665. Werner Herzog Isn’t Afraid ...

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1:19So first of all, I just want to say it's really a pleasure to meet you. I've consumed a fair amount of your work, much less than some, more than others. And you strike me as maybe either the sanest crazy person on the planet or the craziest sane person. No, I'm only sane. I just want to hear you describe how you see the world, and I'll give you some leading questions. And I want to talk about your books, especially your recent book about truth. But I don't know, do you feel like an unusual being? No. I'm as average as it can get.

1:57That is Werner Herzog, the German-born filmmaker and writer and actor and a sort of citizen soldier. He is not average. Hurtag has made more than 70 films. All of them are spirited. Some are absurdist or pretentious. None of them are dull. There is Family Romance LLC about a Japanese entrepreneur who leases out humans to other humans who, for some reason, may need a stand-in family member or friend. There's Grizzly Man, a remarkable documentary about a man who loved bears a little too much. And there are the five films that Herzog made with the actor Klaus Kinski. The Kinski-Herzog relationship was volatile and sometimes violent.

2:45Their two best-known collaborations are Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Both films are about an obsession that tips into madness. In Fitzcarraldo, the Kinski character needs to haul a massive steamship over a steep hill in the Amazon in order to fund a new opera house. Herzog says that 20th Century Fox wanted him to shoot the film in botanical gardens in San Diego and for the ship to use a plastic model. But Herzog got his way. He shot in the Peruvian jungle with a real 320-ton steamship and a real hill. It was a mad adventure, and all the madness of making the film is captured in the film.

3:31Today, you could use AI to generate a decent facsimile of something like that for a tiny fraction of the cost. So is Herzog worried about the competition? I saw a film which was scripted by artificial intelligence and the images made by artificial intelligence. How was it? Completely dead on arrival. A stillborn baby. There's no spark of life in it. Only mimicry of invention. Only mimicry. So I'm not worried. There's no artificial intelligence that really would challenge me. Herzog recently published a book called The Future of Truth. Here's one bit that captures the essence. He writes, I don't think truth is some kind of pole star in the sky that we will one day get to.

4:22It's more like an incessant striving. Today on Freakonomics Radio, here's to incessant striving and what it means, according to Werner Herzog, to be intelligent.

4:48This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with your host, Stephen Dubner. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh.

5:05Werner Herzog is smart enough to understand that a lot of people have a hard time understanding him and his worldview. People are always puzzled by the scope of subjects of my films. There's a world champion of ski flyers and nine films on death row. and there's a film, Fitzcarraldo, a steamship over a mountain and opera in the jungle and on and on. They think, yeah, it's a very separate sort of thing. No, it is not. There's a clearly discernible worldview in all of it. You see it even clearer in my books, and I always consider myself a writer. And you haven't even mentioned, you know, creating operas and acting yourself and doing voiceovers for documentaries and for The Simpsons and on and on.

5:57Just a few days ago for a Korean animated film by the director who did Parasite, a wonderful, very creative man, very good writer, and he wrote a screenplay for an animated film and invited me to be one of the characters. So I did recordings for this character, and it is a deep-sea creature. So I'm good as a deep-sea creature. But, of course, animated. And you see me as a person, for example, as a villain in Jack Reacher. But, of course, it's all performance. We live in this age where I think more people are steered towards specialization. and you've done a lot of things within the arts, but very different within the arts.

6:46And I'm just curious where that comes from. You had this wild childhood where you did a lot of things that children today don't do. You had a traumatic and poor childhood after the war. No, not traumatic. Of course, I was hungry, but it's okay for children. You get through it and you man up later and it's hard for the parents, in this case, hard for the mother who couldn't feed the three boys anymore. And I don't like introspection. There's something not right, not in my life, not in my existence. I try to avoid it. This is why I believe that psychoanalysis is one of the great mistakes of the 20th century.

7:28Of course, it started earlier in the 19th century, but basically a phenomenon of the 20th century. I think it is not good if you illuminate all the dark recesses of the human soul. It's good that we can forget and that we forget traumas. We do not have to unearth them and articulate them in endless sessions with a psychiatrist. And the 20th century is full of very, very deep mistakes. Psychoanalysis is only one. But because of all these monstrous mistakes of this century, I do believe that the 20th century in its entirety was a mistake. The entire 20th century? The entire, yes. Good Lord. Yes.

