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Werner Herzog - A Guide For The Perplexed: Conversations With Paul Cronin (2014)

by Paul Cronin(Favorite Author)

4.48 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Faber & Faber Film

review 1: There are many *good* books out there which do a fine job of teaching you something new. There are *great* books that compel you to change your behavior, or take up a new hobby. And then there are *extraordinary* books which can potentially change the course of your life. This is such a book.Werner Herzog is an original. As a youngster, he taught himself how to make films. When no one would fund his movie-making habit, he started his own production company at age 17. When he needed to get through the Peruvian jungle for filming "Fitzcarraldo", he forged official-looking documents for safe passage (they worked). For every film, he did a thousand things to get the shot. He once won a poetry contest four times by entering under five different names, and directed major operas ... morewhen he couldn't read music.Reading the book, I came to have deep respect for his unstoppability and uncompromising vision. There is a certain methodical madness that should inspire all of us to roll up our sleeves, listen to that inner voice of creativity, and just do what needs to get done. It also compels the reader to look beyond the strictures of university degrees, schools of thought and ossified convention to forge one's own idiom. It's an incredibly powerful, freeing notion for any artist, exemplified by this passage:"While at work on this book, Werner explained he wanted something done a particular way. I suggested to him that 'the publisher doesn't usually do that.' He absorbed what I told him, paused, then said softly, 'I'm not interested in how things are usually done. I want it done this way.'"Any one of Herzog's stories would be enough fodder to establish an average person's badass status for life: the making of "Aguirre" in the implacable jungle; filming a scene for "Fitzcarraldo" of a steamship going up a steep mountain in the Amazon by actually pulling a steamship up a mountainside in the Amazon; having near-death experiences in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, and Kuwait on a daily basis; filming in Antarctica, Andean peaks, or prehistoric caves sealed for 32,000 years; and craziest of all, working with the madman Klaus Kinski on five different films. But Herzog has made 60+ movies, half of which probably endangered his life, making him a permanent member of the Badass Hall of Fame.The author Paul Cronin does an excellent job with his unobtrusive yet thorough and lucid style. Even though the book weighs in at 500+ pages, the stories are gripping enough to make it a quick read. I particularly appreciated the unforgettable characters in the stories: Fini Straubinger, one of the blind and deaf subjects of "Land of Silence and Darkness"; Philippe Petit the tightrope walker; Dieter Dengler the decorated pilot and POW; cannibal dictator Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic; Bruno S; Gesualdo, the brilliant, eccentric and homicidal composer; Walter Steiner the woodcarver/champion ski jumper.Whether you've wanted to build a garden shed or write an epic novel, we all have an inner creator that may not have expressed itself fully yet. This book is the key to freeing that creator, filling its belly with gunpowder and setting its butt on fire. If you find me making films some time in the near future, you'll know what got me started. Big thanks to Maria Popova of BrainPickings for turning me on to this book.
review 2: One of my favorite books ever ~ anyone who knows about Herzog knows that he and his films are more than what they appear ~ he rarely gives interviews so this book, a series of interviews edited together, delves into a plethora of interesting stories about the man himself and his films. Herzog always seems to speak in platitudes about his methods and motivations. This shows through in the book because he is very much a man of action and life. His films come about because of his experiences and his influence on his own experiences.I've read this book three times already and could ery easily pick it up now and become addicted again. less

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