From "The Cosmic, Outrageous, Ecstatic Truths of Werner Herzog/The filmmaker’s new memoir, 'Every Man for Himself and God Against All,' prompts a critic’s incredulity'" (NYT).
He = Werner Herzog.
The incredulous critic = Dwight Garner.
October 10, 2023
"He is, for sure, the world’s most grandiloquent crash-test dummy."
"He’s fallen off a barn and broken both arms. He’s had 14 stitches in his chin, a soccer injury, and a tooth pulled after declining anesthesia because the pain was synonymous with 'the way I expected the world to be.' His collarbone was detached from his breastbone while ski jumping. He has been lifted off his feet by random explosions. He fell 40 feet on an opera stage and sprained his neck. He was hit so hard by a stuntman while filming a scene for a movie that two crowns popped loose from his molars. He has intentionally leaped into a cactus field and has eaten his shoe (which he cooked at Chez Panisse). He missed an airplane that crashed, and came close to being beheaded in Peru by the Shining Path. He was shot, and 'slightly wounded,' while being interviewed by the BBC in Los Angeles."
From "The Cosmic, Outrageous, Ecstatic Truths of Werner Herzog/The filmmaker’s new memoir, 'Every Man for Himself and God Against All,' prompts a critic’s incredulity'" (NYT).
From "The Cosmic, Outrageous, Ecstatic Truths of Werner Herzog/The filmmaker’s new memoir, 'Every Man for Himself and God Against All,' prompts a critic’s incredulity'" (NYT).
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15 comments:
How do you fall 40 feet and just "sprain you neck"?
Herzog was an entertaining villain in the Tom Cruise movie Reacher
The Great Depression era gangster "Machine Gun Kelly" (not the living hip-hop/rock musician) developed his reputation by going out in the countryside, firing a Thompson submachine gun, and collecting the empty brass cases. He then spread the harmless cases around as keepsakes to fix his name in people's minds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Gun_Kelly_(gangster)
Someone this clumsy perhaps used many 'planned accidents' to develop a reputation. Or, he's a cat reincarnated as a human after using up his prior 9 lives.
It's not easy being a man.
Well, I've had 16 stitches in my chin and have also broken my collarbone.
Nothing?
I love Werner Herzog. I suggest everyone check out his description one the jungle from ‘Burden of Dreams’
https://youtu.be/3xQyQnXrLb0?si=RfgqVkz7BvlaAk28
YouTube: What kind of person you have to be to direct
I am reminded of a friend of mine, now passed, who spent the 50s, 60s and 70s in Army Intelligence. His life sounds a lot like Herzog's, but with the exciting events usually associated with big events, say, the closing days of the Vietnam War, when every morning he'd drive an embassy Caddy north until taking fire, and then return to mark the map to show how far the NVA had advanced overnight. He crashed a plane, he missed a plane crash, he watched from the dock as an oil tanker he was about to board blew up, he ran safe houses in Houston and Marseilles, he travelled the Mideast as contact for local spies back then and again after 2001. Injuries aplenty, caused from grenades to car wrecks. At 65, he beat up a mugger on a sidestreet in Paris, and afterwards said the scariest part was that his violence wasn't planned, it was 40 year old training that was still embedded in his head and the attack was automatic, and he was glad he could stop himself before killing the guy. I'd say he was the "Kindest, Bravest, Warmest, Most Wonderful Human Being I've Ever Known in My Life" if that line hadn't been abused, because he was.
There are millions like him who served in the military and experienced exceptional events, sometimes with damage in the process. They live among us and we see them every day.
I'm surprised that list doesn't include Werner Herzog surviving working with Klaus Kinski on five films.
Long ago I read an account of the injuries that Lawrence Olivier had sustained in his acting and directing career; it was long and varied but maybe not as varied as Herzog's.
Unlike say, Kubrick, Herzog strikes me as one whose life may be more interesting than his movies.
I love him but that jungle video makes him Dieter from Sprockets...
AndrewV said...
I'm surprised that list doesn't include Werner Herzog surviving working with Klaus Kinski on five films."
Thread winner!
Herzog is also an Ed Gein affectionato.
https://collider.com/errol-morris-werner-herzog-ed-gein-documentary/
He and Kinski both hatched simultaneous plots to murder each other. Herzog talks about it in ‘Mein Leibster Fiend.’
The Most Interesting Man in the World?
Did his mom get his autograph?
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