Artikel about Werner Herzog

I've just read a brilliant article in the New Yorker about the latest project of filmmaker Werner Herzog (yes the other Werner from Germany. If you came here without knowing me before then thats allright but if you dont know Werner Herzog you have some work to do). It really gives a great insight into his way of working.

Heres a quote:

"Herzog was being barraged by such complaints. At every turn, crew members let him know that they considered his directing habits strange, impulsive, even amateurish. They couldn’t comprehend why Herzog insisted on grabbing the machete himself when the sound crew wanted to capture the sound of slashed reeds. They were baffled by his ignorance of his own screenplay; Herzog told me that he hadn’t reread it once since writing it, three years earlier, because he wanted to “respond to the situation in the jungle” and “keep things completely fresh.” They were annoyed by continuity errors that Herzog considered “of no great consequence.” (“Werner, isn’t Christian supposed to have a rucksack in this scene?”) They were irritated when Herzog declared that someone’s unfinished makeup looked “good enough,” and that he couldn’t wait for it to be perfect, because he liked the way the tropical light was filtering through the treetops. They objected to his reliance on hastily improvised handheld shots. (“How about using a dolly just this once?”) And they questioned his reluctance to film scenes with more than one camera. (“The audience will never see Christian’s reaction unless you add a closeup.”) Herzog’s stated belief that his approach would create “an event-based dynamic, a feeling of being an observer dragged into the scene,” struck many of his colleagues as a cover for a lack of technique. As they saw it, Herzog was ruining a potentially lush adventure movie by shooting it like a quickie documentary.

The fact that Herzog has been making films for more than forty years, many of them acclaimed as works of unnerving originality, didn’t shake the collective judgment that he was doing it all wrong. The mood on the set was toxic. Josef Lieck, the first assistant director, who has worked with Wim Wenders, said, “For a man of his age, it’s a very . . . raw talent. It’s more like an eighteen-year-old running into the forest.” A costume designer complained, “He doesn’t know basic things about filmmaking, things that simply make it easier to tell a story. He thinks that these things will undermine his vision, but they won’t.” Harry Knapp, an assistant director, said, “There is a silent war on the set. We’re all in a state of shock.” Herzog, for his part, politely ignored the crew’s complaints. Zeitlinger explained, “When making a film, Werner tries to pretend as if nobody is around but him and the actors.”

The rest of the article is great too: Link