20 3.29.
Talk
In the more than 50 years since his fi rst
feature fi lm, the director Werner Herzog
has come to seem more and more like
one of the existentially inclined dreamers
who populate his work. Those adventur-
ous and often ontologically fuzzy fi lms
include art-house classics like ‘‘Fitzcar-
raldo’’ and ‘‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God,’’
as well as highly stylized documentaries
like ‘‘Grizzly Man,’’ ‘‘Cave of Forgotten
Dreams’’ and his latest, ‘‘Nomad: In the
Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin,’’ about the
late travel writer. Herzog, who is 77,
has also developed into a compellingly
portentous on-screen acting presence,
including a role as a villain in the Disney+
‘‘Star Wars’’ spinoff series ‘‘The Mandal-
orian’’ — the latest twist in a career glori-
ously lacking in the mundane. ‘‘How do
we give meaning to our lives?’’ Herzog
said. ‘‘That question has been lingering
over my work and life. That’s what I’ve
been pursuing for a very long time.’’
A lot of your fi lms deal with apocalyp-
tic themes and imagery. At the risk of
overstating things, what eff ect might
something like coronavirus have on your
— and our — imagination? That’s a good
question. We may see another Boccaccio’s
‘‘The Decameron’’ — it’s the time of the
plague in Florence, and everybody fl ees
to the countryside into exile, and then
the storytelling begins. So you may have
the origin of imagination or culture. But
I can’t predict how I’m going to respond
to coronavirus. Everybody, in a way, will
have to respond.
Your narration, in ‘‘Grizzly Man’’^1 for
example, is famous for your descriptions
of nature as impersonal and savage. The
monumental indiff erence.
Why are you inclined to interpret nature
that way rather than, say, in the more
cosmically harmonious manner of the
Dalai Lama? You interviewed him for
one of your documentaries.^2 I advise
you to go outside on a clear night and
look out into the universe. It seems utter-
ly indiff erent to what we are doing. Now
we are taking a very close look at the sun
with a space probe. Look at the utmost
hostility of the hundreds of millions of
atomic bombs going off at the same time
in its interior. So my personal interpreta-
tion of nature comes from taking a quick
look at the stars.
It always seemed so weird to me that
you live in Los Angeles. You’re someone
who believes in the almost spiritual
importance of traveling on foot, and
this is a city where no one walks. But
that would be strolling or ambling. I’ve
never been into that. I see how you are
looking at me.
How am I looking at you? With bemused
skepticism.
I didn’t mean to convey skepticism.
You’ve talked in the past about your
desire for your documentaries to con-
vey ecstatic truth^3 — or deeper truth
— rather than what you’ve called ‘‘the
truth of accountants.’’ Does anything
about the need for ecstatic truth feel dif-
ferent now, at a time when even factual
truth feels destabilized? I’ll make it very
simple. My witness is Michelangelo, who
did the statue of the Pietà. When you look
at Jesus taken down from the cross, it’s
the tormented face of a 33-year-old man.
You look at the face of his mother: His
mother is 17. So let me ask: Did Michel-
angelo give us fake news? Defraud us?
Lie to us? I’m doing exactly the same.
You have to know the context in which
you become inventive.Does ecstatic truth have any connection
to morality? Invented truth or facts can
serve a dubious purpose. What I do serves
a purpose, and that is to elate us, to lift us
up, to give us a sense of something sub-
lime. Ekstasis in ancient Greek means to
step outside yourself. All of a sudden, we
have a glimpse of something deeper that
might be behind the images. Something
like an ecstasy of truth.
When I was in touch with you about
doing this interview, you said you’ve
had issues with articles about you being
inaccurate. Do you remember that?
Yeah, sure. Inaccuracy always happens.
What if those inaccuracies were a
result of the writers’ trying to achieve
an ecstatic truth? In that case, go ahead.
You’ve got my blessings. I have explained
the purpose behind ecstatic truth, but you
are free. Just go wild. Swing wildly.
Did you ever fi nd out who shot you?^4
I was shot at various times. You mean
here in Los Angeles?
Yes. No. I wasn’t interested.
When you pulled Joaquin Phoenix
from a car accident,^ did you know itBelow: Werner
Herzog with Claudia
Cardinale and
Klaus Kinski on the
set of ‘‘Fitzcarraldo.’’
Right, top: Timothy
Treadwell in
‘‘Grizzly Man.’’ Right,
bottom: Herzog in
‘‘The Mandalorian.’’David Marchese
is the magazine’s
Talk columnist.