Werner Herzog on "The Portal", Episode #003: "The Outlaw as Revelator"

[Music] hello you found the portal I'm your host Eric Weinstein and this will be our second interview episode to be released I think we have something really remarkable for you today because we have a human being who's led a life that even though he makes movies that are fictional I would say that his actual nonfiction life is more interesting than any movie he's ever made this is a person who has been shot on camera a person who has stolen who is forged and who's taught other filmmakers to steal and to forge the person I'm talking about is Verner Hertzog now i first became aware of Verner Hertzog when I was 16 and just entering the University of Pennsylvania and a friend of mine said you've got to see this movie Fitzcarraldo I said what is Fitzcarraldo he says if nothing else it's a story about a man so possessed by an IDI fix that he drags a boat over a mountain in the jungle in order to somehow build an opera house and the whole thing sounded incredibly mad and in fact what was so interesting about this film was is that the director actually had to do in real life what the crazy fictional character did inside of the storyline this led me to a fascination with today's interview subject Verner Hertzog this is a man who has lived so richly and so profoundly that I actually started to get a different idea about what he was doing as a filmmaker the idea that I could not shake was as that Verner Hertzog needed to live so deeply and so profoundly that he had to make movies simply to justify what it meant to be Verner Hertzog now I've often asked myself this question what is it the great generals do between wars it's hard to imagine let's say a patent or a MacArthur in normal times do they just sit around and open dry cleaners do they write essays for their local newspaper what is a Winston Churchill do if there's no world war to win in such a situation I think it's very hard to come up with an answer but I think that the best answer that I have is that these people would make movies [Music] the following interview was recorded in front of a live audience we joined the conversation in progress may I just ask first of all before I try any theories of the kind now do you see any clear organizing principle that unifies your output that is sort of subtle and not obvious to your audience yes I do believe so people are quite often puzzled about the range of the subject said that they'd have attracted me there's a world's champion ski flyer from Switzerland and there's a Paleolithic cave and there's a man who moves a ship over a mountain in the Peruvian jungle and there's a film on the internet in there's a film you just name it so and it's looks perplexing at first sight but I do understand although I don't like to look back at my films two of my I do understand that there's a some sort of an architecture of of concepts and that's you would immediately understand there is a common worldview very much is about the worldview and you could probably spot it very very quickly if you walked into a room and the TV was playing and there was a film within and and you didn't see any credits probably within two minutes you would understand this must have been my film people see it they understand it how they do it I don't know and how I do create this common worldview I don't know either but it doesn't really matter now one of the things that I've been very struck by which is what we all get wrong about Verner Hertzog and because many of the stories that come out of these films and these undertakings involve tremendous seeming danger physical risks chaos madnesses all the things that are usually associated I was trying to figure out what it was that those stories might cover up as if sort of cheap icing on a very rich cake and one of the things that I saw was what and correct me if I'm wrong it seems like you have tremendous concern for the people that you bring out on to these crazy projects for their safety and well-being am I getting that wrong no we shouldn't waste any time of what some people get wrong about me it doesn't really matter let them be wrong mm-hmm but one of the things that comes up quite often seems to be an identification of the creator of historia creative character namely me with qualities that the Creator automatically has to have in other words if I do a film like a Gary the wrath of God about a demented crazed conquistador 1560s in the peruvian amazon people quite offer misled to point out Hertzog must have these qualities obsessive in demented and borderline paranoia and so now they there I understand them but they are not my qualities the invention sir but you picked an actor in Klaus Kinski who might I mean I would venture to say did have some of those qualities is that wrong and they may be of course of course he had it a part of being a an actor who was really under the grace of creation took to to make things that we have not seen before after on a screen so but otherwise he was the mildest I could express would be he was the ultimate pestilence but he was also destructive he would destroy a set he would when we had we actually had two plane crashes on physically those small aircraft hmm and we didn't know what had happened we had a very sketchy shortwave radio connection with Iquitos about 1,100 kilometers away and garbled messages would come in plainest down and and we desperately tried was it nearby could we send out a search party or what who was on board what had happened and we had a habit in in our camp sometimes on days where we'll start in the afternoon and shoot into the night breakfast would be served from Huck's to her to hurt and so the last Hut's would have cold coffee this morning by coincident Kinski was the last hut and I heard it from from hundred fifty yards away screaming out I mean at a complete not not just a tantrum it was it was just an an outburst of Rage because his coffee was lukewarm and he stormed at the place where we were checking on on the radio and trying to figure out and he kept screaming and screaming I could not calm him down I could not get him away I tried to tell him there's a plane down you have to keep quiet we must listen to to what has happened it wouldn't help at all I would scream and he would scream he could scream a glass into he could shatter a glass of wine glass he it really a minute I do not exaggerate and so the only reason the only way I could after an hour and a half when he had already froth a hardened froth at his at his mouth I went to my heart and I had a little piece of Swiss chocolate left which I people would murder for a search of treasure in our camp and I stepped in front of him and and ate this chocolate and that silenced him there was that there was something which was stunning and you knew you intuited that this would have that effect I should have have the intuition after five minutes it took over an hour so but probably Mei said quite often qualities of the characters in my films have been superimposed on my on my own character for example I've acted in some Hollywood films and some independent films Jack Reacher for example and I'm playing the real real dangerous badass bad guy and and I am very very dangerous in the head - and I'm unarmed and I have no fingers left and and I am blind on one eye and and yet I had to spread terror from the screen and I did it so well I did it so well that my reviews were much better than the reviews for Tom Cruise now it's true it's I'm not exaggerating I was good but it not that I can say this kind of vile dangerous character is really in me really and it came very easy I did it unprepared you see and I have learned that when we did Fitzcarraldo in the first round of shooting there was Mick Jagger as a sidekick of the leading character in Jagger's spend some six weeks with us in the Changi we shot half the film had to stop because the leading character became ill we had to send him to the States and the doctors wouldn't allow