by Paul Cronin
I’m glad we didn’t have those regular meetings you talk about. It’s good we take a step back and don’t see each other, sometimes for years at a time. You do your work, I do mine, then we collide again. It would be a triumph of everything pedantic about the world if we met regularly. And I will deny the world that triumph. After having ploughed through so many hundreds of pages of these interview transcripts no one will believe me, but I have never particularly liked talking about myself, to you or anyone else. My films are the rewards for the struggles over the years; they have always been more important than the person sitting here today. The focus should be on the work, not me. I prefer to keep a low profile, in part because, on occasion, I attract certain people I would rather keep my distance from. I’m not talking about the kind of stalkers who want to sleep in my bed and take a pillow home as a souvenir. Years ago a woman identifying herself as Barbara made thirty frantic calls in a single hour to my apartment. I thought she was the former girlfriend of one of the crew of Fitzcarraldo. “If it would help,” I told her, “why don’t you come by?” When she arrived, I realised it wasn’t the person I was expecting. She was very confused, in a real crisis, and insisted I was at the heart of a worldwide conspiracy to destroy and exterminate her. As she reached into her handbag, she said, “You see, sir, my only salvation is that I slaughter [schlachten] you first.” I’m a friendly man, but at that moment felt obliged to lunge across the room and grab her bag, in which I found a loaded pistol. These days I prefer to sit with my back to the wall in restaurants.
I do the press junkets only because there’s a necessity to build bridges to audiences, which might in turn make the next film easier to produce. Talking to journalists is part of the job; my way of keeping sane when having to say the same thing twenty times in a single day is to go into autopilot. I might be talking about a film I made last year, but in my mind I’m developing stories and ideas for films I’ll be making next year. I always try to be gracious with the press, and have never been one of those directors who thrash about, exclaiming, “I absolutely hate interviews, but ask your questions anyway …” Whoever this “self” is, sitting in front of you here, is unimportant. Who cares about me? The only thing that counts is the work and what audiences see on the screen. At the end of the day only the films remain. They are the tracks in the sand as I move through life. Everything else dissipates.
Have there been any big disappointments in your career?
Not really. Things are good for me. When you’re in Siberia and get into your car in the morning, you have to warm up the engine. Once warm, it works just fine. For years now, having learnt to cope with the disasters and struggles, I’ve been very warmed up. You won’t ever see me hanging around licking my wounds.
I never sit and write a script about something that interests me, then feel detached from what I’ve just written as if having freed myself from it. For me, these two procedures – being fascinated by something, then processing it into a film – are simultaneous and inextricably linked. Perhaps there are a couple of my films that aren’t as close to me as others, but I really do like them all, maybe with the exception of the first two. There is something fundamentally wrong with a director saying he dislikes his latest film. I want to grab him by the collar and ask, “So why did you make it in the first place? Why didn’t you stop making it when you realised it was pushing against your instincts?” I love my films as I love my children. I’m like an African tribesman who needs only to cast a glance at his herd of fifty cattle to know whether one is missing, or a mother of six who, a second after entering a room, can tell if all her children are there. She doesn’t even need to count them.
As a young man I discovered something that filmmakers need to learn as early as possible: a perfect film doesn’t exist. No matter how much you tinker away at this scene or that frame, you have to accept there might be defects in your work. As a filmmaker, you have to learn to live with this, even if these flaws are amplified a thousand times when screened to an audience. It’s the same way a parent has to live with his children. A new film is like a child that needs help when taking its first steps. Children are never perfect; one might have a limp, another might stutter. They all have their weaknesses and strong points. I actually love the most defective films even more than the others because they need my constant support and have to be protected from the world. It doesn’t matter that every one of my films is flawed in some way; what’s important is they are all alive. Like a child, a film grows up, finds a life of its own and learns to stand on its own two feet. At a certain point you have to unchain the boat, give it a gentle kick and let it float out into the middle of the lake. All my films have developed their own relationship with audiences, even those one or two that demand the same effort a mountain demands of a climber. At the summit we sit and bask, with drunken pleasure, in the view of a rarely seen landscape.
As you might have guessed, I look upon my profession with a certain suspicion. Cinema might give us insights into our lives and change our perspective on things, but there is much about it that’s absurd. From a certain point of view cinema is nothing other than a projection of light, an illusion. It’s utterly immaterial. And, of course, filmmaking can easily turn you into a clown. The careers of many directors have ended badly, even the most powerful and strongest among us; the fiercest of animals were eventually brought to their knees, even those with true vision, unafraid to deviate from the fashions of the day. Look at what happened to Orson Welles or Buster Keaton. Both were strong as an ox, both faded away and crumbled. These are most definitely cautionary tales. John Huston – who in his youth had been a high-ranking amateur boxer and literally died on set at more than eighty years of age – is an exception to the rule.
