Gaining trust is not difficult for me. I needed to gain the trust of the North Korean supervisors.
Werner HerzogOur presence on this planet does not seem to be sustainable. Our technical civilization makes up particularly vulnerable. There is talk all over the scientific community about climate change. Many of them [scientists] agree, the end of human life on earth is assured.
Werner HerzogI could not become an American citizen. I would not like to become a citizen of a country that has capital punishment.
Werner HerzogYou are confronted with abysses of time that are, in a way, unfathomable. You see a painting in charcoal of raindeer and it was left unfinished and somebody else finished it. But through radio carbon dating we know that the next one completed the painting 5,000 years later. You're just blown away by the notion of passage of time. We have no relationship to that kind of depth of time.
Werner HerzogWhat I do not like, the kind of high-resolution cameras, 4K, 6K, for shooting dialogue, for having faces and close-ups of actors, and you see every single pore in the skin.
Werner HerzogThere's this kind of strange mythology about me in the media because I've done unusual things.
Werner HerzogMay I propose a Herzog dictum? Those who read own the world, and those who watch television lose it.
Werner HerzogYou also can understand how to play tennis from Serena Williams, and she is awesome. I haven't seen her Masterclass but just watching her on the court - I saw some of Wimbledon on TV and there's such an awesome force in her and focus and determination and technique, you just look at her and it's awesome. If I would like to learn tennis I would immediately turn to her.
Werner HerzogFor 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.
Werner HerzogIn my films, I hope there are a few moments where you feel almost illuminated, like in a state of ecstasy, stepping out of yourself, beyond yourself and perceiving something which is only, in the case of cinema, possible in collective dreams.
Werner HerzogI think psychology and self-reflection is one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century.
Werner HerzogI run my own film school, the Rogue Film School, and I do it over three and a half days, eight hours non-stop everyday; alone, single-handedly. But the difference is in the Rogue Film School I do have real human beings in front of me from all over the world, and of course there's this course as well, they can ask, talk about their problems and obstacles, finances, anything, you just name it. Whereas in the Masterclass, you are speaking to cameras.
Werner HerzogThe danger is to stupidly believe that depicting facts gives us much insight. If facts were the only thing that counted, the telephone directory would be the book of books.
Werner HerzogThe volcano itself wasn't that interesting, but the man who refused to be evacuated - the only one of 75,000 people - was what set the tone for the film ["Encounters at the End of the World"] that we made together [with Clive Oppenheimer] ten years later.
Werner HerzogI believe the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.
Werner HerzogWe haven't seen a real volcanic event at least in 74,000 years - [Mount Toba] in Indonesia, in Sumatra, where the crater itself is 100 kilometers across. It was so monumental, what happened, that for a very long time the entire atmosphere of our planet was darkened. It's not the lava and the heat per se; it's the obscuring of the entire atmosphere, and it made it very difficult for the human race to survive.
Werner HerzogThe beauty of Netflix is on the 28th of October they push a button and the film will be in 190 countries at the same moment in 17 languages.
Werner HerzogI think I would be a good villain in a James Bond movie. They were fairly weak, the last half-dozen of villains in James Bond movies were not that convincing.
Werner HerzogYou should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.
Werner HerzogI work very fast and steadily, and I don't hardly ever notice that I'm working. It feels like just breathing or walking when I do films.
Werner HerzogWe live in an era when established values are no longer valid, when prodigious discoveries are being made every year, when catastrophes of unbelievable proportions occur weekly. In ancient Greek the word “chaos” means “gaping void” or “yawning emptiness.” The most effective response to the chaos in our lives is the creation of new forms of literature, music, poetry, art and cinema.
Werner HerzogTechnology has a great advantage in that we are capable of creating dinosaurs and show them on the screen even though they are extinct 65 million years. All of a sudden, we have a fantastic tool that is as good as dreams are.
Werner HerzogThe wonderful thing is that Clive [Oppenheimer ] insisted on training his camera - his private camera - on me at one point. We were discussing things such as how to avoid certain dangers, while reflecting on a volcano that had threatened to explode 40 years ago.
Werner HerzogFor a moment the feeling crept over me that my work, my vision, is going to destroy me, and for a fleeting moment I let myself take a long, hard look at myself, something I would not otherwise do--out of instinct, on principle, out of self-preservation--look at myself with objective curiosity to see whether my vision has not destroyed me already. I found it comforting to note that I was still breathing.
Werner HerzogWhen the camera is looking back at our planet Earth, it's the tiniest of specks somewhere out there in the universe. So we do have a new sense of proportion. Of course the volcanoes and the magma under us just remind us of that.
Werner HerzogMartin Luther was asked, what would you do if tomorrow the world would come to an end, and he said, 'I would plant an apple tree today.' This is a real good answer. I would start shooting a movie.
Werner HerzogWe are not accountants, We are not accountants who do number after number after number of storyboard images, a robot could do it ultimately, but what I'm doing a robot cannot do.
Werner HerzogI do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books.
Werner HerzogWhat would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.
Werner HerzogYou 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.
Werner HerzogThis climate surrounding me has reached Clive Oppenheimer. In practical terms he sees that I'm not interested in any sort of daredevil stunts, I'm just interested in the work. And he's convinced that I'm clinically sane.
Werner HerzogThere are certainly laws and elements that make a film more accessible to mainstream audiences. If you've got Tom Cruise as a strongman, I'm sure it would have larger audiences, but it wouldn't have the same substance.
Werner HerzogYou can't have a helicopter fly over boiling lava. It would've exploded from the heat, and is just way too dangerous. The pilot of a helicopter would've flatly refused anyway.
Werner HerzogEveryone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree because cinema does not come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from your knees and thighs.
Werner HerzogFor such an advanced civilization as ours to be without images that are adequate to it is as serious a defect as being without memory.
Werner HerzogAt the same time, there's something magnificent about volcanoes; they created the atmosphere that we need for breathing.
Werner Herzog