him to return to the journey so I knew I had to start all over again and on Jagger's contract mmm there was no time enough left for doing the whole film all over I shot the film actually one and a half times and what what what is strange about this recasting and in restarting the whole thing I knew if I did not find acta quickly in such a case I had no alternative but playing the part may myself because I would have been credible and I would have been good not as good as let's say Mick Jagger and Jason Robards or Kinski and I learned one thing from from Mick Jagger which astonished me he took me once backstage when they were recording and I was there and and he was arguing with somebody about some totally trivial things completely and utterly trivial things and also on my set he was arguing about the mineral water about the per diem or something and I said to him make the cameras rolling and he looked at me and he sees we are already doing it and he steps three steps in in front of the camera and within three steps he becomes a demon from a trivial trivial little bickering mediocre kind of character he steps in front and he's a demon and and that's in in a way I learned that from him and I didn't prepare myself I when I stepped in front of the camera I knew there was only one thing become and be frightening and I can do it yeah and I would accept it only because I knew I could do it so you're really not the ultimate badass because I can't maybe I am but unbeknownst to me well okay if it feels to me like I was just watching video view video of you being interviewed by the BBC and him probably you're shot in the abdomen while being interviewed and you seem to be somewhat type yet somewhat irritated that the interviewer is treating this as a big deal and like this otherwise that how would I know that you wear Paisley underwear I mean you take your your pay when you're bleeding oh yeah and you're treated like why is it's not that big of a bullet that's that was your ad no I actually I said something more beautiful I said this is an insignificant poorest ruler and and I knew it it had not perforated everything it went through my jacket in the catalog in the pocket and everything but didn't perforate into my intestine so that was insignificant but they immediately hit the hit the the the the ground the camera flat and I hate the feeling stay let's finish at least the center this is great video I mean what they admit was great video it would have been but but what I'm trying to suggest sir is that you are the unreliable narrator you are at no no no I made sense no no no I'm the one who makes sense I'm the one who puts order into a chaotic situation that's what you did but when I'm about what I'm saying is is that when your autonomic nervous system is is triggered it barely registers you've been shot in the abdomen it's registered it hurt it read it threat a year because when I was laughing hard it was still hurting yeah yes but there's a sense of duty then why I very much appreciate but that's very unusual the deserve yes but it's part of being a good soldier of cinema that I try to be with a sense of duty a sense of you have to be reliably you have to hold an outpost that others have given up its loyalty its and its loyalty to the entire crew that was there however they they argued we should call the police right away and I said let's not do it because do you want to spend the next six hours in in a police station to file charges and do you want to see helicopter circling there and do you want to see a SWAT team in ten minutes flat right do you want to see that my answer is no but it's okay let's move out of the danger zone because man with a with a rifle was still somewhere hiding on on a terrace in hiding now inside the building get get out of there but let's continue let's continue this all your team has come from from the UK and you have to return tomorrow let's get over with it so it's a sense of duty I appreciate that very much but I mean what you're talking about is the highest levels of discipline and military-style leadership I mean this goes far beyond yes but you should be careful about me confusing it with military discipline where there's some sort blind adherence to given orders I do think I do think what I'm doing and I do not ask anyone to do blindly something in front of the camera but there's a safety margin whenever things are difficult in tain let's say borderline dangerous I would always do it myself first for the actor I would go through the rapids with a small RAF to see the xerath survive these three consecutive Rapids were very simple thing Christian Bale in rescue Don he plays a german-born Navy pilot who is shot down 40 minutes in his first mission over Vietnam who allows he actually was the only American POWs managed to escape from petit Lao and Viet Cong captivity an incredible story and Christian Bale who plays a part of him and they are starving to death almost starving to death and they get some food that is infested by hundreds and hundreds of wriggling maggots and we used maggots said native people would eat but they would rouse them not not alive and still wriggling so and I said to Christian that was what dieter Dengler the real character told me they had - there were nutrients a lot of nutrients in these maggots ate it and I said to Christian you know what give me the plate and give me a spoon I'm I'm gonna eat a few spoonfuls which I did and he said oh come on stop it stop it I let's roll the camera and I'm gonna get over it quickly so he did and that was one of the very very few moments of controversy between the two of us because I told him and he didn't hear it apparently I told him Christian you know what you stop eating when you really have when you had it and he keep eating eating eating until the plate is empty and then I say cut and he said why didn't you say cut before why what what happened and I said Christian you are the one who should have cut said cuts but he didn't hear it and he was kind of miffed but but those those moments say they do happen ment and in the unexpected on on a set that's movies yeah right that I guess those moments do happen so it does strike me though that but I tested it first but you see would do that always test it first seems like that's you know the Israelis have a theory of leadership which is called follow me where they take the highest value person on the team the the general of the colonel and he goes into danger first because the morale of the troops is so much heightened when when you see a leader saying I will actually take that kind of a risk that seems to be a part of a yes fanatical it's a very long tradition Alexander the Great for example always on foot with his soldiers he would not ride on his horse he would be on foot thousands of miles he would be the first to to climb the ramparts on a ladder he would be the one who when thirsty and and almost dying from thirst one soldier collected a helmet full of what a bit by bit drop by drop and and when the thirst was at his worst this foots foot man comes in steps in front of Alexander and says I saved this for you drink this and Alexander looks at it and spills it away and he says too much for one too little for all in marches on so that's leadership or Hannibal who crossed the Alps on elephants he would sleep with his soldiers at the outpost wrapped in his in his coat and he would lose an eye crossing an ice cold river south of the Alps and he would do things that nobody else in his army would ever do do you feel that this aspect of leadership of putting oneself in the greatest situations of risk and harm is no you avoid harm if possible of course but you eliminate harm before it even appears you see you have to be prudent and in any kind of business including the business of warfare you you have to evaluate a situation and you have to try to to avoid the danger for anyone the leader and in the troop you better stay out of it and you you use all sorts of military tricked