I Could Honestly Listen To Werner Herzog Talk All Day

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | November 9, 2023 |

By Petr Navovy | Miscellaneous | November 9, 2023 |

It’s not exactly an original or groundbreaking thing to say that Werner Herzog is great to listen to. The veteran filmmaker and pioneer of the New German Cinema movement has directed such eternal classics as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Grizzly Man, among many more, but he has also woven himself into our cultural fabric thanks to the inimitable way that he expresses his worldview—both in his films and outside of them. That fact that more often than not he speaks the truth makes things all the more intoxicating, whether he’s diagnosing and describing the obscenity of modern capitalist society—‘there should be a war against commercials’—or the perversion and hostility of the natural world. Herzog has been memed so much now—often with his knowing participation (starring both in The Simpsons and Rick And Morty, to name just two)—and his unique and evocative choices of phrase can be so memorable, that it’s sometimes easy to forget the substance of what he’s saying. But there’s a reason why the man is so endlessly compelling to listen to: He’s the closest we have to some sort of poet-prophet figure. As we stand over the maw of catastrophe (with many areas of the world already falling), his words ring louder than ever. I could watch clips like this all day: