Interview: Werner Herzog

One of the greats of cinema, Werner Herzog, needs little introduction. Recently, Herzog has dabbled into the current psyche of cinema now, remakes and 3D, to interesting outcomes. His most recent film, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done used a digital camera for the efficiency of a lower budgeted film shot within a limited time frame, and the film is now coming to DVD from First Look Studios on September 14th. In the meantime, Werner Herzog talks with Killer Film about the film, the RED ONE camera, and his upcoming 3D documentary.

Jon Peters: In an interview I found, you were quoted as saying “I always wanted to make a horror film, but not with bloody axes and chain-saws. An anonymous fear should rather creep up at you.” I find that interesting, because many would consider your Nosferatu an anonymous character of fear creeping up on a victim from your 1979 film. What defines horror to you and what differentiates the horror between these two films?

Werner Herzog: I think that My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done is clearly different than Nosferatu, which was set in the structures of a genre film. What you were quoting is exactly what I really wanted to do, having some anonymous of fear creeping up on you and that what defines the film best.

Jon: Is that what intrigued you about the loosely based true story on Mark Yavorsky?

Herzog: Yes, but in a way but of course, it was also just a great, strange, story there. There was a great, strange connection between this ancient Greek tragedy and his murder case of matricide, with a strange element of standing still and music. So there’s a whole bundle of things that were fascinating to me.

Jon: How did this story come to you?

Herzog: Through a collaborator of mine, Herbert Golder, who is the co-writer. He is a professor of classics at Boston University and has quite often been my assistant director and he crossed this murder case because he’s fascinated in staging Greek dramas. Like in this play, the lead has to murder his own mother and Yavorsky ended up murdering his mother with s stage prop sword. So we rewrote the screenplay together, with a huge amount of background documentation, revelations by forensic scientists, and just piles and piles of documentation. I just got lost in this and told him let’s just fart this [screenplay] out together, otherwise I wouldn’t know how to do it. We were in Europe and I told him I’ll take you to this place in the mountains of Austria, so you can go before we write this together. He looked at me and said: “I’ll give you five days.” [laughs] And we wrote it together.

Jon: I understand for a brief time you met the real Mark Yavorsky. Did you this process productive or hindering at all, especially since he was argumentative and even created a shrine to Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)?

Herzog: Upon meeting him, I immediately understood that it was a mistake. For a film maker, sometimes it’s best to stay away from your sources. It would have been completely disruptive continuing to meet him at the maximum security facility he was at, you could tell he was just not kosher. Stay away from him, keep your distance, created your character from him, and that’s what I told Michael Shannon. He was very interested in hearing the tape records and even wanted to imitate his voice, and I said: “You will not have access to him, we have to invent the character, invent him new, shape him our way, by you, Michael Shannon.”

You do this types of imitations if it’s like a Muhammad Ali. You have to have Ali’s ravings, rants, raps, you cannot invent him. But Mark Yavorsky you had to invent.

Jon: How and when did you know you wanted Michael Shannon for the Brad McCullum role and was his theater background that made him an intriguing choice for a role where the character?

Herzog: I only saw Michael Shannon in one film prior, and I’m sorry I don’t remember which, but it wasn’t the film that he got the Academy Award nomination [Revolutionary Road], and I saw him and immediately said that’s the right man to do the film. I contacted him and said let’s warm up, since I was doing Bad Lieutenant and had a strong part for him. I said: “Do this and let’s warm up, see how we are together.” After we were done with that, he received the Academy Award nomination, and I was very proud of him. He had no problem with the burden of being the central character in the movie. I completely trusted him.

Jon: Is that because of his theater background?

Herzog: I didn’t even know he had a theater background until we did this film.

Jon: How and when did David Lynch come to you for this collaboration, and if any, how was it working with a film maker like Lynch?

Herzog: Eric Bassett was the producer and he had worked with David for ten years and David Lynch was present at a discussion talking about making films with a contained budget but with the best of the best actors and he caught fire wanting to help or to push the film along. He is a dream. He has a credit as an executive producer. He wasn’t on-set or had a hand in the screenplay, but in spirit we were close and his enthusiasm some how pushed it over the brink and got it into production.

