Centuries from now our great-great-great-grandchildren will look back at us with amazement at how we could allow such a precious achievement of human culture as the telling of a story to be shattered into smithereens by commercials, the same amazement we feel today when we look at our ancestors for whom slavery, capital punishment, burning of witches, and the inquisition were acceptable everyday events.
Werner HerzogWhen I see a face, I see a face in general and I see you are curious, I see the curiosity but I don't not look after a dermatological report of your cheeks, and that's what you see when you're too high-resolution. And now desperately in post-production, in color grading, they are trying to wipe out the precision of the dermatological report.
Werner HerzogIt 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.
Werner HerzogI'm trying to find these rare moments where you feel completely illuminated. Facts never illuminate you. The phone directory of Manhattan doesn't illuminate you, although it has factually correct entries, millions of them. But these rare moments of illumination that you find when you read a great poem, you instantly know. You instantly feel this spark of illumination. You are almost stepping outside of yourself and you see something sublime.
Werner Herzog