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Herzog on Herzog

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

Vice: You’ve lived in Los Angeles for a while now, and your assertion that it has more substance than any city in the United States is one that puzzles lots of people. I think many assume that you’ve always had an antagonistic relationship with Hollywood.

Werner Herzog:

Even though you’re not part of the system, would you say that living in Los Angeles makes it easier to deal with the business aspects of filmmaking?

Galileo

Galileo

The Wild Blue Yonder

You’ve run your own production company since your late teens. How are your practices different from Hollywood’s? Are actors and other people in the film industry taken aback by the way you run the show?

Bad Lieutenant

laughs

Rambo

I would just call it a trailer.

I want to ask you about some of your earliest days in America. You received a scholarship to study at a place of your choosing in the US. You chose Pittsburgh but quickly abandoned the scholarship. Then you were taken in by a rural family called the Franklins. I get the feeling that this period was pivotal in the way that you use American imagery in your films.

Stroszek

Shortly after your time in Pittsburgh, you went to New York and then Mexico because you were facing deportation from the US. That was one of the first steps in what was to become a long-standing association with Latin America in your work.

South America is where you’ve taken some of your greatest chances, and you’ve always commented on how important it is to take “calculated risks” as a filmmaker. But how do you personally calculate such perilous risks?

La Soufrière

about

La Soufrière is a good example of one of your many films where athleticism, or at least enduring very harsh and inhospitable conditions, was essential to the making of it. Are you worried about aging to the point where taking these types of risks and putting your body through these intense experiences are no longer possible?

Another activity you recommend for aspiring filmmakers and other creative types is walking. Is that a hard thing to do in a place like California that’s overrun with freeways?

really

You’ve also said that cooking is a similar undertaking. What do you like to make for supper?

You’re known for using the same cinematographers, cameramen, and other crewmembers throughout different phases in your career. How do you know when you want to work with someone new?

Bad Lieutenant

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

Do you think things like YouTube and other digital-distribution systems will help break apart the bureaucracy of filmmaking?

These types of immediate distribution methods are also increasing the usage of digital editing and cameras. The latter is something you’ve always been wary of, but didn’t you just finish shooting My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done on video?

Grizzly Man

In Grizzly Man, like most of your documentary films, you provide the narration.

It does seem like the best person to narrate a documentary would be its maker.

Herzog shows strongman Zishe Breitbart (Jouko Ahola, far right) how to throw a barrel on the set of Invincible (2001).

Is the audience something that you actively think about when making your films?

That doesn’t surprise me. I think younger people might even appreciate you more than your own generation does.

You’ve said that people should not intellectualize film, but what about your writing? Is that a different matter?

Conquest of the Useless

Vice V16N6 for an excerpt

Fitzcarraldo

It’s amazing that you’re starting a film school. Can you give me a sampling of what will be on your syllabus?

Georgics

I just watched your debut film, Herakles, for the first time the other day. You’ve said that it was your one great “blunder.”

Outside of filming some operas, you haven’t made a short in quite some time. You also haven’t produced anything for television in almost ten years. Today, there are more channels and more ways of watching TV than ever, but that hasn’t seemed to increase the overall quality of programming. Do you still feel it’s a valid outlet?

If I didn’t know your views on the subject, I’d assume you’re being ironic. You’ve said that you have a sort of communication defect in that you are unable to understand irony.

Grizzly Man

Encounters at the End of the World

Bad Lieutenant

I can’t wait. There’s been quite a bit of controversy around that film and no one’s even seen it yet. Abel Ferrara, the director of the original Bad Lieutenant, was outraged that you were doing what he considered to be a remake. But you steadfastly deny that it’s a remake and claim to have never even seen the original.

Bad Lieutenant

Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant

Port of Call New Orleans

And if I’m not mistaken, you did not write this one, which is sort of an anomaly when compared to your other films.

What drew you to this movie?

And why do you say your Bad Lieutenant is so funny?

The other film you’ve just completed, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, is based on a nugget of truth about a man who stabbed his mother after becoming obsessed with Sophocles’ Orestes.

There were some rumblings about you making a film based on The Piano Tuner, the historical novel by Daniel Mason. Are you working on that right now?

laughs

What are you actively working on now?

Will it be called Werner Herzog Film School?

As of press time,

and

do not have release dates. With any luck, by the time you read this some suit in Hollywood will have wised up and figured out a way to get them into theaters.