8:23And I have good reasons to argue. Let's hear some. I would speak of the demise of social utopias. It begins with communism. It had its demise, and of course, fascism and the barbarism of the Nazis, which has been unprecedented, postulating a master race dominating the planet. So this social utopia, thanks God, has come to an ignominious end. Atomic bomb, for example. And maybe the most significant of all that, in the 20th century, the population of the world grew from one and a half billion, roughly, to six billion. And that's the greatest of all disasters. Both your parents, you said, were, I think, enthusiastic was the word you used, adherents of the Nazi party.

9:20In the early time, yeah. And my mother more the socialist, the national socialismus, meaning what Röhm represented, whom Hitler had eliminated, executed fairly early on, because he was more in the mainstream of socialism and not so much nationalism. It's a long, complex debate, but that was more the sources of where my mother took her credo. But she was, shall I say, intelligent enough, and she was so much rooted in the real world with three boys to raise all alone that she came to very sobering conclusions fairly early on. You were born during World War II in Munich, yeah? Yeah, I was born 1942.

10:11So by the time that you're a thinking, sentient human, I'm curious what kind of conversations you had with your mother about the beginning of the war in the Nazi party. Well, only much later when I was grown up enough to ask the right questions. Still mysterious to me in a way. My father barely knew, so I didn't have real serious conversations with him about it. but puzzling, disturbing, and giving me a sense of becoming vigilant. What do you mean by that? Just look out what is happening. For example, you do have neo-Nazis in Germany. You have them in other countries as well. It's not Germany alone, but if it starts in Germany, it's alarming for me.

11:03You've said you would pick up arms against them if they... Sure, I would instantly. That's what we have to do, I mean, as a German. It doesn't matter which age I am. You have to do something drastic, if necessary, militant. You now live in Los Angeles, yes? Yes, yeah, because I'm happily married there. No other big reason. And, of course— What's good weather? No, I don't care about that. I could live near the North Pole or whatever. It doesn't matter. Now I need a roof over my head and something good to read. And that's it, what I need. How do you feel about living in the U.S. during this rather odd time, politically, socially, etc.?

11:47Well, these times come and go. America has great resilience. It has a strange ability to rejuvenate itself, to start again, to recalibrate itself. So you don't have to complain about what is happening. It is a consequence of many things that people, in particular East Coast, West Coast, have overlooked. And that's the heartland, the heartland of America and their values. And the fact that they are underrepresented, undereducated, underpaid, disenfranchised to some degree, this is serious. And I love the heartland of America much more than the fringes. The fringes are Boston, New York. You've written about New York.

12:44You don't like it very much, do you? I like New York. It's an incredible city, and I like that it forces you to a certain rhythm, speed, and energy. I also am not completely against the hostility of New York. It's okay. It's challenging. You really are whipped into doing something. Los Angeles is the city with the most substance in the United States. The most substance, you said? In what way? First and foremost, cultural substance. But don't forget that there's a huge amount of industry there. When you fly into Los Angeles, you see all these industrial areas, flat roofs, gigantic factories. Reusable rockets are being built within the perimeter of the city.

13:37You don't have this factory in the Bronx. You don't have it near Wall Street. Of course, people immediately think the superficial side, glitz and glamour of Hollywood. That's what I don't mean. But serious art, all the artists that made New York important, they were late 1940s, early 1950s. The last straggler, in a way, was Andy Warhol. It's a place where you consume culture, New York. It's generated in Los Angeles. The painters are living there nowadays. Not all, but some very important ones. Writers, mathematicians, also stupidities like crazy sects. Yoga classes for five-year-olds. I mean, it's grotesque.

14:31Great universities. LACMA is going to open very soon, and all of a sudden you will have one of the two, three most important museums in the United States. I mean, it has great museums already, and it's going to be big. You see, I'm the one who says it at a time where nobody believes it, nobody notices it. And it's wonderful to articulate it now. Nobody believes it about L.A., you're saying? No, you find it kind of funny when I say it. I see your face. So I've been to L.A. maybe 20 times in my life, never for more than a week. And I love L.A. It's just so different from New York that I feel like I need to orient myself anew.

