Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić, known as Werner Herzog, is a German screenwriter, film director, author, actor and opera director...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth5 September 1942
CityMunich, Germany
CountryGermany
documentaries fantasy film
For me, the distinction between documentaries and feature films is not so clear - my "documentaries" were largely scripted, rehearsed, and repeated, and have a lot of fantasy and concoction in them.
civilization magazines adequate
We do not see the danger clearly enough that we develop images adequate to our state of civilization. When you watch TV, you know instantly that there's something wrong with the images. When you open a magazine and see the ads, you know there's something wrong with the images. And it's unhealthy and not good and outright dangerous, in my opinion.
prudent done danger
I'm a very circumspect and prudent person, and I eliminate danger as far as it can be done.
wall people important
Some of the most important caves, like Lascaux in the Dordogne region in France, have had to be closed down. There had been too many people allowed in, and they left a mold on the walls that is spreading and which can't really be stopped.
boys eight rocks
You have to realize that, about 20,000 years ago, there was a cataclysmic event when an entire rock face collapsed and sealed off the cave. It's a completely preserved time capsule. You've got tracks of cave bears that look like they were left yesterday, and you've got the footprint of a boy who was probably eight years old next to the footprint of a wolf.
dark years silence
You are in a place that has not been seen for tens of thousands of years, because it was so sealed off. There is such silence that when you hold your breath you can hear your own heartbeat. Everything is so fresh that you have the sensation that the painters have merely retreated deeper into the dark and that they are looking at you.
wall real drama
The paintings are not just on flat walls - you have these enormous niches, bulges and protrusions, as well as stalactites and stalagmites. The effect of the three-dimensionality is phenomenal. It's a real drama which the artists of the time understood, and they used it for the drama of their paintings.
insecurity noir financial
There are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.
thinking warfare killing
I think a state should not be in the capacity of killing anyone with the exception of warfare.
punishment years disagree
The punishment itself is something I respectfully disagree with, but for thousands and thousands of years it was practiced everywhere.
vibrancy energy sometimes
It happens sometimes that the material itself carries things you have not fully planned. The footage has its own right, its own life, its own vibrancy and energy in it.
reality way facts
I have always postulated that we have to find a new way to deal with reality. It's not so much facts that interest me, but a deeper truth in them - an ecstasy of truth, an ecstatic truth that illuminates us. That's what I've been after.
doors trying guests
I do whatever pushes me hardest. It's coming at me and I try to. It's like uninvited guest and I have to wrestle them out the door or through the window - get them out and get over with them quickly.
simple needs doe
My contacts with the film industry can be described in very simple terms: The industry does not really need me, and I do not really need the industry.