Screen Sheet Archives
Werner Herzog interview

On March 6, 1996, the Local Heroes International Screen Festival audience had a once-in-a lifetime treat. For two and a half hours, legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog (in conversation with author/broadcaster Geoff Pevere) enthralled a capacity crowd with tales, reflections, and opinions about life as an independent filmmaker. Here are a few brief excerpts:

Geoff Pevere: I remember reading at one point that you knew your destiny at a very early age. What was your destiny, and how did you know it?

Werner Herzog: When I was 14 ... I knew I would make films, which wouldn't be an easy life, and not a pleasant life, and I started to submit screenplays and projects to production companies. Television did not exist much at that time, but I also did approach TV, and it was a series of years of humiliation and setbacks.

...Let me go into this incident with this production company. I wrote letters, made phone calls, and finally I couldn't avoid meeting them in person.... I was asked in by this secretary, and there was this huge desk and two men sitting behind it, and both of them looked beyond me to see if a father had come in with his child. (audience laughter) But there was no father. Just the child. And they realized it was me. I told them my name and I said "I'm here," and then it took -- I swear to God -- not more than 15 seconds and I was thrown out. One of them grinned at me and said, "So, the kindergarten is trying to make films nowadays." And I was out. It was an important and decisive moment for me because it angered me. For the first time, I was not humiliated anymore. It simply angered me, because I had the feeling they were stupid, and they were not gods. And I knew when I was out through that door, that was it -- I would never make a film unless I became my own producer.

Within seconds, I knew what I had to do. How would you become a producer? How do you get money to buy raw stock, pay actors, and things like that? By work.

I was able-bodied, so that very same night I started in a steam factory as a welder. During the day I was in school, and from eight at night until six in the morning -- that means 10 hours each night -- I worked. And I really worked very hard. And that means I worked on Saturdays and Sundays and I worked even during the final exams in school. I worked for more than two years like that and then I had enough cash on me to buy raw stock, hire a cinematographer, I stole a camera ... (laughter) ...rather, extrapolated a camera. I have to explain. The predecessor of the Munich Film School didn't give any classes or courses, but it had equipment. They had three cameras -- one 35mm and a couple of 16mm. But I did not want to start fooling around with 8mm or video, which didn't exist, or 16mm.I wanted to work on 35mm right away. (laughter)

This institute never gave me a camera. They never gave me a camera....And one day, it was -- how do you say -- it was sitting on shelves. It was always locked away, and one day I was in this room, and all of a sudden this thing was open, and I saw the camera and I realized, I realized for a second, there was no one in the room. (laughter)

Yes, it screamed out for me. (laughter) And I just took it and walked out. And I knew it was not theft. I had a natural right to take it.. (laughter) ..because they hardly ever gave it out anyway, so it just sat there. And I made my first seven or eight films, including Aguirre: Wrath of God, with this camera.

So that's my most important advice to those of you headed to filmmaking. Or there are actually a couple of advices. As long as you are able-bodied, and as long as you can make money somehow, and I would say don't go for office work. Go where the real world is. Go and work as a, how do you say, the guys who throw out bad customers out of sex clubs...

Yes, as a bouncer in a sex club. Work...I don't know...in a slaughterhouse,as a taxi driver, work where there is real, real, real life. Work on foot Learn languages. If I had my own film school, I would immediately teach students the basic craft for making films. The very first and basic craft, for example, would be how to master things like opening a safety lock.(laughter)

I happen to have, ...whenever I travel I happen to have this on me, I hide it away among keys and coins, because it is a felony to possess it in some of the states in the United States. It is surgery instruments, tools for... (laughter)

I won't show you, though, because there is a camera present. This is self-inflicted censorship, but those are the tools, and you should as a filmmaker know. I have been in many occasions where I have had to remove, for example, a truck which obstructed my sight. The owners could not be found, or the owners refused to move it just 60 feet, so I would do it myself.

Or, you would have to master the art of forging documents. (laughter)

Unfortunately, I don't carry anything like this with me, but I do happen to have a couple of very beautiful ones. For example, the film Fitzcarraldo could never have been made without forgery, and good forgery.

When we were moving with our huge ship along the river, there was a war zone all of a sudden, and actually a war between Equador and Peru broke out. For 10 or 11 days, along almost each bend of the river, there was a military camp established and they would stop us and not allow us to pass through. So finally, I decided I would write a four-page document which was issued by the Peruvian President himself -- he was the Supreme Commander of the armed forces -- to order all the armed forces along the river to give me free passage and assistance for whatever I needed, and a long list of things which they should provide for me. (laughter)

And it was all put on very special notary paper which you can buy in stationery shops. And it has a water sign and it was signed by the President-- of course I did that. It had a lot of impressive stamps, and some other signatures by his assistant secretary of state or whatever. The most impressive stamp was in German, and no one of course could read it there. The stamp said, "If you would like to buy the copyright of this photo, please contact the photographer."

...So, you have to be daring to do things like this, because the world is not easily accepting of filmmaking. There will always be some sort of an obstacle, and the worst of all obstacles is the spirit of bureaucracy. You have to find your way to battle bureaucracy. You have to outsmart it, to outgut it, to outnumber it, to outfilm them -- that's what you have to do.

Here is some advice for you if you are ever pondering to go to film school. I think it has more value to walk from Edmonton to Guatemala City, which would take you something like five months or so, because you can walk easily 1000 km a month. You will learn easily more from that than from 5 months of film school. It will make you more into a filmmaker.

Not always. No, I was not walking while I was writing my screenplays, because you have to sit down somewhere.

Sometimes I would write while I was eating or working, but it is true that many of my screenplays were written while I was en route somewhere. And they were written very quickly, because I would not write a screenplay unless I saw the entire film in a projection room. It was very easy, it was like copying a book, like copying what's written there, and I just write down very quickly what I see. ...Aguirre: Wrath of God was something like 2 1/2 days' work, and it was under adverse circumstances. I played in a soccer team in Munich -- a fifth division, I mean really a very mediocre team, but it's very nice, very close to my heart to play with them -- and each year we would go abroad somewhere.

We were on a bus, I think it was to Italy. We had a lot of cases of beer with us, and after 1 1/2 hours everyone was drunk, and they chanted obscene songs. There was really turmoil on the bus, and obscenities, and I was writing with a little typewriter on my knees. One guy, our goalkeeper, kept falling over me, and I always had to ward him off with one hand, and write with the other. So finally, he decided to vomit on me and my typewriter, and I lost some of my scenes, because the were beyond repair and I had to throw them out the window. That is how Aguirre: Wrath of God was written. So I don't care about the circumstances.

It only comes when the fire ignites other fires. That's what happens when you're into filmmaking. It's a climate you have to create, that has to be there, otherwise it's not going to happen. I'm not into the culture of complaint, as I call it -- "Oh yeah, the money's always stupid, and nobody gives anything for this or that." Everyone around the world, whomever I meet, starts to complain about this, and it's the very nature of filmmaking. It's not easy, but carry on. Ignite the fire. Create a climate, and have something that is so strong, it will develop its own dynamic. Ultimately, the money will follow you like a common cur in the street with its tail between its legs.

Werner Herzog's page at the Internet Movie Database

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