Legendary Werner Herzog talks books with author Robert Pogue Harrison: full-length version

Renowned filmmaker Werner Herzog comes to Stanford to discuss J.A. Baker's ""The Peregrine"" - and much more - as part of the Another Look book club series. The conversation with acclaimed author Robert Pogue Harrison, Stanford's Rosina Pierotti Professor in Italian Literature, took place on February 2, 2016, at Dinkelspiel Auditorium. [anotherlook.sta...]
For highlights, go here: • Legendary Werner Herzo...

[@VSCassidy]

Other books/texts mentioned or read from if anybody cares: Virgil's Georgics (David Ferry translation, FSG), Werner Herzog - A Guide for the Perplexed (F&F), Werner Herzog - Of Walking In Ice (Vintage Classics), The Poetic Edda (Texas University Press), Bernal Diaz del Castillo - The Conquest of New Spain, The Warren Report, Werner Herzog - Conquest of the Useless (Ecco), The Florentine Codex (University of Utah Press)

[@moonk_floor]

It's extremely beautiful when an artist speaks of truth, of his constant pursuit of accomplishing something beautiful and yet inconclusive. This is poetry, and it's possible to identify in all Herzogs films.

[@Wrenasmir]

A wonderful conversation between two remarkably thoughtful souls on one of the most phenomenologically thoughtful books of the past century. Thank you for sharing it.

[@Neat0_o]

I like this mans philosophy on walking. I’ve went for many walk. Long walks. I can tell you one thing, It’s the easiest place to scramble one’s mind and can completely take you. And the story of that German poet walking and arriving completely mad was scary but tragically beautiful just the same.

[@aaroninky]

What a sublime pairing. I cannot believe it.

[@Octa95]

Herzog reading dwarf names was all I needed.

[@gaulandisteinverbrecherisc6259]

That's where Tolkien served himself.

[@cameronsmith8242]

I think Werner Herzog achieved nothing short of enlightenment on his long walks. His fascination with the present above all is telling

[@flowerdna]

Great work, Robert. Fantastic interview, as usual.

[@HamishCrawford]

As a university lecturer I am horrified by the lack of reading by my students, about the only thing they have ever read are textbooks related to the subject of study, they have never read for pleasure of personal development, its truly horrifying and frightening that theses are our future leaders.

[@wolfdogrun]

I teach 16/17 year olds in India. My reaction was the same initially but I have now found out that the syllabus itself keeps them from reading for pleasure. Some are even discouraged from reading anything else than textbooks as it might 'distract' them from studies. The syllabus, for English at least, doesn't carry a connecting theme or ideas and is a mostly random collection of prose and poetry and excerpts from novels. Not at all good for learning.

[@liltick102]

I read the 53% of people cannot even watch a film now without subtitles.. I’ve seen this: “I cannot understand it w/o subs” ... fucked.

[@PearsAreOkay]

​@@liltick102I would venture to say that's more likely a confluence of modern recording technology and low skilled actors that aren't trained in theatre, proper projection and enunciation, but the lack of reading for the pleasure part is indeed quite dismaying

[@schizvoid8774]

I’m 22 and I will never step foot in a university or college but I do think the amount people my age that don’t read for pleasure and for the growth of knowledge is pretty sad.

[@pedterson]

"It's the accountant's truth you're after. You get a straight A, you idiot!" Words to live by.

[@baggyBr33ks]

what timestamp is this quote at?

[@baggyBr33ks]

@28:30

[@cinnamon4605]

Wonderful poetic conversation!

[@surfraptor]

"Ornithologists should be denied to read this book" Brilliant.

[@pch2230]

As a birdwatcher I know Baker writes from The Imagination. As a reader I know Baker's writing attains The Ecstatic.

[@BrettonFerguson]

I dislike most poetry, but I love old German and Icelandic poetry.. The ones that are all like: "Once struck his shield hath shattered, twain through head his brain doth splattered".

[@Johnconno]

'He's given us some of the most memorable films of all time, which people ignored or booed at the time of their release.'

[@cowboypuddingproductions5424]

I think Herzog's statement about reading over television and movies isn't the whole truth. It's accurate, but incomplete. Martin Scorsese talked about how when tablets were invented, Socrates decried writing notes down because knowledge wouldn't have to be retained in one's head anymore and one would become dependent on the tablets. Nowadays, writing is seen as literary and visual media is widely decried. There is a basis of that; it's much easier to passively consume movies and tv than books, and one can watch Fuller House and not necessarily put that much thought into the process as a novel. However, Scorsese believes that if you are to be a filmmaker, you need to be "visually literate". If you want to create great movies, you need to extract the vocabulary of the medium you're working in in order to do that. I adore the guy, and I might just kill to have his career, but I think Herzog's decrying of the visual arts when he only watches about 4 movies a year is kind of baseless. Don't get me wrong; just because you watch a bunch of movies doesn't mean you are a profound thinker as a result. But "reading" is another way of saying "close observation", an active process one can use for any artistic medium. Herzog may get more fulfillment out of literature than cinema, and I wouldn't begrudge him for that at all. However, I think cinema is wonderful, and one can see just as much growth in character and perspective from that medium as any. Still, listen to Herzog. Reading is a good thing to do as well.