However vigilant we are, there is something destructive and disillusioning about the film business. Few filmmakers ever retire of their own free will, but the moment I feel I’m becoming an embarrassment, I shall walk away. I don’t want to become like an ageing sportsman who should have quit years ago. In terms of careers, Buñuel is an interesting example. He made surrealist films in France, then went to Spain and the United States, then Mexico, where he made Los Olvidados, which is a very fine film, and from there back to France, where he made a handful of features very different to anything else he had already done. Although they are so diverse, every one of Buñuel’s films is recognisable as his work. He never stopped opening himself up to new experiences and ideas. It’s something I respect him for. His vision stayed constant. Watch Buñuel’s films from start to finish and see a life’s evolution.
If a filmmaker has no other legs to stand on, he can be easily broken. When someone knows how to milk a cow, there is something solid about him. A farmer who grows potatoes or breeds sheep is never ridiculous; nor is a cattle rancher or a chef able to feed a table full of hungry guests. The eighty-year-old man who brought me a bottle of wine from his vineyard before my first opera opened in Bologna could never be an embarrassment, but the film producer who takes to the red carpet at every opportunity and keeps his awards polished will always look foolish. I have seen dignified ninety-year-old cello players and photographers, but never filmmakers. My way of dealing with the inevitable is to step out of my job whenever I can. I travel on foot, I stage operas, I raise children, I cook, I write. I focus on things that give me independence beyond the world of cinema.
Cooking?
I’m good with meat – steak and venison – but lousy with soup and sweets. A man should prepare a decent meal at least once a week. I’m convinced it’s the only real alternative to cinema. I was once asked if I felt most alive when filmmaking. “No,” I said without hesitation. “When I’m eating a steak.”
As you get older, does it become more difficult to exercise the required discipline?
I’ve actually always been a lazy bum. Yesterday I sat down and rewrote a script I’ve been working on for a while. I should have done it a couple of days ago but got caught up in the football matches from Europe I
have beamed into my living room. The only reason I did the rewrite yesterday is that the person who is producing the film was due at my place just after lunch, so at eleven o’clock I grudgingly turned off the television, stopped fiddling around with God knows what, and sat down at my computer because I couldn’t put it off any longer. I work best under pressure, knee-deep in the mud. It helps me concentrate. The truth is I have never been guided by the kind of strict discipline I see in some people, those who get up at five in the morning and jog for an hour. My priorities are elsewhere. I will rearrange my entire day to have a solid meal with friends.
Any final advice?
I once saw a film celebrating the life of Katharine Hepburn, who I like as an actress. It was some kind of homage to her, but unfortunately it turns out she had these vanilla-ice-cream emotions. At the end she sits on a rock by the ocean and someone off camera asks her, “Ms Hepburn, what would you like to pass on to the young generation?” She swallows, tears are welling. She takes a lot of time, as if she were thinking deeply about it all, then looks straight into the camera and proclaims: “Listen to the Song of Life.” I was cringing so much it hurt, and still smart just thinking about it. It really couldn’t get any worse. Hearing these words was such a blow that I wrote it into the Minnesota Declaration, Article Ten, which I repeat here and now for you. I look you right in the eye and say, “Don’t you ever listen to the Song of Life.”
Ten Poems
by Werner Herzog
Translated by Presley Parks
Originally published in Akzente: Zeitschrift für Literatur
June 1978
Jede der hellen Nächte lagen Mann und Weib
Im Ringen, und auf dem Dächern im Fächeln
Des Monds übten die Katzen wilde fremde
Begattung. Die Bäume reichten über die
Dächer, über die Bäume die Berge und
Über den Bergen zogen die Sterne hinter
Der Nacht her.
Da sprach der König: meine Kinder,
Habt Geduld. Warten wir ein paar Jahrhunderttausend,
Bis dahin wandern die Steine im Feld
Und vielleicht weint sogar einer einmal.
Every bright night lay man and woman struggling,
And on the roofs, fanned by the moon,
The cats practised wild fornication.
The trees extended above the
Roofs, above the trees the mountains, and
Above the mountains the stars followed
After the night.
So spoke the King: My children,
Have patience. We shall wait a few
Hundred Thousand years,
Until then the stones will wander in the field
And perhaps someone will weep even once.
DER MUHLENFRENZEL
Drüben, jenseits des Teichs
Lebt der Mühlenfrenzel.
Mit Forschung im Auge sitzt
Da ein Frosch vor der Fliege.
Manchmal ist dem Frenzel sein
Einziger Freund der Sturm-Sepp.
Der hat sein Lebtag lang
Nur Bärendienste geleistet.