trickery deceit right you use ambushes you use the so called cowardly things and before you really put anyone into a very grave danger eliminate whatever you can sometimes you can't eliminate everything but cheat source of course a large and lying I liked by the way it comes to mind Jesse Ventura who used to be a bodyguard of the Rolling Stones by the way and he used to be a studio wrestler who played that the bad guy by the way in the ring completely stylist and he became governor of Minnesota and I always liked him for his down-to-earth approach and he said once about his time in the ring as a restless as one of these WrestleMania people and he said when if you can lose if you must but always cheat so I really like him for that yeah so this is one of the things that I found most endearing about your approach is that you teach film in this completely different fashion it's it's let's be honest you're an outlaw before you're a filmmaker and you say to your students you have to be prepared to steal to forge to pick locks to do whatever it takes for its documents but steel you see I wouldn't say steel I have stolen once in a while but more expropriation than stealing then theft like my first camera was expropriated from a institution but mmm do anything that's outside of the legal norms as long as it does not hurt anyone and in foraging shooting permit in a country that has a military dictatorship ship is something fine and you should do it you force for it you must yeah so so you have to do it definitely try this at home alright so your your and you break into countries as on a student visa that might severely punish you if they found out that you were filming you did this in China I know not well yes I did in China filming and in the westernmost part Koshka near kashgar where there's an extremely high military and police presence and I was filming with Michael Shannon but we had no shooting permit no working permit we just went out to a local market a very traditional market of weaker tribesmen a cattle market and there was that the real obvious thing was that we had a contraption built on the body of Michael Shannon a tripod that held a camera in front of his face so when he walks into a crowd everybody who walks by would inevitably turn around they'd look after him I wanted this effect everybody staring at him once he's moving through a crowd and he said to me when I'm gonna do it as long as you're around next to me because if I get arrested you should be arrested as well and I said fine let's do it and and because it was so brazen it was so brazen that nobody actually stopped us there was a lot of police and and when you have one or two police people Bend it's dangerous because they would arrest you or they would stop you at least and check you out but if you have 17 18 20 of them there's a strange psychological reflex everybody thinks I are the other one will stop you and you walk straight through the middle weather and I keep saying where the enemy comes it at its thickest walk straight through there and I look it into some sort of a vague distant Sisyphus had spotted a friend 50 yards away in a walk with his gaze upon them and while I pass them I say something in my variant dialect I say host to an Arctic saying have you seen my friend hi T and they step aside and I'm out so you have to you have to understand the heart of men and you have to understand the the way police would would react and in what would they do it's so brazen that nobody of the chinese han chinese police would ever suspect we were working without any permits at all yeah now in in our time there's this mania for truth and authenticity and for acknowledging that there's always the group and never the individual that matters the the so-called great man theory of history is certainly at its cultural low and yet here you are talking to us about the need to deceive to break the law and to affirm the violent act of creation in a very strong leadership context in which you're taking on all of this additional risk just too and in part inspire and and protect your people even you seem to be a man completely out of out of time with the current era and it seems to suit you fine is that wrong not really there are few of us but I wish there were more hmm but of course what what we are doing in filmmaking is not always based on boardroom decision the way we've shaped the dialogue today in the Hollywood industry is determined by wardrobe decisions and and that's why moviemaking has become so stale and so uninteresting and so predictable so if you do the the most the wildest of the stories and that's all we said counts you see I too not step outside the boundaries of legality it has to do with with a caliber of your quest with the depths of your story with a vision that you are pursuing if that has real real depth and you know it has enduring depth then you have you have the task and the duty to do the things that are necessary as long as I said as you do not damage or hurt anyone know what you are taking a fair amount of responsibility we had Jim Watson come to this office and he he's he the co-discoverer of the three-dimensional structure of DNA of Watson yeah okay yeah yeah yeah yes but he he said something which was you know I found very disturbing but also very sensible he said you're given about five opportunities to really level up in your life this was how he saw it and he said you have to take each one of those even though sometimes each of them comes with an opportunity where somebody may be put at risk or hurt and I was curious you have a very strong relationship with risk where you're both putting people at risk and trying to make sure you put them at risk as little as possible if if both of those are true do you believe that let's say Watson was correct that you have to take these opportunities even if they do put others at risk or do you really have a way no harm well I think it's more than five opportunities and you're these things if I've seen a hundred times this these moments and in risk-taking per se as now there's no great value it depends on what you are doing and and what kind of purpose he serves and it's not a quality per se to take risks I try to to avoid risks and and and you see my proof that I have been prudent circumspect and well-organized is that over 70 films not a single one of my actors ever was hurt not one I was hurt sometimes sometimes it has happened that some very close collaborator physically next to me like a cinematographer with a 20 kilo a handheld camera at that time heavy flies through the air on the deck edge of a ship that bangs into a into a rock and yes and we were flying some 10 meters and he bangs with his hand on the on the deck and the camera split his hand apart so yes it happens and and he didn't mind by the way where he volunteer dream I write of course use every every since that who's coming with me nobody has to yeah sure and actually in this case when we went with cameras through the rapids that and we had shot the the sequence with cameras on on the shore there's no real source but in the rocks on either sides of these Rapids I was even pushed by some collaborators we should have a camera on board I said really yes of course I see that but but we do not know what's gonna happen it may sink what happens then it the ship probably is not gonna sink because we established it with a lot of very very solid air chambers in there it probably wouldn't have sunk even under the worst of case scenarios well let me ask a very very difficult question that assume that you were trying to make Fitzcarraldo in which you drag this in steamer over a mountain and it's not the year 1982 but it's some year maybe around now maybe a few years in the future where it's possible to do this completely with computer-generated imagery so that you could do it in CGI now my question would be this would if it produced the same visual effect as you didn't fit Scarola would it be worth doing if it could be done cheaply and safe