Werner Herzog Q&A

Kaleem Aftab catches up with the director of the current Time Out film of the week, 'Grizzly Man'.

Feb  3 2006

'Grizzly Man' marks something of a comeback for Werner Herzog. A documentary in the spirit of 'My Best Fiend' and 'Little Dieter Needs to Fly', it stars Timothy Treadwell, a failed actor who makes Klaus Kinski look sane. Treadwell spent a few months every year living with grizzly bears in Alaska, hoping to prove that bears and humans could co-exist. Herzog weaves his story from the video footage found after Treadwell's death in Alaska.

When did you first hear about Timothy Treadwell?

The producer Erik Nelson had the project and I spotted it by chance. Nelson produces two or three hundred hours of documentary footage each year for National Geographic and the Discovery Channel and I was leaving his house one day when I saw an article on his messy desk about Timothy Treadwell. I read the article and I knew immediately that this person was part of the family of characters who are in my movies.

You seem as fascinated by his work as a filmmaker as you are by his living with grizzly bears.

Of course I had to give Timothy credit as a filmmaker because he has left footage of great intensity and beauty of something that no money on this planet could ever achieve. You do not get that kind of footage with a Hollywood studio behind you.

What was your reaction on seeing Timothy's footage?

It was so outstanding that I had to stop sometimes in the edit studio and I, with the editor, would scramble down to the streets and furiously smoke a cigarette. Both of us had quit smoking but we just couldn't take it; we had to calm down and smoke a cigarette. During these nine days both of us went back to smoking.

If Timothy had lived, do you think he could have made a decent film?

I am the person who discovered the beauty and depth in the material that I'm sure he would have thrown away and discarded. For example, when Timothy leaves a frame and there is only wafting grass in the wind and then he returns, he would have cut out the piece in the middle – the useless empty moment which is actually the great beauty.

Why do you like traversing the boundary between reality and fiction by mixing documentary footage with fiction?

I've always postulated, not just in documentaries but in my feature films as well, that reality is a superficial layer and what we should be looking out for is a deep strata of truth. I've always been after what I call an ecstatic truth. It is very strange because this term has caught on and it has spread like wildfire, almost everyone talks about it. The background to all of this is that there is a very real necessity for redefining reality.

Can you think of a moment that is ecstatic truth? Is it like seeing your favourite football team score a goal?

That is more a physical ecstasy, an exhilaration, that you feel and you share it with other spectators. Ecstasy of truth you would find in the practice of mystic monks, for example. Anyway, I don't want to define it. The term 'ecstatic truth' is searching for truth beyond the facts and much deeper than facts; that is something I look out for and 'Grizzly Man' is a very good example of it.

Why did you make yourself such a dominant character in a film about Treadwell?

It was quite important for me to take a very clear attitude, and to see and handle the tragedy of this man from my own perspective. One cannot pretend to be an objective observer when attempting to discover what is Timothy's legacy and put this into a narrative structure. This was a very, very personal movie.

You've made over 50 films, yet you're more popular outside of your homeland. Do you feel appreciated?

I've felt appreciated all the time. Maybe it's because the films I've made do not age. When you look at 'Aguirre: Wrath of God', it is as if I made it yesterday.

You're about to act in Harmony Korine's next film, 'Mr Lonely'. What is the attraction of his films?

Well his films are very, very different from mine. But I think that there is a similar quest from that man. I think that he is looking for a different grammar of images and I'm into that as well.

What would you say is your major strength as a filmmaker?

I think I'm good at titles. You cannot get better than 'Even Dwarfs Started Small'.

'Grizzly Man' opens on today.

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