## Metadata - Author: [[Paul Cronin]] - Full Title: Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed - Category: #books ## Highlights - While playing in an imaginary football match in Lima, Werner struggles to distinguish between players on his team and his competitors. When the referee refuses to halt play so one side can exchange its jerseys for those of a less confusing colour, Werner concludes that “the only hope of winning the game would be if I did it all by myself … I would have to take on the entire field myself, including my own team.” ([Location 151](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=151)) - Before we start, can you offer any general insights for your readers so they might sleep easier at night? Let me say this, something for human beings everywhere, whether they be filmmakers or otherwise. I can answer your question only by quoting hotel mogul Conrad Hilton, who was once asked what he would like to pass on to posterity. “Whenever you take a shower,” he said, “always make sure the curtain is inside the tub.” I sit here and recommend the same. Never forget the shower curtain. ([Location 610](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=610)) - Films contain the most intensive chronicle of the human condition, just as painting used to have such high standing. Most people wouldn’t be able to name the most important Dutch writers of the seventeenth century, but they know several Dutch artists of that period. Just as during the high Middle Ages architecture had some kind of privileged status, in years to come we will look to cinema as the most coherent representation of society, of our achievements and failures, in the twentieth century. ([Location 634](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=634)) - Religion is clearly an important part of our inner being. It offers consolation to many people and has a certain value to the human race, so I would never dismiss it out of hand, and having been baptised – which according to the dogma of the Catholic Church is an indelible mark on my soul – I will always be a Catholic. But ever since my close encounter with organised religion I have known it isn’t for me, though to this day there is something of a religious echo in my work. The scientific basis of reality will always be more important. There should never be an ideology standing between us and our understanding of the planet. The facts are facts. ([Location 644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=644)) - As for the Devil, I believe in stupidity, which is as bad as it gets. ([Location 656](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=656)) - a healthy imagination needs space; the great works of cinema weren’t made while standing at the kitchen sink. For me, every film is a ticket into the world and the business of living. What I’m looking for is an unspoilt, humane spot for man to exist, an area worthy of human beings where a dignified life can be led, something alluded to in my films. ([Location 658](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=658)) - If I want to explore something, I never think about attending a class; I do the reading on my own or seek out experts for conversations. Everything we’re forced to learn at school we quickly forget, but the things we set out to learn ourselves – to quench a thirst – are never forgotten, and inevitably become an important part of our existence. ([Location 700](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=700)) - I don’t feel the necessity to see three films a day. Three good ones a year are enough for me. I average maybe one film a month, and that’s usually at a festival, where I see them all at once. ([Location 900](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=900)) - I’m not a compulsive film-goer, and compared to most directors am hardly what you would call cinematically literate. ([Location 901](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=901)) - Three things – a phone, computer and car – are all you need to produce films. Even today I still do most things myself. Although at times it would be good if I had more support, I would rather put the money up on the screen instead of adding people to the payroll. ([Location 942](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=942)) - At the time I was peripherally involved with a group of filmmakers; there were eight of us, most of whom were slightly older than me. Of the films we planned, four never went into production because the most basic hurdles couldn’t be overcome. Another three were shot but never finished because of sound problems. Mine was the only completed project. It was instantly clear to me what the key to filmmaking was. They have a beautiful expression in Peru: “Perseverance is where the gods dwell.” ([Location 975](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=975)) - Shooting under a certain amount of pressure and insecurity injects real life and vibrancy that wouldn’t otherwise be there into a film. But I wouldn’t be sitting here if I had ever risked anyone’s life while making a film. I’m a professional who never looks for difficulties; my hope is always to avoid problems. ([Location 1007](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=1007)) - My first question to him when we met to discuss the film was: “How do you feel about sleeping in the jungle at night and waking up covered in leeches? Are you prepared to bite a live snake in half and eat it?” When he said, “Yes,” it was clear we would be able to work together. I also told Christian – who spent months losing nearly sixty pounds under medical supervision – that I would lose half as much weight as he had to for the role, and ended up something like thirty pounds lighter. It would have been counterproductive if I showed up on set as emaciated as