I watched Grizzly man last night and after hearing Werner say he thinks nature is made of “chaos, hostility and murder. I ussually like to watch ‘Otters holding hands’ on youtube but this morning my beloved reminded me that terry nutkins lost his fingers to otters.
Here are some other facts and quotes that interest me about Werner Herzog:
He once went on foot to Paris from Munich to see a dying friend.
“Were I to become impoverished, it wouldn’t surprise or frighten me. I’ve never cared about possessions.”
Herzog means duke in German, “like Duke Ellington. My nom de guerre.”
“The lack of a father figure, says Herzog with a hearty laugh, was, in fact, a blessing. “I thank God on my knees that there was no commander around telling us what to do.” Fatherlessness also has symbolic resonance for an artist born at the end of the war, a child of a “lost generation”, as Herzog puts it. “My big brother and I were men at 13,” he says, “we could have raised families.
“Well, I recently saw a film celebrating the life of Katharine Hepburn, whom I actually like as an actress. It was some kind of homage to her but unfortunately it turns out that she has these vanilla ice-cream emotions. At the end she is sitting 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 very deeply about it all, then she looks straight into the camera and says, ‘Listen to the Song of Life.’ And the film ends.
I was cringing it hurt so much. I still smart just thinking about it. And hearing this was such a blow that I even wrote it into the Minnesota Declaration, Article Ten, which I repeat here and now for you, Paul. I look you right in the eye and say, ‘Don’t you ever listen to the Song of Life.'”
