Werner Herzog's Minnesota Declaration

On April 30, 1999, filmmaker Werner Herzog visited the Walker Art Center to conclude a monthlong retrospective of his films with a public dialogue with critic Roger Ebert. But before the conversation began, Herzog walked to center stage, alone, and addressed the crowd: “Ladies and gentlemen, before we start this dialogue, I would like to make a statement. It is something that I have reflected upon for many years in the frustration of seeing so many documentary films. […] There’s something ultimately and deeply wrong about the concept of what constitutes fact and what constitutes truth in documentaries in particular.” He then read a list of 12 principles-one he’d expand upon 18 years later in a six-point addendum-dubbed the Minnesota Declaration. Reprinted, quoted, and debated again and again by film scholars and enthusiasts alike in the years since, the manifesto has proven historic: as Ebert later wrote, “For the first time, it fully explained his theory of ‘ecstatic truth.’”

[@jorbore1413]

Risk of Rain 2 song title!

[@k90v85]

...and so he left, with everything but his humanity

[@GreenGuyGeno]

You came for this 3:15

[@olitomar]

YOU came for that

[@quinbomcfly8354]

thanks my good slime

[@Moonstruck_Arrow]

Yeah I did, thanks

[@Puzzle_Dust]

They laugh but it is no joke

[@olitomar]

Frivolous audience. You cannot legislate stupidity!

[@romainpeyronnet3843]

" I TELL THE TRUTH, IT IS THE BEST JOKE'" - Someone i don't rememeber

[@DavidSaks]

Wonderful !

[@lilacocto9103]

This guy's voice is extremely familiar, he sounds like the Imperial client from the Mandalorian

[@ratcheeto]

thas cause he is friend

[@charr420]

ror 2 songs title 😳

[@RoofDoggLove]

TOURISM IS SIN

[@olitomar]

Travel by foot, virtue!!

[@ERROR-ei5yv]

1. By dint of declaration the so-called Cinema Verité is devoid of verité. 2. One well-known representative of Cinema Verité declared publicly that truth can be easily found by taking a camera and trying to be honest. 3. Cinema Verité confounds fact and truth, and thus plows only stones. 4. Fact creates norms, and truth illumination. 5. There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. 6. Filmmakers of Cinema Verité resemble tourists who take pictures of ancient ruins of facts. 7. Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue. 8. Each year at springtime scores of people on snowmobiles crash through the melting ice on the lakes of Minnesota and drown. 9. The gauntlet is herby thrown down. 10. The moon is dull. 11. We ought to be grateful that the Universe out there knows no smile. 12. Life in the oceans must be sheer hell.