him. ([Location 1040](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=1040)) - Joseph Plateau was a Belgian physicist, the first person to study the principle of persistence of vision, the afterglow of light on the retina, which is the fundamental principle of moving images in cinema. I consider Plateau to be one of the most significant explorers who ever lived. His tests rendered him blind because he stared directly into the sun for too long. He’s a hero; the man sacrificed his eyes for cinema. Was it worth it? Perhaps, because he helped give meaning to our existence. There is nothing wrong with perishing in the travails and tribulations of life. ([Location 1052](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=1052)) - The Germans have never liked their poets, at least not the living ones. Compare this to Ireland. I once stayed at a tiny guesthouse in Ballinskelligs, on the southwest coast. The landlady asked me what I did, and off the top of my head – I don’t know why – I said, “I’m a poet.” She opened her doors and gave me the room for half price. In Germany they would have thrown me out into the street. Years ago I had the good fortune to be able to descend eight floors into a nuclear-proof bunker under the state bank in Reykjavik, where the Codex Regius is stored, a piece of literature that defines the Icelandic soul, similar in importance to the Dead Sea Scrolls for Israel. For three hundred years the Danes had owned this little wrinkled parchment, until it was returned to Iceland by Denmark’s largest warship, accompanied by a submarine. Half of Iceland’s population celebrated for five days and nights. When they discovered I had held the actual manuscript in my hands, I was treated like a king. Such things are inconceivable in Germany. ([Location 1493](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=1493)) - I had the feeling that audiences who were still watching by the sixth or seventh landing would stay to the end of the film; the opening sequence lays out the challenge of what is to come. The first three minutes allow viewers to acclimatise themselves to Fata Morgana’s unusual tone. They divide the audience into those who walk out, those who fall asleep and those whose eyes remain affixed. ([Location 1615](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=1615)) - There is an image in Aguirre that comes immediately after the opening sequence, a minute-long shot of the raging waters of Río Urubamba, below Machu Picchu. The waters are so violent, almost boiling with rage, completely out of proportion to what a human being might be able to withstand. Three seconds of this would have been sufficient, but a minute of it prepares the audience for an approaching fever dream in the jungle. A filmmaker carefully sows, then harvests. After having seen this image, we are better prepared to accept the disproportion to come, the outrageousness of Aguirre, his grandiose failure to conquer an entire continent with thirty starving and ill-equipped soldiers. ([Location 2189](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=2189)) - I never present literal landscapes in my films. What I show instead are landscapes of the mind, locales of the soul. ([Location 2225](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=2225)) - I don’t need to hole myself up in a monastery or retire to a quiet spot for months on end to write. Most of the screenplay was written on a bus going to Italy with the football team from Munich I played for. By the time we reached Salzburg, only a few hours into the trip, everyone was drunk and singing obscene songs because the team had drunk most of the beer we were bringing as a gift for our opponents. I was sitting with my typewriter on my lap. In fact, I typed the whole thing almost entirely with my left hand because with my right I was trying to fend off our goalie sprawled on the seat next to me. Eventually he vomited over the typewriter. Some of the pages were beyond repair and I had to throw them out of the window. There were some fine scenes lost because I couldn’t recall what I had just written. They’re long gone. That’s life on the road for you. ([Location 2338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=2338)) - Everyone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree. Cinema doesn’t come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from knees and thighs, from being prepared to work twenty-hour days. ([Location 2512](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=2512)) - Anyway, who cares about the man’s age? I’m a filmmaker, a storyteller, not an accountant of history. ([Location 2626](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=2626)) - Intensity wins the battle, not strength in numbers. ([Location 2727](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=2727)) - All I’ve ever wanted to be is a foot soldier of cinema. My films aren’t art. In fact, I’m ambivalent about the very concept of “the artist.” It just doesn’t feel right to me. King Farouk of Egypt, in exile and completely obese, wolfing down one leg of lamb after another, said something beautiful: “There are no kings left in the world any more, with the exception of four: the King of Hearts, the King of Diamonds, the King of Spades and the King of Clubs.” Just as the notion of royalty is meaningless today, the concept of being an artist is also somehow outdated. There is only one place left where you find such people: the circus, with its trapeze artists, jugglers, even hunger artists. Equally suspicious to me is the concept of “genius,” which has no place in contemporary society. It belongs to centuries gone by, the eras of pistol duels at dawn and damsels in distress fainting onto chaises longues. ([Location 3062](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00KEW6ACQ&location=3062))