15:15But being a New Yorker, I do want to ask you, let's say that I consider it tragic that New York has fallen behind in the arts, as you said. Oh, no, come on. It's not tragic that Florence has fallen behind. It's not tragic that medieval Venice, Italy has fallen behind. So what? It keeps shifting, and it was shifting within Italy, Florence, Rome, Milan, Venice, Ferrara sometimes. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's one country. It's one culture. So what I hear you saying when you mention that is that, you know, time is long. Art can be long, but each of us moves through this space in a relatively short time.

16:01You've done a great deal in your life, and I know you're still working on things. But when you think about, you know, one person's life and what you're able to observe and accomplish in regard to the whole span of civilization, how do you process that? How do I process that? Probably because I have an output in doing things like films or books and other activities, acting, operas. Also things in between writing and filmmaking. I did an installation for the Whitney Museum, Hearsay of the Soul, which was partially music, partially images. And it was a wonderful, wonderful task for me. And very strange because I immediately refused the offer to do an installation for the Whitney Biennale.

16:54They said to me on the phone, Ah, yeah, but you're an artist. Aren't you an artist yourself? And I said, No, I'm not an artist. I'm a soldier. And hung up. You're good at saying no to big official requests, it seems. Was it the Prime Minister of Japan you wanted to meet with you? No, the emperor. The emperor. Sorry, it's much, much more embarrassing. It's so embarrassing that I have difficulties to even speak about it. I staged the world premiere of an opera of a contemporary Japanese composer who wanted me desperately to stage it for the first time in the world. And it was somehow known in the media that I was working in the city and not the emperor himself.

17:42It was from his office, cautiously. An official stretched out the feelers where I could meet the emperor in a private audience. It was shortly before the premiere. And of course, there was a lot of turmoil and work and things didn't function yet. But I immediately said to the people of the opera who were on a long table for dinner together, And I said, no, I cannot do that. And I made a remark. I wouldn't even know what to say to the emperor because I should say something of importance, something of gravitas, something formalized. I wouldn't know how to handle it. And there was complete silence.

18:29There are silences that are friendly, but it was a frozen silence. And then into the silence, all of a sudden, And there's a voice asking, whom else then would you like to meet? And without missing a beat, I said, Hiro Onoda, the last Japanese soldier. He'd been in the jungle for 40 years or something, yeah? He surrendered 29 years after the end of the Second World War, still believing that the war was on. I met him, and I had quite a few meetings, and we immediately had a very intense rapport, and ultimately ended up by me writing a novel, The Twilight World. But I actually met the emperor. I invited him very kindly to attend the world premiere of the opera, and the emperor showed up, and I asked for permission to shake his hand.

19:31So I came in the intermission. I shook his hand and he said, stay for a moment. We should speak. And we spoke. And it was very pleasant, by the way. A wonderful short conversation. And it was at the right moment, I think. It was when I had to offer something which was visible. You could see it. And in 15 minutes, intermission was over. And the second act would come. So I didn't come with empty hands. and it was much better then. It's always, I guess, impressed me the way that Germany after the Second World War assessed what had happened and in its schools and its institutions tried to come to grips with why and how and to educate its successive generations.

20:24Can you just talk about that a bit? Did you see that as unusual among nations? Should it be a blueprint? because there apparently are going to continue to be wars into the future. No, it shouldn't be a blueprint. As a German, you do not give a blueprint to the Americans how to handle their educational system. You don't. And you don't tell the Japanese how to deal with their education or the Italians or the... You just name it. You just don't do it. You have to come with your cultural, historical identity. entity, you will come to your conclusions. But of course, Germany was consistent in it from the end of the Second World War until literally today.

21:12And it's not only education, it's translated into legislation. For example, it is a criminal offense to be a denier of Holocaust. If you're a fervent denier and go to public as a denier of the Holocaust, you will end up in jail in Germany. And I think it's good that it is like this. I've heard you speak about living in a culture of complaint. My wife has a phrase for certain kinds of people. She calls them injustice collectors. That's a good characterization, yeah. I'd love you to say whatever more you can about what you mean by a culture of complaint, and especially what you think is the cost of that.

