Your film is like your children. You might want a child with certain qualities, but you are never going to get the exact specification right. The film has a privilege to live its own life and develop its own character. To suppress this is dangerous. It is an approach that works the other way too: sometimes the footage has amazing qualities that you did not expect.
Werner HerzogIf youโre purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesnโt illuminate.
Werner HerzogBecause you're delegated to a cook book recipe and you slavishly and pedantically rely on it while you're shooting and you're not relying on your creative instincts and you're not relying on something which brings life into movies and excitement into it.
Werner HerzogI could not become an American citizen. I would not like to become a citizen of a country that has capital punishment.
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 Herzog