Werner Explains It All: 10 Herzogian Insights

“It’s fine to keep that open because each audience has the privilege to see it in his or her way. But I think it’s basically a new form of film noir… The climate of time is favorable for film noir. When there is insecurity in things like the financial system collapsing. It’s always in these moments, as an echo, that you see film noir coming up.”

On people’s reaction to the film:

“I walked away from last night’s screening with great joy because there was such an intense reaction to the film. Every single moment was seen and every subtlety was kind of greeted with laughter. I walked away and thought, ‘I have never had anything like that in my life. Never such an intense reaction of an audience.”

On my suggestion he was a “founding father” of German New Wave Cinema in the 1960s:

“I’ve never been a founding father. I’ve never ever been a member of anything with the German Wave. I’ve always been on my own. As if I had even invented cinema myself. And in a way, I had to, because as a child - until I was even eleven years - I hadn’t seen any films. I didn’t even know cinema existed. And I didn’t have any telephones or anything. I made my first phone call when I was seventeen! Can you imagine that? So, in other words, cinema was something that in a way, I had to invent myself.”

On the evolution of his career:

“I’ve always moved onwards. I was always out for new horizons. But it has become more high-profile and visible since I live in the United States. Because some of the films have been much more high-profile like ‘Grizzly Man’ and ‘Rescue Dawn’ and now ‘Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.’ But I never really trot the same spot over and over. Since I live in America, it has become more visible that I have always been out for new horizons… And it has done me very good that I have not been repetitive over and over. And yet you instantly recognize ‘The Bad Lieutenant’ is my film and that ‘My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done’... Even if I were not in the credits you would recognize it as my film.

On working on narrative films vs. working on documentaries:

“I have to caution you. You call it documentaries. I would only put it in quotations. Many of my documentaries are feature films in disguise [laughs]... I don’t take on projects. They find me. They haunt me. They come like burglars in the night. Like home invasion. I think there’s nothing wrong with a writer to write poetry and to write dramas. Or write a novel and then write a stage play. Everybody seems to be puzzled that I also make documentaries once in a while. I seem to be the only one. Feature filmmakers do not make documentaries. At least.. not all the time. I think that man, what’s his name, who made ‘Titanic.’ James whatever. I think he also is doing underwater documentaries. So there’s another one. But he’s more into what you understand as documentaries. Where I am disguising a feature film as documentary.”

On starting his own film school:

“I’ve also - oh yeah - started my own film school. “Rogue Film School”... It’s so beautiful this name, that I am seeking trademark protection. It will be like a traveling circus. Weekend seminars at varying locations.  The first I will hold in Los Angeles in a rented conference center in a hotel. I could do it here in a few weeks in Toronto. I could do it in Africa. I could do it in Rome. It’s just wherever I am. I can open my doors and accept a very select group of eager young filmmakers.”

On the future of film festivals:

“You have to be cautious about film festivals. The time of film festivals is kind of declining and coming to an end like at the end of the 19th century when the big time of the world exhibitions slowly came to an end. Festivals will come to an end. And they will come to an end because many of them have become self-serving entities. And the real problem is that you have over 3,000 festivals in the world per year, but you do not have more than three or four good films per year. There’s a very, very dramatic disbalance between the amount of festivals and the amount of good films.”

On the Toronto Film Festival specifically:

“Toronto… It’s quite alright. Because it’s an important platform for distributing the film in the North American market. So that’s the whole deal. And of course, for those that are in distribution and for those that are in producing films… it’s an important marketplace. And that’s something solid you should not overlook. It’s very legitimate.”

Check out audio from the interview here.