where there may be a need or a lack?

The masterclass is just trying to find an organized answer to an avalanche of young people who want to learn from me. I mean many, many. It has gotten completely out of hand.

That is something that I thought I was going to bring up at the beginning of our conversation, this whole idea that now there is so much enthusiasm around you and your work that if you say something about Pokemon in an interview and it becomes an internet meme.

But this is it. I was doing an interview, and I still understand it like an interview with an internet sort of publication, and it was a decent conversation for a half an hour about Low and Behold. And at the very end the lady says to me – it was just like an afterthought, a little arabesque – “I’d like to show you a music video, could you comment right away.” I said no, let me see it first.

Oh, the Kanye West video.

Yes, and I didn’t know who he was. And I had never seen this. And I found this very, very interesting and I said so. I had the feeling that there was some representation of self, how it was organized. As an audience you had the time to construct your own story behind it. Did they party together, who is who, why did they party together? For three minutes they are just breathing and sleeping, and I found it very, very bold. And I said so, as a short 20 second afterthought. And this went viral. Nothing was ever mentioned of the conversation about Lo and Behold. Or Pokemon, I was asked about Pokemon, and I said it doesn’t interest me, or whatever, I found it ephemeral, like, let’s say in the old days hula hoop or dancing the twist worldwide.

I have to be very cautious because I have not really learned the transition from print media – with you doing a meaningful conversation – and the internet podcasts and whatever they are called, blogs. Because I have a complete different function of representation.

 

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