Aus Angst vor dem Reden schlägt
Der Frenzel die Hand auf den Mund.
So geht alles seit Jahren
Den Richtigen Weg.
Und jeden Abend in den Monaten
Ohne den Buchstaben R
Stellt sich unverzüglich am Teich
Eine Stimmung ein.
LITTLE FRANZ FROM THE MILL
Over there, beyond the pond,
Lives Little Franz from the Mill.
With a searching eye, a frog sits
In front of the fly.
Sometimes Franz’s only friend is
Sepp born by a Storm.
His whole life long he has
Only done bears’ work.
Scared of speaking, Franz slaps
His hand over his mouth.
Thus, for years now,
Everything goes the right way.
And every evening in the months
Without the letter R
A festive mood appears, at once,
By the pond.
Die Stühle stehen leer
Und Farbe blättert von den Wänden
Schon wieder schmilzt der Schnee
Noch gleicht der Stuhl dem Stuhl
Das Zimmer einem Zimmer.
Nichts ist rot als der Fuchs
Nichts ist schwarz als die Raben
Dem Kampf zweier Schlangen
Gibt es nichts Gleiches.
Und die Reiher, heisst es
Zielen immer zuerst aufs
Auge des Gegners.
Ich fürchte mich davor,
Dass es sehr hell wird, dass
Türen und Fenster sich öffnen
Und hundert Gäste sich drängen
Ganz ungeladen.
The chairs are empty
And paint flakes off of the walls
Once again the snow is melting
The chair is still like a chair
The room like a room.
Nothing is red like the fox
Nothing is black like the raven
Nothing is like two snakes fighting.
And herons, so it is said, always aim first for
Their opponent’s eye.
I fear that it will become very bright, that
Doors and windows will open,
And hundreds of guests will pour in,
All uninvited.
Ein wildfremdes Mädchen schrieb mir,
Sie sähe ständig Krokodile
Mit einem Brikett quer im Maul.
Sie schrieb: draussen auf dem
Himmelhoch heiligen Feld
Gäbe es Schatten vom Bäumen
Und Schatten von Menschen.
Nicht ohne Grund habe ein Rabe gehrächzt.
Die Erde erzeuge die Leichen
Und diese lägen fieberfrei.
Sie sitze kauend am Fenster
Und meine, sie kenne das Land.
A wildly strange girl wrote to me that
She keeps seeing crocodiles
Each with a brick sideways in its mouth.
She wrote: Outside, on the holy field
That is as high as heaven,
There are shadows of trees
And shadows of people.
Not without reason a raven crowed.
The earth produces corpses
And they lie there without fevers.
She sits ruminating by the window,
And thinks, she knows this land.
Man kann nicht verlangen,
Dass keiner nichts sieht:
Ist den nicht ein entlaufenes Schaf
Ein schlechtes Tauschobjekt?
Und da auf den Feldern
Liegen nur Steine wie Stein.
Auch die Bettler haben kein Geld.
Wenn nämlich einer vor Hunger stirbt,
Ist das oft ein Zeichen von Armut.
You can’t wish
That no one doesn’t see nothing;
Isn’t a runaway sheep
A poor thing to barter?
And on the fields there lie only stones like stone.
The beggars also have no money.
Whenever one of them dies of hunger,
It is, in fact, often a sign of poverty.
An einer erschossenen Sau
Sogen sechs Ferkel nach Milch.
Auf gemeinsamen Beschluss hin
Stellten die Kinder jegliches Spiel ein.
Blindekuh und Sackhüpfen gab es
Von da an nur noch in Büchern.
Jemand stieg auf einen Turm
Und blickte lange nach Süden.
Das alles ist lange schon her,
Seitdem hat sich nichts mehr geändert.
Im Haus des Gehenkten
Spricht man nur noch vom Strick.
A sow that has been shot dead,
Six piglets suckle for milk.
With a group decision,
Blind man’s bluff and sack-jumping
Were from then on only in books.
Someone climbed up a tower
And stared south for a long time.
All that was long ago,
Ever since then nothing has changed.
In the house of the hanged
They only speak of the rope.
Durch nassgeregnete Hecken
Regnet der Regen, regnet
Die Bergwand in Not.
Im Nebel steigen die Männer zum Berg
Und rufen sich laut.
Kalter Rauch weht um die Häuser herum.
Am Baum sind die Äpfel gefroren.
Wenn die Nacht sinkt,
Stirbt gas Gesicht.
Regen fällt neimals nach oben.
Through rain-wet bushes
Rains the rain, the face of the mountain
Rains in need.
In the mist the men climb the mountain
And yell loudly to each other.
Cold smoke blows around the houses.
The apples on the tree have frozen.