[@isaacdunne991]

Very well said, I totally agree. Well done! :)

[@grisflyt]

Late reply, but... I don't necessarily disagree with you, but current Hollywood is more visually illiterate than in a very long time. Today's filmmakers seem to be more influenced by games than movies and it doesn't work. You just have pretty pictures without substance. (This is no criticism of computer games. I have high respect for what they do. But movies and games are very different things. They are judged by very different criteria.) There's a YT video comparing the anime and live-action versions of Ghost in the Shell. The latter is largely a shot by shot remake, but the filmmaker doesn't seem to understand the "content" of what he reshot. Christopher Doyle never watched movies growing up. He went to the movies in his teens, but only to make out with girls. He has no film education. He did work in the theater. That, too, may have been about scoring girls. "Christopher Doyle Masterclass in Cinematography" kzbin.info/www/bejne/n3Wwg3VrmKilsLs Big budget Hollywood productions always give you those boring panning shots. They seem to be there only to show that this is a big budget production. One of my all-time favorite scenes is an indoor scene in A Chine Ghost Story from 1987. Thin on establishment shots. Shooting a scene this way is supposed to be disorienting for the viewer. It's not. It's just flawless. Scene starts here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/enS7hmOXnr-geM0, unsubtitled but doesn't matter. To paraphrase Christopher Doyle, Western filmmakers think their audiences are idiots and need everything explained. The sad part about this is that filmmaking today is much easier than it used to be. You wouldn't have to drag a steamboat over a mountain to shoot Fitzcarraldo today. You would do it in CGI. I also think this development is somewhat inevitable. There was a Spanish (I think) study some years ago concluding that popular music is sounding more and more alike. Today "super producers" like Max Martin are responsible for just about everything we hear. They are successful because they know what sound, beat, "hook" etc., sells. People's "comfort zones" are shrinking and everything that falls outside of it is "random" (perhaps my most hated expression). Foreign movies are frequently called random. Any movie or music that doesn't meet expectations (conventions) gets marginalized as random.

[@leeclapham123]

Im too impatient to go back a rewatch the relevant part of the video but I didnt really hear him decry film, I thought he more so said that his writing would endure longer than film. Film is a lazier medium to absorb than reading - so in some way reading holds more value for the consumer, although having the opportunity to consume both is even better. I also think when you talk about making films vs consuming them, those are two totally different things.

[@decem_sagittae]

Can't believe I read all that crap

[@panchalbhupendra1782]

Yes, absolutely right said, though I also like reading much ,but to be gd filmmaker you got to see atleast great movies to enrich your taste, that way Andrei tarkovsky has noted in book a lot about watching movies,

[@kingfisher9553]

"Be cautious with too many cultural references" says Werner. And that is how I felt about much of what Harrison said. He's been too educated with literary criticism - although he got very close to poetry when he described Jimmy Hendrix.

[@junechevalier]

I think what J A Baker achieved in this book, Tarkovsky achieved in films

[@caselli4354]

good observations, especially to stay with what apparently isn't relevant

[@junechevalier]

@@caselli4354 Yeah there's some sense of meandering, but then you learn not to fight it and go with the flow, and then you find that it's all coming together. And from then on you begin to trust the author or filmmaker to guide you through the process

[@caselli4354]

June Chevalier it's basically a spiritual way of living a life in sanity: to learn not to fight things and go with the flow it's interesting to transport that quality into film, books or any art of expression

[@junechevalier]

@@caselli4354 Yeah that's a good way of looking at it

[@Vingul]

Herzog and Tarkovsky -- my two favourite filmmakers.

[@katherinerussell6230]

“Not reconciled with the world.”

[@pinakibhattacharyya7853]

Getting older is a great thing. Old learned people like Herzog are so sexy. Such a great narrator and storyteller!

[@liltick102]

Thank you so much

[@hunterhemingway3477]

the boldest of the bold

[@paulmartin7254]

I wish he would have specified whose translations of the various books he was reading from.

[@BrettonFerguson]

@38:26 "So did I. I wanted to fly my whole life". So did little Dieter Dengler.

[@flat_foot9017]

20:55 wait what XD those glasses

[@BrettonFerguson]

@59:15 If they were from Louisiana, they were alligators. The USA only has Alligators as a native species. The only non-alligator species living in the wild in the USA, is the Caiman in southern Florida. Caiman are not native to Florida, they escaped from a zoo during a hurricane or somehow got to Florida from South America recently, sometime in the last few decades.

