I Think There Should Be Real War Against Bonanza

August 27, 2006 11:29 AM

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)
posted by StopMakingSense (30 comments total)

Dammit! Actual, working link here:

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
posted by StopMakingSense at 11:31 AM on August 27, 2006

Great movie, but even better back story. Everyone should watch "Gates of Heaven".
posted by billysumday at 11:53 AM on August 27, 2006

Also, YouTube is great.
posted by billysumday at 11:54 AM on August 27, 2006

I miss the UC Theater. :(
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 11:58 AM on August 27, 2006

It didn't work for me. *shrug*
posted by ®@ at 12:38 PM on August 27, 2006

Oh, crap. I should have read the comments. :)
posted by ®@ at 12:39 PM on August 27, 2006

Also, YouTube is great... for breaking copyright.

Criterion will be pissed as, to my knowledge, they own world-wide rights to this film now and, considering how difficult the movie was to get before, securing those rights probably was not easy.
posted by dobbs at 12:45 PM on August 27, 2006

damn, I love that crazy German.

Another (extremely) hard-to-find document of Herzog's beautiful madness is his book Of Walking in Ice, his account of walking from Munich to Paris to visit an ailing friend.
posted by scody at 1:22 PM on August 27, 2006

Whitey Herzog chews tobacco.
posted by Kwantsar at 1:36 PM on August 27, 2006

Werner Herzog is on my shortest list of heroes.

Also an intriguing watch: My Best Fiend - the amazing and totally fucked relationship between Herzog & Kinski.

This thread has lots of cool Herzog content.

Hail Werner!
posted by isopraxis at 2:02 PM on August 27, 2006

"A grown-up man like me should spend a week without cooking a big meal."

Awesome.
posted by eustacescrubb at 2:07 PM on August 27, 2006

Dammit.

"A grown-up man like me should not spend a week without cooking a big meal."
posted by eustacescrubb at 2:08 PM on August 27, 2006

Funny! I just watched Incident at Loch Ness last night, in which Werner is very funny.

Watch this before it gets yanked!
posted by xmutex at 2:39 PM on August 27, 2006

Watch this before it gets yanked!

Or, y'know, acquire a copy legally and watch THAT.
posted by dersins at 4:19 PM on August 27, 2006

That was excruciatingly boring.
posted by odinsdream at 4:29 PM on August 27, 2006

Herzog brings us Jackass for intellectuals.

Now you see I will be flying down this hill to end in the muddy, swirling river. I ride this shopping cart, and it is not meaningless transport. The rich use for consumption, with tomatoes and steak; the poor for production with collections of bottles and cans, and the artist for chaos, with the artist himself inside and these angry unknown rodents. We will see how it happens. Please light us on fire now, so we have the poetry. Push me, Kinski, now!
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 4:35 PM on August 27, 2006 [12 favorites]

I love you, kingfisher.
posted by metaculpa at 5:03 PM on August 27, 2006

My God, kingfisher, that was ... well it just *was*.
posted by localroger at 5:26 PM on August 27, 2006

LOL ... yes, kingfisher ... mahalo!

I have found all the films about Werzog's films so much more amazing than his actual films. I can't remember much about 'Fitzcarraldo' but scenes from 'Burden of Dreams' are burnt into my mind -- I fell in love with Werzog because of his raving monologue about the fecundity of the jungle.
posted by Surfurrus at 5:26 PM on August 27, 2006

Werner Herzog Writes A Diary
posted by Iridic at 5:40 PM on August 27, 2006

I have found all the films about Werzog's [sic] films so much more amazing than his actual films.

Hmm. Maybe that speaks more to the fact that you may have grown up in a culture that places far more importance upon reference than the merit of the thing being referred to. The inundation of media is so subconciously overwhelming and complete that the regular person cannot possibly parse and rate each piece upon which he or she stumbles, and often cannot even understand the eons-old criteria (criteria that never become inapplicable) used to parse and rate such pieces. Thus, when confronted with a reasonably well-crafted piece (e.g., Burden of Dreams) that is about another piece, it becomes easier to identify with the confident commentary about the real work of art (and even assign it greater value) than to critically evaluate the merit of the piece referred to -- since that desired critical evaluation is essentially what the second piece is doing.

This is not to say that pieces like Burden of Dreams cannot be considered substantive works on their own: I quite like Burden of Dreams.

But it's not even on the same level as Fitzcarraldo.

An obvious comparison to be made is to Hearts of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. The former isn't attempting the same thing as the latter.

And, incidentally, I'm not so fond of either.
posted by gramschmidt at 8:28 PM on August 27, 2006

I was an usher and popcorn-guy at the UC Theater through high school. It was a fun place to work, but Les Blank visiting a half dozen times - including at a screening of this film - was certainly the high point.

Also, Country Joe (ex- of The Fish, of course) would come to hang selections from his enormous classic '60s and '70s rock poster show. He was really nice.
posted by luriete at 9:14 PM on August 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

The link didn't work for me either, but this is certainly interesting.
posted by theperfectcrime at 10:50 PM on August 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

Hmm. Maybe that speaks more to the fact that you may have grown up in a culture ... - gramschmidt

Or it could simply be that I find "parsing and rating" as enlightening as ... sticking needles in my eye ...

Thanks for the reminder.
posted by Surfurrus at 12:28 AM on August 28, 2006

Surfurrus (once again) wrote the following:

I have found all the films about Werzog's films so much more amazing than his actual films.

...which suggests a rating process at work.

This is odd, needle-sticking behavior for one who expresses a distaste for needle-sticking.
posted by gramschmidt at 10:47 AM on August 28, 2006

Thanks for that link, Iridic. I couldn't help but hear Herzog's distinctively soothing voice in my head while reading that, and it was really funny.
posted by gigawhat? at 10:55 AM on August 28, 2006

Iridic, thanks for the link. I needed that.
posted by slimepuppy at 11:45 AM on August 28, 2006

Les Blank is part of the hero of this. His homepage, looks like, is this here.

A fella who can follow Herzog up the river with a camera and not get scared is certainly somewhat baddass and deserves to get some credit for the film posted, without attribution, in this FPP.
posted by goofyfoot at 11:25 PM on August 28, 2006

Thanks. It'd been too long since I saw this, and I was just talking about it with a friend a few weeks ago and pining over it.
posted by OmieWise at 12:34 PM on August 30, 2006

That fake diary had me rolling!
posted by OmieWise at 12:38 PM on August 30, 2006