What I always loved about Werner Herzog documentaries that how he just lets people talk. He just listens. Most people will talk and tell their story if you let them do it and that's exectaly what he does without any fanfares. But he never lets them off the hook either. It's an art on its own to do this, walking on a thin line.
> [...] What I like about Los Angeles is that it allows everyone to live his or her own lifestyle. Drive around the hills and you find a Moorish castle next to a Swiss chalet sitting beside a house shaped like a UFO. There is a lot of creative energy in Los Angeles not channelled into the film business. Florence and Venice have great surface beauty, but as cities they feel like museums, whereas for me Los Angeles is the city in America with the most substance, even if it’s raw, uncouth and sometimes quite bizarre. Wherever you look is an immense depth, a tumult that resonates with me. New York is more concerned with finance than anything else. It doesn’t create culture, only consumes it; most of what you find in New York comes from elsewhere. Things actually get done in Los Angeles. Look beyond the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and a wild excitement of intense dreams opens up; it has more horizons than any other place. [...]
I found the whole thing utterly fascinating. Especially the way he talks about Los Angeles.
"Los Angeles is the city with the most substance in the United States."
" First and foremost, cultural substance. But don’t forget that there’s a huge amount of industry there. When you fly into Los Angeles, you see all these industrial areas, flat roofs, gigantic factories. Reusable rockets are being built within the perimeter of the city. You don’t have this factory in the Bronx. You don’t have it near Wall Street. Of course, people immediately think the superficial side, glitz and glamor of Hollywood, that’s what I don’t mean. But serious art — all the artists that made New York important, there were late 1940s, early 1950s. The last straggler in a way was Andy Warhol. It’s a place where you consume culture, New York. It’s generated, in Los Angeles. The painters are living there nowadays — not all, but some very important ones. Writers, mathematicians. Also stupidities, like crazy sects, yoga classes for five-year-olds. I mean, it’s grotesque. Great universities. LACMA is going to open very soon and all of a sudden you will have one of the two, three most important museums in the United States. I mean, it has great museums already, and it’s going to be big. You see, I’m the one who says it at a time where nobody believes it, nobody notices it, and it’s wonderful to articulate it now."
I always enjoy hearing from him because he’s so unorthodox and I never have any idea the approach he’s going to take when giving an interview or answering a question.
And I always feel the need to point out that Grizzly Man was a truly good movie. I’d heard about it for years and based on the premise expected to have a low brow appeal, something for dumb people to feel superior to someone. But no, it was a respectful and in-depth character study (with some downright poetic narration) and probably Herzog’s best movie.
If you want to see the extent of his respectfulness and depth, with his courage for self-analysis added on top, My Best Fiend would be my choice. It's a documentary about his relationship with Klaus Kinski, who was a pretty unhinged actor. It's fascinating to watch Herzog hold his own with Kinski, and to observe the strange mental space Herzog is in, somewhere between crystal-clear vision and complete madness.
something for dumb people to feel superior to someone.
Herzog has some common themes that he likes to talk about in interviews. One is that "the poet must not avert his eyes". One meaning he gives to this statement is that he takes tv programs like "here comes honey booboo" or "the Anna Nicole Smith show" seriously, because it is a product of our society, even if it seems exploitative in some way.
What I'm getting at is, if he takes exploitative reality TV in good faith, of course he makes his films in good faith with relation to his subject.
> Fifty-four tightly clustered, slanted oil wells — the last of the Salt Lake Oil Field — sit snuggly between Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and San Vicente Boulevard. In fact, the Beverly Center’s odd, curved footprint is designed to accommodate the drilling site, which is hidden by a wall along the street. The wells are almost completely invisible, dwarfed by the mammoth mall and the sprawling Cedars-Sinai Medical Center across the street — the hospital where I was born and where I later dropped my friend off to meet his wife for an ultrasound appointment.
What I always loved about Werner Herzog documentaries that how he just lets people talk. He just listens. Most people will talk and tell their story if you let them do it and that's exectaly what he does without any fanfares. But he never lets them off the hook either. It's an art on its own to do this, walking on a thin line.
I can highly recommend Into the Abyss, one of his best work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmyN3QJky7I
I'm too much of a baseball fan, I see this as Whitey Herzog and think two things: a) He passed away in 2024, and b) Why would he talk to Paul Cronin?