21:53I mean it in a larger context, of course. I mean what you're hinting at politically. And I try to encourage all my friends who are not Trump supporters, I tell them, don't complain. It is a majority. It's not lottery that brought Trump to the presidency. He won the popular vote by a very significant margin, both houses, Senate and Congress, and the Supreme Court is to some degree shaped by him. So it's significant. It doesn't come because he's a lucky man. No, there's a clear worldview, a clear cultural war that he wants to wage. And it's evident. He really says what he means. It's not that there's anything hidden.

22:47And I say to everyone, if you do not agree, take America, the heartland of America. Take it seriously. That's where the heart beats. When you say take it seriously, do you mean that as a political direction, an artistic direction? In every sense. And many of my friends who are working in Los Angeles I say, don't you come from Kansas? Yes, I come from Kansas. And I say, when were you in Kansas last time? Ah, that was 20 years ago. Now you should be every year. When did you meet your high school buddies? Oh, no, contact with them at all. You have to get in touch with them. Ask them how they are doing.

23:33Ask them about their visions. Ask them about their grievances. Keep them engaged. They are your buddies, your high school friends. Do something. Don't complain. I don't like the complaints. I mean it way beyond politics. When I do a workshop for young filmmakers, they have to make a film within nine days, a short film, very short film, but it's a relentless push. And they learn a lot because I'm behind them during casting, choosing some sort of a story, showing them locations. I'm with them going around when they are shooting, look over their backs when they're editing and they have to come up on the 10th day with a finished short film.

24:21The mood in the beginning is always, ah, the film industry is so stupid and they do not finance. And I ask, from where are you? South Korea. And the Americans, they complain, they say the same thing. The Mexicans say the same thing everywhere. The Germans, There's immediately the mood of complaint. I say, you idiots, if you are able-bodied and have the will and the vision to make a film, earn a little bit money. Today you can make a documentary that is cinema quality for under$10 ,000, a one-and-a-half-hour film. Work as an Uber driver. Work in a lunatic asylum. Work as a bouncer in a sex club.

25:04That's what I always recommend. Or as a German rodeo clown like you did, yes? In Mexico, yeah, yeah. Well, I earned money because I had to survive. You earned money in a lot of interesting ways, yeah. Yes, but I made my money really old-fashioned way. I really earned it. Where do you think that culture of complaint, where do you think that comes from? It probably has wide sources, broad sources. In the West, I see an educational system that immediately rewards you for everything. Ah, great job, and it can be a lousy sketch, lousier than anyone in class, and you have to be praised for it. There's no way to tell a kid, well, this wasn't really good work, but I know you can do better, and why don't you work on this?

25:53Bring it to me tomorrow. All of a sudden, you have a good one. It's the philosophy behind education, and the philosophies make the children happy. instead of making them strong. Just, for God's sake, make them strong guys, strong young women. And they will like it. They will like it. And the world out there is complicated and not easy and sometimes very harsh to you. Get prepared. Get yourself ready for it. And that's what is missing. So the reasons for it are quite diversified. But it's a very, very big trend. And I don't like it because when you're a filmmaker, you're out for relentless, relentless judgment.

26:43You will start a storm of negative reviews. The audience will not like your movie. It may be financially a disaster and on and on. You better prepare yourself.

27:01Hollywood is in the middle of one of its fairly regular existential crises. A lot of people say that this time it's really different. But of course, that's what they always say. But it has become much harder over the past 10 years, especially to make a living in film or TV. This would seem strange since people are consuming so much film and TV. But these industries have warped economics. They've been warped for decades. Maybe we should do a series on that someday. Anyway, Herzog doesn't let rejection get him down. There was a project once to do a film on Mike Tyson, which fell apart. But I like him.

27:41What attracted you to him and his story? His intelligence, his knowledge. I immediately had a conversation about the Roman Republic. He triggered it about early Frankish kings, Merowingian kings, Pippi in the Short and Freddy Gunde and Clovis. And it comes from Mike Tyson. Man, this is a good guy. I like him as an independent thinker. And I say thinker, not just the one who has destroyed his opponents in the ring. What happened to the film? It never materialized. There was a project where I wanted to have him as an actor. and the film was never financed. So what? It's okay. After the break, we'll hear what Herzog is working on now.

28:33I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We'll be right back.

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