Jon: How close were the productions of Bad Lieutenant and My Son, My Son?

Herzog: They were partially overlapping and initially I planned on doing My Son, My Son first. Bad Lieutenant somehow stumbled into me and there was a very narrow opportunity to do it, due to Nicholas Cage’s schedule. I jumped into it and decided to do My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done afterward.

Jon: Besides your connection to the Urubamba River, what was it about the story and Michael Shannon’s character that made you want to go back there for some scenes, when the production was all the way in San Diego?

Herzog: In fact, the real story, Mark Yavorsky was in Pakistan and he came back changed. He was in some real bad places which are causing major issues in Pakistan now. I wanted to go there for those scenes to film, but it was becoming clear it wouldn’t be wise to pack up and take an American movie star into Northwestern Pakistan in such a volatile area. We would have been prime time targets. So what would have the next best raging river? I said “Oh yes, I know the Urubamba in Peru. I’ve been there a couple of times, so let’s go there.”

Jon: You shot the film with the RED ONE camera, yet you were displeased working with the camera. Can you explain how the camera was chosen, the frustration using it, and the final product it produced?

Herzog: I wouldn’t say frustration, but there was a couple of things. Number one, I’m a man of celluloid and it still has superior qualities. The RED camera was at that time still an immature camera, it was basically a huge computer and you couldn’t just shoot, it always had to boot. Also, the camera doesn’t have the mechanical precision as say the Panavision cameras, and there was the system of the lens’ and how to hold the lens’. But it’s okay, I saw a point in saving money and shot it with the RED. I’m sure the Red camera has improved meanwhile.

Jon: Another key collaboration on the film was with Peter Zeitlinger. Can you explain working with Peter for the eleventh time and what he brought to this film?

Herzog: He managed, even thoug I don’t think he had ever worked with the RED camera either. The bigger problem was with the sound since we were not very far from the San Diego Airport, and we had like 60 second intervals to shoot before 10-15 minutes of roaring airplanes over our head.

Jon: My Son, My Son and Bad Lieutenant share some thematic links, but I noticed the position animals play in the films. From the iguanas and alligators in Bad Lieutenant to the flamingos and ostriches in My Son, what do you think are animals relationship to their environment in an urban setting, as compared and opposed to some of your films exploring man’s relationship with nature out in the wild?

Herzog: Well, your question is coming too heavily. [laughs] But in my films I always loved working with animals and directing animals. I can’t really explain if there’s any big systematic thinking behind it or the big master plan behind it. I love animals and take Bad Lieutenant, they’re the weirdest of the weird. In my new film about the caves [The Cave of Forgotten Dreams] you even seen a radioactive alligator! It’s as wild as it can get.

Jon: You narrated a Ramin Bahrani short film called the Plastic Bag that will be on the DVD. When I talked to him (here) a long while ago, he was very eager for the film, and the final product was a touching film. Can you explain working with Bahrani and on the film?

Herzog: He is such a talented young man. When it comes to these younger guys like Bahrani, who admire my work and if I can help them, I’ll be there anyway I can working for them.

Jon: Finally, your next is a documentary called The Cave of Forgotten Dreams which is about the Chauvet Cave. You had some unique working conditions for the film, yet even with those restrictions you chose to also film it in 3D.

Herzog: It was very difficult because we could only move on a two-foot walk way and could never step off. So, the strange thing is we are shooting it in 3D, but the cool thing is we all had to line-up in a straight line, one-dimension like. There was no way around it for the crew, we’re all lined up in one-dimension, so they’re in it a lot.

Jon: As a director who has been working in the field for decades, what was the appeal of 3D for this film and what do you think are the pros and cons of the format?

Herzog: You have to see the film and in less than three weeks at Toronto at the festival you can. It was a wonderful choice to shot it in 3D. You’ll know it when you see it, let me not explain all of the details. Some 3D is good, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. I will not do a romantic-comedy in 3D! I think you know what I mean.

First Look Studios is releasing My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done on DVD September 14th and look for a wider release for The Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 2011.