no it doesn't mmm it doesn't create the same effect and even the five-year-old six-year-old viewers know it this was a digital effect and and you will always know it I don't think that digital effects will ever create some sort of an equal experience may be to some degree visually but you see and moving a ship over amount means you are exposing yourself to things that are unthinkable and unexpected you incorporate in your approach the the totally unknown and the totally unknown invades you in the unexpected in the unthinkable invades your every hour and you create something an authenticity of story not only visual effect you create an authenticity of event that is unparalleled and it's unparalleled by anyone who is sitting in on a computer and creates a steamboat moving up on on a hill it does not and it will not so do so in the future if you're quite confident of that because the the experience of of a thing in rooted in reality cannot replaced it can be substituted it can be somehow paralleled in a way by by an artificial world by digital effects until today I would I would still insist I should if it's me who does it I should move the ship is in one piece 360 tons right and let the others through their stuff and it will be inferior to mine well this is this is just it I mean you mentioned professional wrestling and Jesse Ventura yeah and you know that there is a theory amongst our group that maybe professional wrestling is a lot more real than anyone really wants to believe that it it's commonly thought to be fake one interpretation of your work sir is that you are making many more documentaries than you claim to be because in fact in something like Fitzcarraldo it's a fictional story about a man moving a ship over a mountain made by a real man who moved a real ship over a real mountain and I remember when it came out in 1982 my I was in college we were electrified by this concept then if he had been done in CGI and we had known that it would been in CGI we would not have been that interested in the story but it was the fact that there was an insane man moving a ship over a mountain in reality clinically sane man 2050 sorry fair amount I don't want to you know a necessity aspersions yeah but but functionally sir it's a it is a crazy quest and you and you spoke about it no it's not a crazy crazy those terms no no it's not a crazy quest it was doable yeah and you and I to the to it'll yeah you see you to not go out and and try to let's say go to Mars and spend there half a year on Morrison and coveri and getting footage you you will fail it's not gonna work and we will see the technological utopias coming to an end in our very century well you know as various entry like we saw social utopias coming to an inevitable end in the last century communism paradise on earth Nazism a master race dominating the planet and on so we will see so to the to little to the to a bland I knew it was doable because I had figured out how to move a very very heavy object in one piece on top of a hill for X I'm trying to figure out they have the ancients move yes Neolithic peoples would say more about how you solve that you saw that as a puzzle I was searching coastline of Britain if a completely different movie and I end up at night when it was already dark at carnac it's 4,000 mineus these slabs of stone erected in parallel lines Hill uphill downhill uphill down it's it's stunning and what I saw in the headlights was stunning and I slept in the car and next morning I I see there's a little kiosk they sold Pro sugar and in the pursuer it's written that this couldn't have been done by Neolithic people they didn't have any technology yes I had a rope and things like this it could have been only alien astronauts and I thought nel I can let I will not move from this place until I as a Neolithic person could do it so what I would do is let's assume I have the rock already three four hundred tons I would need disciplined men to build a ramp but maybe one kilometer ramp which has hardly any inclination which is almost flat at the end it would end up in a ten meter high hill and I would take a crater hole into the hill and then I would move then I would move the the stone on oak trunks on hardened oak trunks and it's very easy to move it either with turnstiles in ropes or pushing it in a way with levers and at the end it would drop into the crater hole and then you would have it erect with a heavier part up and then he would remove the hill until let's say it was sticking only into two meters of grounded Hardin the crowd so he would have it erected and I I kept puzzling about one mania the heaviest ever 1100 tons Hevy near the coastal place Lokmanya care not to far from Karnak and this stone this slab was broken into four pieces in the major the biggest of all pieces at leasts six 700 tons heavy was aligned in one direction and a little bit further out the rest of the fragmentation was perfectly aligned in one line so why does this happen if a if that stone falls it breaks it will align the fragments but it didn't so I think what has happened he said they moved the stone dropped it into a hole and it broke it broke at the rim and in the in the smaller fragments aligned in thousands of years later due to erosion some of these many years fall over topple over in the toppled over in a different in the wrong direction so an accident a Neolithic accident which must have happened spoke to my fear as if it was proof of my way how I would do it and that's how I bought the ship of an abounding Wow so and I knew it was doable if it was doable for Neolithic people seven thousand years ago I can do the same thing as well I have no doubt whatsoever and and in an ideal case you would according to primitive laws of physics you could have one single child pulling it over the mountain let's say you introduced a pulley system of 10,000 fold returns you pull on a string five miles until the ship moves 50 yards and the child could pull it over a mountain so you have to think you have to think the bold ideas but also those that are outside the common trend it can only have been the alien astronauts - I showed you because I'm very proud of it you should try to get hold of it because it's very interesting it's called The Vanishing Area paradox I keep it in my agenda all the time and it was published in the Scientific American and it's very strange you have you have a configuration of elements of of pieces and when you rearrange the configuration of these all of a sudden there's an empty space of something that has filled out the entire space without a millimeter in between and I kept thinking about it because it defies all my experience with reality so within my reality it is unthinkably it is impossible so and I kept thinking about it and and I was misled the whole thing is a hoax it turns out it's a hoax it's fraudulent and it gives it a certain veracity because it's was posed this vanishing area paradox the question is posed in the Scientific American you do not believe that they are cheating you and they cheat you and what what what is happening is when when you look at it very very precisely the area where all of a sudden in the middle there's an empty space has been artificially made slightly larger by giving slight slight more Angus in in the industry lines in summing up creates a little empty space yeah and I I solved it myself because I thought I cannot solve it because it defies my sense of reality in the sense of reality of everyone around me something is wrong what could be wrong what could be wrong and I started to check in one of the questions I asked myself could it be that this is a hoax that this is a fraud and if it's a fraud how do they cheat you on how do they cheat you senses senses of observation in this case well that touches on something that fascinated me there's a quote of yours where apparently you were facing a booing audience booing at you and you had the sense to say to them you were all wrong sure if they were all wrong they