Werner Herzog is a man in a million. Whilst the director seems representational of a very specific way of life, it is near impossible to situate him within any sort of social circle. A little bit indie, a dash of Bavaria, a generous dollop of pessimism, Herzog just doesn’t seem to sit in with any other directorial circle. And that is why we love him. Whenever we think of a Herzog film, or conjure up something he would say, we are met with something so singular and individual that it’s hard to believe that a person would actually imagine it. Throughout his cinematic career, Herzog has constantly surprised us, showing a slice of the world that is so singularly his, it seems strange that the rest of us haven’t already stumbled across the same things. Connecting seemingly disparate images, finding meaning in the most trivial of things, Herzog’s way of seeing the world is truly his own and genuinely illuminating.
There is another side to the director, however, which is dripping with wry sarcasm. His cinematic choices over the year have been so obviously his and yet so unpredictable that, from time to time, you would be forgiven from concluding that the director is in on a massive joke. Moving from random act to random act, Herzog’s life somehow seems filled with inevitable purpose and yet, for the life of us we cannot see why. Don’t take my word for it though. Let’s take a look at the disparate journey of Werner Herzog and determine once and for all; is he for real or merely a joker?
In 1982, Herzog released Fitzcarraldo, the operatic tale of a deranged man’s attempts to build an opera house in a remote Peruvian village. The only snagoo is that, in order to realise his dream, he needs to make his fortune in the rubber business and in order to do this, he must transport a huge boat across a mountainous river. If Fitzcarraldo seems a little loopy, it’s because it is. Watching it is like experiencing the trippy and yet uncannily realistic nightmare of a third party, over which you have absolutely no power. From the off, you can sense that things are going wrong, very wrong, and yet there is no way to influence the narrative. Herzog seems to revel in the narrative maze he constructs, laughing from a remote sideline as his characters plot their own doom.
The most incredible part of Fitzcarraldo is when Brian Fitzgerald (played by Herzog regular Klaus Kinski) must pull a huge ship over a mountain in order to reach the right part of the river. In the name of authenticity, Herzog did it for real, employing his Peruvian actors to literally haul the ship over the mountain as the scarily colonial figure of Fitzgerald watches over them. It seems like Herzog enjoys the physicality of the act and in his mind, why wouldn’t you actually pull a full size ship over rubble and rock? The act and its results are undoubtedly staggering but you get the sense that there is some private joke in there for Herzog. Whilst the film reeks of authenticity, it always seems to be barely concealing Herzog’s wry smile as he watched the wreckage from behind the camera.
Since then, Herzog has turned increasingly to documentary in order to spread his world vision. Finding consistently interesting stories in the real world, Herzog paints a very particular view of reality in his work. Travelling to some of the most remote and forgotten places on the planet, Herzog shows time and again how humanity can adapt to any kind of landscape or situation and live in various ways. In Grizzly Man, he tells the tale of Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived alongside grizzly bears every summer in remote Alaska. In Encounters at the End of the World, he visits one of the most remote communities on the plant, a group of travellers and thinkers who have chosen to make Antarctica their home. Whilst focusing on these remote places, Herzog manages to find increasingly bleak ways to envisage the world, finding only darkness around him. In a series of recent Tumblr posts, fans have found ways to celebrate the director’s singularly gloomy view of the world in which he lives, putting forth a number of his quotations as a series of inspirational posters. Building steadily and peaking with the unforgettable “I believe the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony but chaos, hostility and murder”, Herzog’s sayings are so utterly downbeat that they are completely comical.
Most recently, Herzog has undertaken a series of voice over jobs that are so completely self aware and wry, it is impossible that they have been done in anything other than knowing jest. Playing a fraudulent salesman in The Simpsons, a German engineer in The Wind Rises and perhaps most wonderfully, doing the documentary voice over for The Penguins of Madagascar, Herzog seems to have become a caricature of himself. Due to his distinctive voice and uncanny weary pessimism, it is impossible to miss any of Herzog’s performances. Playing on his dour reputation, the director has made increasingly self aware appearances in film.
All of this is child’s play, however. In his most bizarre move so far, Herzog ate his own shoe in a specially produced documentary. Promising to carry out the act if Errol Morris ever got round to finishing Gates of Heaven (which, of course, he did) Herzog prepared, cooked (in garlic, herbs and stock) and ate his own shoes live at the premiere of Gates of Heaven. Sensibly, Herzog did not eat the sole of the shoe, arguing that one would never eat the bones of a chicken. Wise words, indeed.
Throughout his career and continuing forward, Herzog has made a series of cinematic and life decisions that were so utterly unique and bare faced, it was (and continues to be) impossible to tell if he is a true pessimist or just in on the joke. And truly, he seems to be somewhere in between. Not entirely committed to his serious persona and yet clearly pushing a bleak, fatalistic view of the world, Herzog continues to inhabit a part of the world entirely removed from anyone else’s. And we’re all the better for it. Were we not to have Herzog, our lives would not be tinged with bleakness and darkness. We would not hear the knowing, dour voice at the back of our minds every time we experienced a moment of genuine beauty. We would not know Herzog’s idea of the world and that would be completely miserable.