When asked if he had turned off his cell phone, writer-director Werner Herzog replied: “I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t need to turn anything off. I just want to live and have a real conversation with a real person.”
Herzog got his wish: an authentic conversation not long ago at his home in the Hollywood Hills.
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He is a legitimate visionary in cinema, in Hollywood and around the world, having directed more than 20 feature films and more than 30 documentaries – from a journey into the heart of darkness in the Amazon to a life among grizzly bears in the Arctic.
He put it all in a memoir with a title reminiscent of Werner: “Everyone for himself and God against all” (Penguin Press).
“A title has to jump out at you,” Herzog said. “When you walk past books and see this, you stop, ‘Dude, what is this?’”
What it is is the story of a filmmaker like no other. “Yes, I have experienced a lot, as if I had already experienced ten times,” he says. “And that’s the beauty of this memoir, is that it’s so condensed. When you read it, you won’t be bored.”
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Born in Munich, Germany, during World War II, Herzog began directing films as a teenager. He was drawn to characters with impossible dreams: we see this in his 1982 film “Fitzcarraldo,” with longtime collaborator Klaus Kinski. The character Fitzcarraldo wants to build an opera house in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. To do this, he must transport a steamboat up a mountain and then down it.
Herzog said: “20th Century Fox was interested in financing and producing a film. But they wanted to produce it with a small plastic replica of a ship in a jungle, a “good” jungle. And they thought, “We should do this.” in the San Diego Botanical Garden. And I said, ‘No, it really has to be shot in a big jungle, big rivers and everything.'”
Without the benefit of CGI, Herzog has found his great jungle, his great river. He made the astonishing decision to pull a real 320-ton riverboat over a real mountain to the Amazon River on the other side.
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I asked: “It seems to me that there were moments in ‘Fitzcarraldo’ when perhaps for the first time, and perhaps for the only time, you were at least afraid that the crew would stop believe in yourself. Is that true?”
“That’s true,” Herzog replied. “There were times when it was very precarious. And only my inner fire carried us one way or another. The strength of my vision carried everyone, even if many of them did not believe that I could move the ship over the mountain.”
To watch the trailer for “Fitzcarraldo” starring Klaus Kinski, click on the video player below:
The finished film convinced the crew and the critics. Herzog won the best director award at Cannes, even though “Fitzcarraldo” was almost a very different film. Jason Robards originally directed the cast, with Mick Jagger playing his assistant. Then, when almost half the film was filmed, Robards fell ill and had to be evacuated to the United States. The delay also cost Jagger dearly: the Rolling Stones were going on tour.
So Herzog hired Kinski.
He said that if Kinski had not been able to make the film, he would have played the character himself: “I would have done it. Because the main task, moving a ship over the mountain, n “It was more cinema. It was the task I had to do and I was struggling, I wouldn’t have been half as good as Kinski, nor half as good as Jason Robards or Mick Jagger. , my God, on your knees”, that. I I didn’t need to play it.”
Penguin Press
This is not to say that Herzog is not a good actor; he was born to play badly. He played the role of the villain in “Jack Reacher” and a sinister character in “The Mandalorian.” “Well, I was pushed to become an actor,” he said, “but I love it immensely and I do it well. I know I do it well, but only for very specific roles. And I can hold on, but I swear to God, it’s a performance.”
But his greatest performance is a love story: his own. Werner Herzog is a hopeless romantic. He fell in love with photographer Elena Pisetski in the late 90s. To seal the deal, he sold everything he owned and flew from Germany to the United States with nothing but ‘a toothbrush in your pocket and passion in your heart.
“It’s only me, it’s me, only me, the man, the person, and that’s it,” he said of arriving at Pisetski’s doorstep. “So I have nothing to offer, only myself. And I’m in America and I’m in Los Angeles because I fell in love very deeply. And I was very lucky. I’m not here because of Hollywood. I’m here because I’m in love.”
This is Herzog’s third marriage; He and Elena have been together for 28 years. “I’m a very lucky bastard,” he said.
63 years have passed since his first film, and Herzog is still at it. And, he promises, there’s more to come. “I’m working on two feature films,” he said.
“Aren’t you full?” I asked.
“Well, who knows?” Herzog responded. “Ultimately, you’re going to have to get me out of a standing position. That’s what’s hopefully going to happen.”
To watch an extended interview with Werner Herzog, click on the video player below:
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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Publisher: Emanuele Secci.
