If I had to choose one word to describe German director Werner Herzog it would be eccentric. If I had to choose three words they would be eccentric, genius, and indestructible. The man has directed many movies over the years, the majority of which most people will never have heard of. He documents strange people and obscure locales, often putting himself in danger in the process. In La Soufrière, for example, he travels to an island where a volcanic eruption has forced the evacuation of a city and interviews the few locals who have refused to leave. In his movie Fitzcarrado, shot on location in the Amazon rainforest, a 340-ton steam ship was literally hauled over a mountain without any special effects whatsoever.
Movies like these have formed the basis of the legend behind this man who seems to stumble into more surreal life experiences than Fox Mulder. Luckily, he always has a camera nearby to capture them and pass them on to us, usually filtered through his own cold, analytical narration.
Stopping by Toronto this weekend for a Q&A engagement as part of the Hot Docs festival, Herzog seemed as odd and emotionless as ever, much to the amusement of the sold out crowd at the Isabel Bader theatre. One of my concerns about the night was that the direction of the conversation would be mostly determined by the audience. And knowing the nature of film students and critics, Q&A sessions always seem to be more a chance to show off their own knowledge and wit rather than ask anything constructive.
I winced as the first question came, which was simply a plea for Herzog to check out some poor sap’s art gallery exhibit. Herzog handled it gracefully though, assuming the man was actually asking about landscapes in his films, and launched into a diatribe about how it is possible to direct landscapes as much as people.
Some of the other topics that were covered during the 90 minute talk include his new movie Rescue Dawn (a fictional retelling of his documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly starring Christian Bale and Steve Zahn), how to kill rumours with even bigger rumours, the cannibalistic nature of chickens, resisting pressure from producers to use the audio from Timothy Treadwell’s death in Grizzly Man, and his own performance in Julien Donkey-Boy (as well as Harmony Korine’s upcoming movie Mister Lonely).
Surprisingly, he also revealed that one of the few movies he saw in theatres last year was The Real Cancun, which he apparently enjoyed for its honesty. Who would have thought that this fiercely independent, guerilla filmmaker would find the charm in a movie about teenagers trying to get laid during spring break? Welcome to the paradox that is Werner Herzog. I was disappointed that no one asked him about recently being shot with an air rifle during a BBC interview or saving Joaquin Phoenix from a car wreck.
Afterwards as the crowd spilled out onto Charles Street, Herzog walked among the crowd, allowing our good friend Doug Nagy to shake his hand and inquire as to why he shaved off his moustache. If only I had a camera with me at the time. Read Doug’s account of the show over at the House of Irony, and another good interview in Now magazine.