were all wrong yes what is it in you that has the courage to stand up to seemingly I don't know arbitrary levels of negativity to problems of that other people think are insoluble where they have to invoke ancient aliens there's something so disagreeable about your personality that you're capable of shepherding an idea through that much negativity what-what-what trade is that well it was a specific case when I was filming the the fires in Kuwait in the first in the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein's retreating army set every single oil well on fire and I filmed it in a way that it looks as if it was shot on a like a science fiction film it cannot be our planet and yet we know it must have been filmed on our planet and so it's highly aesthetic highly stylized and in the immediate outcry was aestheticizing of the horror but it wasn't really horror it was not horror for any human being nobody got burned of course it was a crime against creation itself obscuring the sky for a wide wide area and in something that should not happen not only a crime against the human race it was a crime against creation and and and in this screamin and people actually spat at me when I walked through the central island that somehow reinforced my resolve and I I stepped up and I said Dante in his Inferno has done exactly the same Geronimo's Bosh has done exactly the same in his hellish visions and Koya in his disastrous Tillich era has done the same thing and and and and then the end I said and you are all wrong so do we have to burn the book the Divine Comedy now do we have to of course we don't well so indeed that is a there's an amount of certainty in me that and it's not really anything that I can say was paroled it was totally natural to say that yeah I met to me it sort of strikes me is we need people to inspire us by showing us that it's not only possible that it's necessary to stand up to large numbers of people inside of a crowd now one of the things that we could have it was literally the entire crowd the entire pretty yeah well that's how I perceived it walking down the central aisle there probably was a an amount of well-wishers and there must have been also some applause but it it was overwhelming it was so overwhelming that some some very credible reviewers like Amos Foley who wrote for the Village Voice describes the scene he described it so it's not a figment of my fantasy you know that there's this very strange story with the reviewer Joe Morgenstern when he first saw Bonnie and Clyde he gave it a terrible review because the violence was so disturbing and it was set to up-tempo happy music and he said well this is an abomination and then strangely a week or two later he's I have to review this film again I was totally wrong the film is a masterpiece because it took a while to just understand that that wasn't an error but it was actually a brilliant artistic choice do you find that you do not find it nowadays anymore I had no one last have been 40 years ago somebody hit the nerve in the guts in the caliber to declare himself wrong and taking a new fresh look at it so yeah you hardly see it at all so let me ask I would love to ask you one final question before opening it up to the audience you've spoken quite a lot for a filmmaker about the importance of reading and the written word you've written obviously beautifully and so many of your thoughts and in this guide for the perplexed and you you have previously spoken about how television was turning us into idiots and dumbing us down and that reading would be the the key quality that determined who would inherit power in the future world what do you see in the 21st century as having changed in this equation with television having gotten much better in the internet having seemingly gotten us into a state where we weren't even able to get there with with the idiot box as well television hasn't gotten that much better in some segments yes in in this long limited many season big story set all of a sudden you can narrate large large expansive forms like war and peace so all of a sudden we can create Dostoyevsky on a TV screen or Netflix screens or whatever of course the situation has become more precarious with the advent of the internet but of course there are forces that have started way way before the internet we cannot blame it all for example people who would read if the numbers have declined considerably fifty years or so and in today in universities even in humanities I even in classics Department where they should read ancient Greek and Latin they do not read anymore and they have a hard time and I have witnessed it I've witnessed it in in person they are not even capable of of writing three coherent signs and expressing one coherent brief argument and that's alarming that's alarming and and that's why I still young aspiring filmmakers yes watch films into whatever you need to learn in technical terms but read read read read read read if you don't read you will be a filmmaker but mediocre at best if you really want to become somebody of significance and everyone who is around at this time of significance is reading they're all reading everyone and you are not and it's not only for filmmaking is probably in your profession the same thing you cannot lose yourself in in algorithms and in in in in software questions and in articulating of things without conceptually being up to to a very high standard of of evolution of not only technology but civilization per se we have a very very deep task and in reading in my opinion this is the thing that is absolutely needed and what I keep saying sometimes but nobody will understand it but I say it anyway traveling on foot and irrespective of the distance and I have done very long distance traveling on foot gives you an insight into the world itself and I can say it only in a dictum and I've repeated it before the world reveals itself to those who travel on foot nothing else does with such clarity in such transparency nothing nothing and yet nobody travels on foot it doesn't matter stay where you are but I just say it as a as a sign of help if you really want to understand the real world and also conceptually where we are standing as human beings at this very moment in history travel on foot and read it's a fantastic advice let's see if we can anybody can follow it and I would love to open it up to questions what questions do we have foreigners it's I I don't want to give you one or two books because and here we sit down and you would read them and you think yeah you have done it so you should not read two books but 2,000 books but I give you for those who are into creative things and and including I would say including even creative forms of mathematics it's a it's a book written by an obscure British writer published in 1967 and it's called the Peregrine about watching its Diaries watching peregrine falcons at a time when the falcons were almost extinct jay a baker i think we now only after a few decades we even know what jay and a stands for i even don't know what his first names were in his middle name and it has pros that we have seen not seen since since joseph conrad and it has precision of observing a small segment of the real world with a precision and also with an emphasis and the passion that is unprecedented in literature so in whatever you doing whether you're a musician or a filmmaker into mathematics or into computers this kind of very very deep relentless passion for what you are doing very specific and it's a it's a great wonderful book and what else well there are many but I have a list of mandatory books from a rogue film school some guerrilla-style antithesis to film schools and there's five or six books what comes to mind is bear analogy are still Castillo the discovery and conquest of New Spain that the original title is much much longer he was a foot man of Cortez and when he was old he wrote from his apparently some diaries and reminiscences he writes down an incredible story incredibly