Of all the celebrities I've managed to encounter with since moving to Los Angeles in June, perhaps none have left me starstruck quite like the German-American auteur Werner Herzog. While he isn't necessarily my favorite director, one thing no can deny is that he is truly one of a kind and the the most dedicated of directors.
Its hard to know where to begin with a guy like Herzog! How about the fact he jumped naked in a cactus patch to motivate his film crew? Or the time he cooked and ate a shoe in front of a live-audience(and had it filmed it into the movie Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe). Or the film Fitzcarraldo, the film he made that involves a 300+ ton ship literally being raised over a mountain? Or how about his hatched plan to kill his leading star(Klaus Kinski) who in turn planed to kill him. Or the numerous times he's been shot at…included a time he was being interviewed by Mark Kermode, only to continue with the interview instead of going to a hospital? Herzog is a mad genius, a man who leaves all other filmmakers in awe. Its hard to think of a director, past or present, who has put more dedication to his craft than he has(did I mention he once saved Joaquin Phoenix's life from a near fatal car-accident?).
Learning of his extraordinary life and career, I'd always wished to meet Herzog. I missed out the chance to see him and Roger Ebert present a screening of Agiurre, The Wrath of God(don't ask why, it was during that dark period of being a CO citizen). While I'll never have the chance to see Roger Ebert in person, I always knew there would be one day a chance to encounter the good soldier of cinema, as Ebert once referred of Herzog. Thankfully, the chance came last October.
Werner Herzog was at the Aero Theater to do a QnA of his 2011documentary, Into the Abyss, tackling death-row convicts. Having never seen the film before, I was eager to see it at all, let alone on the big screen, but the real reason I went was to see Werner Herzog in person.
The film was like a lot of Herzog's documentaries: dry, deadly serious in tone, some hilarious LOL moments sprinkled through-out, yet completely mesmerizing. Following a Texan triple-homicide convict named Michael Perry, Herzog gives this person the respect every human being deserves. While he unloads most of the facts of the case interviews many of the victims of his acts, what makes this film(as well as Herzog's other films) special is that he never looses sight of the human-being front and center of the film. Having made documentaries on subjects ranging from Timothy Treadwell to Antarctican scientists, he truley is a human director. Herzog's soothing German-accented voice gives a soothing quality to an otherwise very dark narrative, he's even not afraid to have fun with his interviewees, such as when he interviews a reverend who blesses death-row citizens before their executed and when he makes an off-hand remark about squirrels talking about life god makes, Herzog asks to further describe his encounter to squirrels to amusing results! Finally, he also manages to tackles the hard task of exploring political issues without himself ever getting political or even polarizing. This resulting I think from the true humanizing of Werner Herzog.
After the film, when the interviewer announced Werner Herzog and he walked to the stage, you could definitely feel his presence. I would've asked him a question but honestly, the interviewer did a pretty good job asking all the basic questions one could have from why he drawn to this particular case in Texas(Herzog was impressed by the non-sensible randomness of the murders) to how he avoids political politics(Herzog stressed he thought the people of Texas were wonderful and pointed out as a German he felt he had no right to dictate to the US how they should run their death penalty system).
Since he is one of those guys you want to go inside his brain, most of the audience steered of the discussion of the movie itself and talked what they wanted to talk about. One person announced they were a member of the communist party trying to start a revolution giving a long rambling speech about his ideology; seriously, how the hell do you respond to that? Another person took pride of the fact he was from Iran and wanted to get Werner's thoughts on Iran. Then a college-aged girl didn't even have a question and just wanted to expressed how much "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", his documentary on cave paintings, meant to her as a person. While the interviewer was clearly annoyed how all the questions were off topic to "Into The Abyss", Herzog answered the questions the best he could in a non-condescending way.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the interview was the he mentioned he was close to wrapping up Queen of the Desert(his biographical film on Gertrude Bell, starring Nicole Kidman) and that in the next week he was going to South America to do location scouting for his next documentary. Herzog is one of the true treasures of cinema that more people should appreciate. I was honored to finally be in his presence, hopefully it won't be last time!
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