Werner Herzog Is 80 and Loving It: ‘Time Is on My Side’

September 2, 2022 11:42 AM

The filmmaker celebrates his birthday this week at Telluride with many new projects and even more ideas about cinema, civilization, and his long-term legacy, which he shared with IndieWire.
posted by Etrigan (24 comments total)

He recently finished writing his upcoming memoir, “Every Man for Himself and God Against All,

I'm in awe of how on-brand that memoir title is.
posted by saladin at 12:41 PM on September 2, 2022 [16 favorites]

What a lovely interview, as usual. He's so candid but in such a compelling way, funny since most of his answers amount to "Eh! Who cares? Do what you want. I did!"
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:09 PM on September 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

I forget the name right now, but Netflix has his recent documentary on Volcanoes, and it's awesome. Highly recommended by yours truly!
posted by chaz at 2:06 PM on September 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

how did I not know about Into the Inferno???? need to watch asap!
posted by supermedusa at 2:15 PM on September 2, 2022 [4 favorites]

saladin: "Every Man for Himself and God Against All"

It's the German title of his film released in English as The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, the first film he did with the mesmerizing actor Bruno S.
posted by octothorpe at 2:18 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

"My wife, who has lived with me for 27 years, will testify convincingly that I’m a fluffy husband. I’m paid for spreading terror onscreen."

Didn't you just know that was the case, deep down?

I wish so badly that the WWE had brought Werner into the fold, at least as a heel manager. His pre-match trash-talk would have been the best. He would have won every match by forfeit. He is an international treasure, really—but I like his documentaries far more than his dramas.
posted by not_on_display at 2:35 PM on September 2, 2022 [11 favorites]

Just a passing mention of his new novel, The Twilight World? It's the story of Hiroo Onoda, who stayed hidden in the jungles of the Philippines, continuing to "fight" WW2 until finally surrendering in 1974.
posted by dobbs at 2:36 PM on September 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

I have noticed that my audience has shifted. Today, I get emails from 15-year-olds who want to know about films I have made from before even their parents were born.

I still tell people about this video (from this post: Werner Herzog on Skateboarding), and they go, "Wait, he did what?" My response is: "You have to watch it, it's as good as you think it might be."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:40 PM on September 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

Herzog also has the same birthday as our local hero Jessamyn!

So much for astrology, but she is a fan of his.
posted by not_on_display at 2:51 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

From the comments on the Skateboarding vid:

ilppblunt
1 year ago (edited)
He should narrate a skate competition. "In this cramped and rotting structure it appears that we have here a group of people who only come to accept small successes over an impossible mountain of failure. We can observe them recklessly fumbling about the course like mice who know they are soon to be fed to a python. Only one small glimmer of hope comes when a rare window that is not certain death appears, and a trick is landed. And that was a good backside tailslide by Ishod the Weary."
posted by lalochezia at 2:54 PM on September 2, 2022 [9 favorites]

Ooh, ooh, are we posting Herzog parody/homage comments? This one by kingfisher, his musclebound cat is my all-time favorite:

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 flod at 3:20 PM on September 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

This is the motherfucker who was trying to kidnap that little green baby, right? Fuck that guy.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:37 PM on September 2, 2022 [12 favorites]

from article:
"...it was normal to have human sacrifice. Today, of course, we’ve shifted someone else where we create our own norms, our own rituals, our own performative life. When you’re in the military, if the drill sergeant yells at you, and you stomp your feet down, that’s completely performative. That would be very strange to see for an ancient Roman legionnaire"

Is a jelly donut involved?
posted by clavdivs at 4:15 PM on September 2, 2022

And be sure to mark your calendars for October 19, when Alexander Skarsgard plays the man himself in Soldier of Illusion in the 53rd season premiere of Documentary Now!

So what? Let them do it. If it’s any good, why not? Normally, it’s pretty lousy — I have seen at least two dozen doppelgängers out there on the internet, voice imposters. Before I finish a film, there’s already a parody of it. I don’t worry. -Werner Herzog, IndieWire
posted by dannyboybell at 4:55 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am having both loud laughs and so much excitement for a WENER HERTZOG DOCUMENTARY ON VOLCANOES WHAT WHAT WHAT
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 5:24 PM on September 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

My wife, who has lived with me for 27 years, will testify convincingly that I’m a fluffy husband.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 5:29 PM on September 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I just coincidentally started reading Of Walking In Ice, Herzog's journal from the time he walked from Munich to Paris, November 23 - December 14 1974, because he had heard his mentor Lotte Eisner was dying in Paris, and he convinced himself that if he walked there she would not die. It's every bit as amazing as you could imagine.
posted by maggiemaggie at 6:36 PM on September 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

Of Walking in Ice is so great because you can absolutely read it in his voice in your mind. Mundane things, like being wet or sleeping in a barn, or breaking into someone's cabin and reading their magazines have such gravitas. I loved it.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:08 PM on September 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Herzog also has the same birthday as our local hero Jessamyn!

Who?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:20 PM on September 2, 2022

There's a Werner Herzog exhibition at the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin until March. I'm probably going to go when I'm there in November.
posted by acb at 4:56 AM on September 3, 2022

This is the motherfucker who was trying to kidnap that little green baby, right? Fuck that guy.

"Can I offer you a libation to celebrate the closing of our shared narrative?" is one of the great lines in all of Star Wars; I was sad when he was gunned down for Herzog plays a great villain.
posted by nubs at 5:58 AM on September 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

There's a Twitter account named The Midnight Society, which is a short-form comedy series set as a gathering of (the caricatures of) horror authors, past and present. I'm still hoping that at some point they have Werner Herzog show up and immediately get into an argument with Lovecraft about whether chickens or fish are more eldritch.
posted by acb at 6:23 AM on September 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

~Herzog also has the same birthday as our local hero Jessamyn!

~Who?

Werner Herzog. He makes movies.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:24 PM on September 3, 2022 [6 favorites]

I desperately want to hear Werner Herzog call a baseball game.
posted by jesourie at 11:08 PM on September 6, 2022