rich in details and insight into the into the heart of men in anything else read read the Russians read Alda lean and Kleist the Germans Buena also a German reads Hemingway he reads Joseph Conrad the short stories in particular so but if but don't don't don't believe that this would make you into a into a different person it's it's the permanence of reading the insistence of reading is it filling to you did you sneak up as material is it more fulfilling for you to expose people to he wants where they puff report extremes or the reverse this is more important to expose people to do us or more fulfilling yeah expose people to nuance we're the hip up there was extreme I have never asked myself this question it doesn't factor in my in my work well I I follow a very very clear vision I see a film very very clearly and of course it has it has a big story and it has it extremes in it and it has nuances and and of course I would never want to touch a story that was not really big where I was convinced this is big and it has excesses in the test all sorts of things at the same time the the real life the real life comes from the Neos and from the details so but it's I cannot even separate it I cannot give you a satisfying juxtaposition of both but it's it doesn't it doesn't function in in a way I make my films bolt cutters well that's bolt cutters you you have to take metaphorically I have a whole list of of things does anyone have the the book a guide for the perplexed here because I I a seat here on that can you give it to me please thank you a guide for the perplexed and we spoke about before the title is so beautiful I had to steal it from Maimonides the great Jewish philosopher middle-aged Spain I think Seville or a Cordoba I don't even remember but anyway and and here at the on the back end oh yeah by the way it's a real pair it's no Photoshop my wife who sits back there did this router so in in here nerve I don't know how it was put together but it's it gives it sums a lot of things always taken in it speaks of bolt cutters always take the initiative there's nothing wrong with spending a night in a jail cell if it means getting the shot you meet send all your dogs and one might return with prey never wallow in your troubles despair must be kept private in brief learn to live with your with your mistakes expand your knowledge and understanding of music and literature old in modern that role of unexposed celluloid you have in your hand might be the last in existence so do something impressive with it the laptop in front of you may be the last one in existence you do something good and impressive with it there's never an excuse not to finish a film care carry bolt cutters everywhere Swartz institutional cowardice there's too much institutional cowardice in the film industry and and I do believe the the computer industry and software and cell has has bolder bolder designs I think there's not too much institutional cowardice it comes now after things like Facebook have been established how do we stop excesses on Facebook how do we stop excesses on Instagram do we show do we have to stop a real beheading of a hostage in real time or do we not do it so the the institutionalization of of content is coming post Westham after it has been normally but in the film industry for example the institutional cowardice comes before you even make a move they ask you do you have do you have for example a and o insurance do we have a how do you call it some sort of insurance completion bond now I don't and I make a film anyway and there was there but in that case I had to finance it it out of my own pocket and can I move in a wild way back to a very early question about something that is fabricated like WrestleMania has a lot of truth in it they get away with bruises and dislocated elbows the last film I made is a feature film called family romance LLC romance as a business in Japan in the Japanese language where you can hire a missing friend a family a father of a family during a wedding ceremony because a real father allegedly suffers from epilepsy in truth he's an alcoholic and cannot be shown the groom's parents and family and there's an interesting thing that happens 30 men who actually in reality founded this company family romance who sends out 1600 agents and actors to help you and to feel less lonesome and replace a family member he was filmed by Japanese television they interviewed him and they interviewed one of his clients who had rented in his solitude had rented a friend and he's in the in the film as well it turns out that the client was actually not a client he was also a rented member from family romance he was a he was an imposter put in front of the NHK cameras NHK apologized profusely in print and on on the air and the founder of family romance say something very very significant now he says I do believe that the imposter that was sent out from my pool of actors tells you more of the truth than a real one the real one would lie to the cameras because in in Japan in in their society you have to keep face and you cannot admit that your life is miserable and you allowed some and you were crying at home in your pillow and so this person the real person would not say that he would lie to the camera but Mike my man who was put in front of your camera my man who is Stanley 200 times comforting solitary people he tells you the gist the real truth about what is going on and I think he's right I'm sure he's right yeah so that's how stir the imposter has more truth in him then the real person who wants to keep a force a of whatever well-behaved behavior in public you could make a film about our generation my generation sits in this room what do you think the log line would be I wouldn't know any log line but I have I have done a film on the internet lo and behold which has appealed very much to to the two years in a race where even the younger ones you are all already a veteran it's a 15 year old who probably come up and and have to teach you that the 35 year olds a 25 year old now I don't know a logline but I have made a lot of films that apparently were for a general audience when I made them 40 years ago 45 years ago the enigma of kaspar hauser all of a sudden I get emails of 15 year old young kids from Missoula Montana because today they can have access to the film by streaming or other ways through the internet piracy for example which is a successful distribution system and and all of a sudden it's a very very young who respond to my films and it's not not foreign to me that I have always made films for those who are mentally active and into a turmoil and who are looking out for organizing their lives so I've always been in in a way I've been young and now the film in Japan is is a return to the times when I was 23 24 25 when I made a Gary the wrath of God you wouldn't know what would come after the next bend of the would there be a would that be Rapids or not so and in this kind of readiness to to face whatever is going to be thrown at you and and you just face it and you deal with it you actually in terms of the generation that is might now be rediscovering your films do you have any thoughts about the way in which we are going back in reevaluating cinematic work based on our new feelings about the directors I'm thinking of Tarantino who put Huma Thurman at rest at risk in Kill Bill which I thought was a fantastic film Woody Allen of course with his difficulties having his work reevaluated are we how do you feel about bodies of work being reprocessed through the lens of the alleged failures of the creators I think there will be a renascence and we see it already for example classical music all of a sudden as I just read yesterday or today has a new platforms on the internet that's all steered towards mainstream pop all of a sudden you can access it or for example in movies The Criterion Collection which is a very very fine collection of films had disappeared and reappeared apparently as it's either independent