from birth, feeling the mystery of a tree; a man asleep on the side of a volcano; midgets chasing runaway automobiles; a man standing on an outcropping rock in the middle of a barren sea; a man hauling a ship up the side of a mountain.
"We do not have adequate images for our kind of civilization," Herzog said. "What are we to look at? The ads at the travel agent's of the Grand Canyon? We are surrounded by images that are worn out, and I believe that unless we discover new images, we will die out. Die like the dinosaurs. And I mean it physically."
He leaned forward, speaking intensely, as if time were running out. "Frogs do not apparently need images, and cows do not need them, either. But we do. Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel for the first time articulated human pathos in a new way that was adequate to the understanding of his time. I am not looking to make films in which actors stand around and say words that some screenwriter has thought were clever. That is why I use midgets, and a man who spent twenty-four years in prisons and asylums (Bruno S., the hero of Stroszek) and the deaf and blind, and why I shoot with actors who are under hypnosis, for example. I am trying to make something that has not been made before."
I said Fitzcarraldo almost seemed to be about itself: a film about a man who hauled a ship up a hill, made by a man who hauled a real ship up a real hill to make a film.
"It was not planned like that," Herzog said. "It was not planned to be as difficult as it was. It came to a point where the purpose of the film, the making of the film, the goals of the film, and how to make the film all became one and the same thing: to get that ship up the hill. When Jason Robards fell ill and returned to America, before I replaced him with Klaus Kinski, I thought about playing Fitzcarraldo myself. I came very close."
Why did you have to use a real boat?
"There was never any question in my mind about that. All those trashy special effects and miniatures that you see in Hollywood movies have caused audiences to lose trust in their eyes. Here, in my film, they are given back trust in their own eyes. When the boat goes up the mountain, people look at the screen, looking for something to tell them it's a trick, but it's no trick. Instinctively, they sense it. An image like that gives you courage for your own dreams."
He smiled, a little grimly. "It's a film," he said, "that will not have a remake. That man who is going to make this film again has to be born first." He paused for thought. "The mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria," he said, "could have made this film."
I observed that in Burden of Dreams there seemed to be some controversy over the safety and practicality of hauling the ship up the hill.
"I had engineers," Herzog said, "and I disposed of them. I had the basic idea of winches and pulleys, of a chain of combined winches. In prehistory, you can see that perhaps man did that same thing. In Brittany, there are huge boulders of rock that may have been moved two miles up ramps, with an artificial hill and a crater at the end. Whether that is how they moved those rocks or not, I fantasized about it. I saw them on a long walk I took across France and Germany. If Fitzcarraldo has a passport and we must list its place of birth, I would list Carnac, in Brittany, where those boulders are one of the miracles of the world. That ass Erich von Daniken, who writes of the ancient astronauts, cannot believe man is capable of such a feat, but I say give me two years and two thousand men and I will do it all over again for you."
But when you were pulling that ship up the hill, I asked, did you ever question your purpose? Did you wonder if it was all just a little ludicrous?
"There were always low points and lower, and points below the lowest," he said. "I did not allow myself private feelings. I had not the privilege of despair, anxiety, pain. I never paused, I never lost faith, and I have faith enough for fifteen more
"We do not have adequate images for our kind of civilization," Herzog said. "What are we to look at? The ads at the travel agent's of the Grand Canyon? We are surrounded by images that are worn out, and I believe that unless we discover new images, we will die out. Die like the dinosaurs. And I mean it physically."
He leaned forward, speaking intensely, as if time were running out. "Frogs do not apparently need images, and cows do not need them, either. But we do. Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel for the first time articulated human pathos in a new way that was adequate to the understanding of his time. I am not looking to make films in which actors stand around and say words that some screenwriter has thought were clever. That is why I use midgets, and a man who spent twenty-four years in prisons and asylums (Bruno S., the hero of Stroszek) and the deaf and blind, and why I shoot with actors who are under hypnosis, for example. I am trying to make something that has not been made before."
I said Fitzcarraldo almost seemed to be about itself: a film about a man who hauled a ship up a hill, made by a man who hauled a real ship up a real hill to make a film.
"It was not planned like that," Herzog said. "It was not planned to be as difficult as it was. It came to a point where the purpose of the film, the making of the film, the goals of the film, and how to make the film all became one and the same thing: to get that ship up the hill. When Jason Robards fell ill and returned to America, before I replaced him with Klaus Kinski, I thought about playing Fitzcarraldo myself. I came very close."
Why did you have to use a real boat?
"There was never any question in my mind about that. All those trashy special effects and miniatures that you see in Hollywood movies have caused audiences to lose trust in their eyes. Here, in my film, they are given back trust in their own eyes. When the boat goes up the mountain, people look at the screen, looking for something to tell them it's a trick, but it's no trick. Instinctively, they sense it. An image like that gives you courage for your own dreams."
He smiled, a little grimly. "It's a film," he said, "that will not have a remake. That man who is going to make this film again has to be born first." He paused for thought. "The mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria," he said, "could have made this film."
I observed that in Burden of Dreams there seemed to be some controversy over the safety and practicality of hauling the ship up the hill.
"I had engineers," Herzog said, "and I disposed of them. I had the basic idea of winches and pulleys, of a chain of combined winches. In prehistory, you can see that perhaps man did that same thing. In Brittany, there are huge boulders of rock that may have been moved two miles up ramps, with an artificial hill and a crater at the end. Whether that is how they moved those rocks or not, I fantasized about it. I saw them on a long walk I took across France and Germany. If Fitzcarraldo has a passport and we must list its place of birth, I would list Carnac, in Brittany, where those boulders are one of the miracles of the world. That ass Erich von Daniken, who writes of the ancient astronauts, cannot believe man is capable of such a feat, but I say give me two years and two thousand men and I will do it all over again for you."
But when you were pulling that ship up the hill, I asked, did you ever question your purpose? Did you wonder if it was all just a little ludicrous?
"There were always low points and lower, and points below the lowest," he said. "I did not allow myself private feelings. I had not the privilege of despair, anxiety, pain. I never paused, I never lost faith, and I have faith enough for fifteen more
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