[@user-rh1uf5dl9q]

Better than Food sent me here

[@pisistrat4549]

There's some weird laughs in the background. Is there a bunch of birds sitting?

[@BrettonFerguson]

FACT: The Pyramids of Egypt were a waste of resources which could have otherwise been used to build chariots, walls, fortifications and weapons to keep out the Babylonians to the east and Nubians to the south. TRUTH: The Pyramids were one of the best allocations of resources in history, everything else has been a waste.

[@leeclapham123]

question: what is the value of ART

[@jacobadams5924]

I don't know...all I see in them now is a scheme...and the schemers....

[@ThoughTObjecTMusic]

Herzog is ASMR

[@traveltime997]

Can you not keep a constant volume control?

[@vanderbrock]

American scholar gives a thumbs up and Werner looks at him and thinks 'Ugh, I'm embarrassed now'.

[@maxischmidt8845]

1:08:50 Zwerge haben nicht klein angefangen

[@thomaskirkpatrick1134]

Brilliant!

[@adventureStaley]

Awesome

[@viniciusgirnys]

poor Robert...

[@Krophett]

can some one help me fin the quotes they use?

[@wernergurner]

1:07:56

[@e.p.4856]

18:35

[@oscargustaverejlander.]

This audience is primarily undeserving.

[@stephenmoran2611]

Wasn't taken very much with the interviewer. Didn't really bring anything out of Werner. He wasn't very emotionally in tune with his interviewee. This could easily have been a monologue.

[@clearlyarussianbot]

I think Werner has rather high esteem for his writing to think it will live on beyond his films. Might have missed the mark on that one.

[@logeshwars7871]

He didn't!

[@SapphosGalPal]

No, he even specified. He didn't say he'll be remembered for his writing, but that they'll outlive his films. I think what he meant by that was that the written word will outlive technology, will outlive humanity itself.

[@ck88777]

the audience shouldnt be allowed to laugh because they dont know what to laugh at

[@ck88777]

seriously though, he reads a beautiful passage from the book and they laugh? its the peanut gallery

[@shieldsluck1969]

🦭Where the heck is the albino crocodile emoji? 🐻‍❄_*No, that's not!*_ Damned. Can't get it. YT suggests me a green one without any *"ecstatic truth"*

[@genericusername337]

we're all here to hear werner herzog talk about his opinions and experiences, but he can get pretty obnoxious here with the way that he interrupts robert, and disagrees immediately with quotations from other writers or with things that many people assume (academia, whether it's safe to eat an abandoned carcass). he teaches The Peregrine to his film students, but he seems pretty dismissive of anyone else's thoughts on the book, even when robert is trying to agree with werner in his own words.

[@surfraptor]

Agree.

[@tozot2]

Looks like someone missed the entire point: art is different from science and there is no need for facts in the former... Talking about poetic license is really not needed... It just makes Herzog's point even stronger....

[@genericusername337]

@@tozot2 I don't get you. The only thing I said that I can imagine you addressing is about eating the peregrine's leftovers. Is that the science vs art thing you're talking about?

[@Theo_Theemuts]

@Wolfgang H I regard it (the points addressed above) to be mainly ego issues. It happens the best...

[@leeclapham123]

it could be read as ego (very common for 2 men to engage in ego war) but also could be passion and not wanting for the point to be misconstrued, hard to really say which.

[@andremccree8937]

herzog never came close to surpassing aguirre the wrath of god

[@aripapas1098]

woyzeck was in a class of its own

[@jero4059]

Werner Herzog is full of..

[@Vingul]

wonder.

[@rebel.shekh79]

The problem is that he philosophizes and considers himself unique Why for heaven's sake? What did he make or give? Nothing, just silly films

[@user-zs6ht]

You are utterly full of stupidity and for that you must be crushed by the heels of God’s Holy black boots

[@rebel.shekh79]

@@user-zs6ht It is absolutely certain that you suffer from psychological and mental illnesses

[@andremccree8937]

Herzog should stop pretending that he is an intellectual. He is a filmmaker first, not a writer. His films will live on. nobody reads today, or cares about books.

[@Vingul]

When I first heard him say that, I thought it was a wild Herzogian exaggeration, but it's actually true: he is as good a writer as a filmmaker. I've read Conquest of the Useless twice and want to pick it up again soon. "Of Walking in Ice" will probably be the next book I order.

[@Vingul]

By the way, his writing is in no sense "intellectual". Missed the mark completely with that one.

[@Vingul]

P.S. I've read Conquest of the Useless once more now ;-) fantastic writing.

[@gaulandisteinverbrecherisc6259]

He is a good writer. Let's hope he will write more.

[@millerfour2071]

1:17:58