streaming label or within Amazon I have to find out I don't know yet but all of a sudden these things are back and the 15 year old from Missoula Montana is not just back his is just emerging so now I have no doubt that we are gonna see films that are outside outside of the regular mainstream but have depth and vision and in wonderful stories I will not disappear the sheller will disappear the shallow of of yesterday when you look at talk show so it it it pop shows of the 1960s it's it's just stunning how how shallow they are and they disappear very quickly yeah there are some other questions well when I'm speaking about technological utopia set inevitably will come to an end what comes to mind is immediately space space colonization not only is it an obscenity it's also undoable obscenity because it hints it asks the human race like locusts grazing our planet empty and then moving on we can move on to Mars for example but it it should be contained and it's doable for a few scientists a few astronauts who have a small tiny little habitat where they have enough drinking water enough shelter against radiation and enough air to breathe yes we can create that we will not put 1 million humans on planet Mars it's not going to happen it's techno technically not really doable and unwise and a part of Mars we cannot reach anything outside of our solar system because it's simply too far it would take you a hundred ten thousand years to reach the next one which is only three and a half or four and a half light-years away we just won't be able to do it it's period and in this kind of illusion this kind of utopia technical utopia will come to a fairly quick end in our century or other utopias had come to mind immortality' of course we can stretch out longevity to a certain point but that's about it we are going to die that's what the entire creation everywhere and not only on our planet everywhere points to the same thing that there's an impermanence of what is around everywhere so that's that's one of the things I have to think about other utopias take technically utopias but you are much closer to approaching technically utopias in I am so you have to find out what what we should do and what we should not do and what is a utopia and what is within the within realities of human beings you have time for one or two last questions the camera changes a real situation you talk about the real world when you meet rejected camera into it how it affects the perception of people we're yeah it's an old philosophical question and a physical question of how deep do you insert your camera or your position is observer does it change the reality that's out there hopefully it does because I'm a creator I'm not a observation camera in the bank that waits for 15 years in no bank robber ever shows up so we are not we are not the fly-on-the-wall I want to insert myself I want to create I want to mold I want to influence my story even the documentaries and I I do change facts and I'm quoting now entre sheet the French writer who said I change facts to such a degree that they resemble truth more than reality and it's a wonderful way to say it and you see you are too if you are seriously asking the question with an indignant undertone it means that you are very much fact oriented which I don't believe in your case but many people are too fact oriented and cinema and does not have to be even documentaries have to only partly be effect oriented because effects do not equal truth they do not and it's the same thing like with family romance a imposter gives you a deeper truth than the real person and my simplest of all explanations is and I have used it many times so if you have heard it from me my apologies Michelangelo creating the sculptor of the pietá Jesus in the arms of Mary sir face is a 33 year old man and when you look at Mary she is 17 his mother is 17 so of course it's not factually correct but he didn't want to cheat us or lie to us or whatever he just wanted to point out an essential truth was something that resembles more truth because I do not know what truth is nor two mathematicians I think only deeply religious people know what it is so they they have an easier life than those who are not religious cheerio the enemy watch developer passionately converse side the truth the passion of the wood carvers courier and there's a scene at the end of the raid and they wanted to be very much the focus on that and find who the Raven was in Blaine's like we couldn't really find them and the implication being that it wasn't real in your film accordingly so I guess I'd wait a while to ask you this what was the real of this matter and all these questions about truth are there any things in documentary film would be remotely like for example Marty Scorsese was recently accused of putting a fake character and his Bob Dylan is there any thing that wouldn't be okay no I think putting a fictitious character in a Bob Dylan documentary congratulations to Scorsese who who is normally cowardly when it comes to expanding forums he follows he follows very much the norm he's a wonderful filmmaker but but not really extravagantly courageous in into creating new things but I have not seen the Bob Dylan film but I welcome what you are saying what you are saying about Harmony Korine and David Blaine the magician he seems I don't like David Blaine at all his his repulsive in everything he's doing and and but but what seems to be significant is he tries he you started as an illusionist doing card tricks and illusions he seems to be moving away from the illusionist into trying to strain his body to its utmost limits to the brink of death which is stupid its outright stupid to immerse yourself in a water tank for for a whole week it can't get any more stupid than that and and he is just making a living out of something that is definitely obscene so do you not have a cactus needle stuck in your kneecap nasty now it stayed for a few years in my knee in my knee seen you I jumped for a cast of midgets I made a film even dwarf star is small and one of them was run over by an by a car that was driving his going in circuits one caught fire inside at the end I said yourself on a to put out the fire well you better do that because everybody else was was just looking at like it it had a Christmas tree burning and indeed the first thing you do throw yourself on him and extinguish the guy I didn't smother him I didn't squish no we're saying that yes but but I said if all of you unscathed at the end of the the movie I'm gonna from this ramp I'm gonna jump into this field of cacti and you all have you at that time eight millimeter cameras and your photo cameras and you can take your picture and I take off and I leaped and yes right some some of them got stuck in my knee seniors and and they don't get out easily it would be an honor sir to take you to lunch with David Blaine to work this thing out yes now now to the next parking lot not not forbidden I do I wouldn't like to have a dinner with him I do not want to ruin my appetite but I would gladly take him to the men's room or two to fight it out or to take him to the parking lot Oscar as we settle this our Agosti ask the valets to step into obscurity and and just let us sort it out among men okay Berner I gotta tell you your life has been an inspiration to me since I was 16 and it doesn't even feel like you can meet over in our Hertzog in real life this is a very special day in my life I want to thank you for coming bringing your stories your wisdom your views on arts and your admonitions which no one is following I think that probably there are some in our audience who are going to make a special note that this is the this is the advice that's hard to get but it's your life you don't need to listen to me you you will find you will find your own guidance and your own vision best of luck - best of luck to all of you so alright can you change for Verna Hertz [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Eric Weinstein

