Director Werner Herzog: “The world opens up to those who walk”

The San Sebastián Film Festival honors Werner Herzog with the Donostia Award for his life's work. But the 84-year-old filmmaker prefers to think about what lies ahead. In the conversation he talks about his new feature film “Bucking Fastard”, Kaspar Hauser, artificial intelligence and why the world shows itself to those who walk.

taz: Mr. Herzog, you received the Donostia Award for your life's work here at the weekend. But you obviously don't particularly care about looking back.

Werner Herzog: I'm actually a working person. My next film is almost finished. Also a large illustrated book at Taschen and I'm working on a new writing project. So I don't sit there and look: What did I do back then, 40 years ago or 50 years ago? When I look back, it's rather fleeting. I just still have really good stories in me.

was born in Munich in 1942. As a student, he founded his production company “Werner Herzog Filmproduktion” in Munich in 1963 and made his first full-length film “Lebenszeichen” at the age of 24. His best-known feature films are “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) and “Fitzcarraldo” (1982), both with Klaus Kinski. His numerous documentaries include “Fata Morgana” (1971) and “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams” (2022).

taz: How do you know which of these to do next?

Herzog: Imagine waking up at four in the morning because there are noises in your kitchen. You turn on the light and there are four burglars standing there. One comes at you with an axe. Then take care of the one who approaches you with the greatest vehemence first. It's the same with my films.

taz: You even joined Instagram last year. What made you do this?

Duke: My younger son. He said I shouldn't be so old-fashioned. I don't use a cell phone. He said: Today there is a completely different audience. It's actually good for them if they can see in small vignettes what I'm up to, even outside of filming, what moves me or what's going through my head at the moment. My son knows how to put this online. He shoots some videos, my wife shoots others. I don't know what the reactions are. I don't follow anyone either. Zero. Nobody.

taz: One of these stories is “Bucking Fastard,” your new feature film, which is also shown here. In it, two sisters live in an almost symbiotic unity and begin to dig a tunnel through a mountain. They resist seeing the two of them as outsiders. At the same time, they are perceived as abnormal by their environment. Who actually are the outsiders?

Herzog: That's always the question: Where do you see normality coming from? For me, Kaspar Hauser is not the alien who landed here on Earth and has never seen humans or heard human language. Even though he seems extremely unusual, he is the centerpiece for me because he emerges completely unaffected by social norms. Everyone else is bizarre, deformed outsider. I see the two sisters similarly. How is it possible for two sisters to have one soul, one identity? We take it for granted that we only exist individually. This is suddenly being called into question here.

taz: At the press conference you said that we have to defend our souls. Against what?

Herzog: That was actually a bit of a look at artificial intelligence. Because that calls into question: How much are we prepared to think independently? And how much of our dreams are we willing to give up to artificial intelligence? That's why I always say to young people who want any advice: Make sure you don't give your thinking, your dreams, to any algorithms. Why don't you dig a hole in the ground? Why don't you build a little house in a tree?

taz: “Bucking Fastard” also follows a certain dream logic. How does a story like this come about for you?

Herzog: I'm not developing anything there. I see a film, just like you see a film in the cinema, and then I actually just copy what I see. So I never have character development or story development or three acts or anything like that. I wrote “Bucking Fastard” in five days, completely relaxed. In between, I did my tax return and cooked for friends.

taz: How do you know that something works cinematically, even if it's not obviously plausible?

Herzog: I know that because that's my job. I've always been a storyteller, and I've always been good as a storyteller. Others are better with digital tricks and special effects. That's why part of Hollywood is interested in me, because there is a noticeable lack of good material.

taz: You also said here that abstract ideas are the enemy of cinema. At the same time, your films are repeatedly interpreted philosophically by critics and viewers.

Herzog: You're welcome to. It's the same with literature. But of course it doesn't explain everything. The logic of the story is more like the logic in poems or the logic in dreams. Nevertheless, a clear worldview emerges. This is noticeable. There's an inner logic to it that makes a film like this seem completely normal.

taz: Are there any interpretations that annoy you or that you reject? Who owns a film when it's finished?

Herzog: Look, the film was shown at the festival in Venice at the beginning of September. He was received differently there than here. And if you show the film in a prison - we did that in Venice - then people see it completely differently because of their special situation. In 30 or 40 years the audience has changed, viewing habits have changed. Then you will probably see your own interpretation. That's completely fine.

taz: In your acceptance speech you described the Basques as a “people of poetry, a people of poets”. Where does this fascination with Basque culture come from?

Herzog: Because it is really unique. The language itself is not related to any other. For example, their culture is manifested annually in a huge competition of improvising poets, called Bertsolari. Tens of thousands of people are there and cheering. I watch this on YouTube every year. I don't speak a single word of their language, but when I see the poets competing with each other, outdoing each other, and going on and on without knowing exactly what they're talking about, I sense a community. I feel like I belong there. Many years ago I came here on foot, over 1,000 kilometers, ultimately along the entire Pyrenees, but more on the French side of the Basque Country. When you walk there, what is otherwise hidden suddenly comes to light: a natural, unconditional hospitality. Anyone who comes on foot first has to be dried on the stove because they are soaking wet through and through. Then he has to be warmed and fed and given a bed to sleep on. It was the same with the mountain farmers in the Pyrenees. Always.

taz: For you, walking is a special way of getting to know the country and its people?

Herzog: The world opens up to those who walk. Today, only shorter routes are possible for me. For my last documentary “Ghost Elephants” I shot in the USA, Namibia and the northern Kalahari. The trackers then went further north into the highlands of Angola. The last 150 kilometers were just walking, wading through rivers and chasing shy elephants for ten hours every day. Then I said: I'm too old for that. The producer went with a camera crew and had a detailed to-do list. He knew what I needed. It was directed from a distance because it was no longer physically possible for me. By the way, the film I'm currently finishing is a documentary about a man who has been walking for 29 years. “Walk of Life”. On and on.