Then, I think it would have been cool if they met each other at one point.
I love his views on Los Angeles, I paraphase:
> [...] What I like about Los Angeles is that it allows everyone to live his or her own lifestyle. Drive around the hills and you find a Moorish castle next to a Swiss chalet sitting beside a house shaped like a UFO. There is a lot of creative energy in Los Angeles not channelled into the film business. Florence and Venice have great surface beauty, but as cities they feel like museums, whereas for me Los Angeles is the city in America with the most substance, even if it’s raw, uncouth and sometimes quite bizarre. Wherever you look is an immense depth, a tumult that resonates with me. New York is more concerned with finance than anything else. It doesn’t create culture, only consumes it; most of what you find in New York comes from elsewhere. Things actually get done in Los Angeles. Look beyond the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and a wild excitement of intense dreams opens up; it has more horizons than any other place. [...]
> New York is more concerned with finance than anything else. It doesn’t create culture, only consumes it
Even smart and talented people are capable of saying very stupid things.
> for me Los Angeles is the city in America with the most substance
Well, it could have been worse. He could have disclosed his undying admiration for Las Vegas ..
Likewise, someone said Jacksonville FL is the most boring city, yet you have a vibrant artist communtiy there.
And from this year: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/werner-herzog-isnt-afraid-f...
I found the whole thing utterly fascinating. Especially the way he talks about Los Angeles.
"Los Angeles is the city with the most substance in the United States."
" First and foremost, cultural substance. But don’t forget that there’s a huge amount of industry there. When you fly into Los Angeles, you see all these industrial areas, flat roofs, gigantic factories. Reusable rockets are being built within the perimeter of the city. You don’t have this factory in the Bronx. You don’t have it near Wall Street. Of course, people immediately think the superficial side, glitz and glamor of Hollywood, that’s what I don’t mean. But serious art — all the artists that made New York important, there were late 1940s, early 1950s. The last straggler in a way was Andy Warhol. It’s a place where you consume culture, New York. It’s generated, in Los Angeles. The painters are living there nowadays — not all, but some very important ones. Writers, mathematicians. Also stupidities, like crazy sects, yoga classes for five-year-olds. I mean, it’s grotesque. Great universities. LACMA is going to open very soon and all of a sudden you will have one of the two, three most important museums in the United States. I mean, it has great museums already, and it’s going to be big. You see, I’m the one who says it at a time where nobody believes it, nobody notices it, and it’s wonderful to articulate it now."
I always enjoy hearing from him because he’s so unorthodox and I never have any idea the approach he’s going to take when giving an interview or answering a question.
And I always feel the need to point out that Grizzly Man was a truly good movie. I’d heard about it for years and based on the premise expected to have a low brow appeal, something for dumb people to feel superior to someone. But no, it was a respectful and in-depth character study (with some downright poetic narration) and probably Herzog’s best movie.
If you want to see the extent of his respectfulness and depth, with his courage for self-analysis added on top, My Best Fiend would be my choice. It's a documentary about his relationship with Klaus Kinski, who was a pretty unhinged actor. It's fascinating to watch Herzog hold his own with Kinski, and to observe the strange mental space Herzog is in, somewhere between crystal-clear vision and complete madness.
something for dumb people to feel superior to someone.
Herzog has some common themes that he likes to talk about in interviews. One is that "the poet must not avert his eyes". One meaning he gives to this statement is that he takes tv programs like "here comes honey booboo" or "the Anna Nicole Smith show" seriously, because it is a product of our society, even if it seems exploitative in some way.
What I'm getting at is, if he takes exploitative reality TV in good faith, of course he makes his films in good faith with relation to his subject.
Right, and for example LA is actually full of concealed oil wells pumping oil in the middle of the city (!).
https://www.noemamag.com/its-oil-that-makes-la-boil/
> Fifty-four tightly clustered, slanted oil wells — the last of the Salt Lake Oil Field — sit snuggly between Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and San Vicente Boulevard. In fact, the Beverly Center’s odd, curved footprint is designed to accommodate the drilling site, which is hidden by a wall along the street. The wells are almost completely invisible, dwarfed by the mammoth mall and the sprawling Cedars-Sinai Medical Center across the street — the hospital where I was born and where I later dropped my friend off to meet his wife for an ultrasound appointment.
I know, my family got a check for one every month. :). They are required to compensate you for any oil under your house.