Views: 167,638

Rating: 4.8911023 out of 5

Keywords: Werner Herzog, Portal, The Portal, Eric Weinstein, genius, film, movie, movies, cinema, director, german, German, documentary, fitzcaraldo, grizzly, shoe, midget, interview, IDW, Intellectual, outlaw, renegade, maverick, rogue, legend, legendary, hollywood, arts, read, reading, books, david blaine, Kinski, Klaus Kinski, Mick Jagger, hero, crazy, mad, aguirre, wrath of god, jungle, boat, ship, rapids, bullet, shot, forger, stolen, steal, Herzog, David Blaine, China, cactus, midgets

Id: Eua5iPUKw6Y

Length: 80min 54sec (4854 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/aresreincarnate]

I didn't know he had a podcast and holy shit what a guest to land for a 2nd episode. Sad that something like this gets very little traction here while shit tier memes make it to the top.

[u/[deleted]]

Good on you for posting this, here. I've been paying close attention to Eric's burgeoning podcast venture, and I was very satisfied with the Peter Thiel one, but the Werner Herzog one feels like he and Eric were on different wavelengths and couldn't connect in a way that made them both comfortable.

It's good for training Eric to handle difficult guests, but it felt quite clunky to listen to.

Good on Eric for aiming high with these guests, though.

[u/Blasitrollflojten]

I really enjoyed this conversation. The Portal is probably the most interesting up and coming podcast right now

[u/CommanderCougs]

I was really excited for The Portal because it was sold as "really smart people looking at overlooked problems from unique perspectives in order to arrive at unorthodox solutions".

After listening to the Peter Thiel episode though, it just sounded like two guys complaining about known problems and agreeing that shit was, indeed, fucked.

[u/_Hahn]

Ah man, I didn't know Eric was doing videos of the Portal interviews. I'm gonna have to wait and watch those as opposed to the audio podcast

[u/Bodymaster]

I listened to this the other day. Funny how much Werner hates David Blaine.