MasterClass: Werner Herzog Teaches Filmmaking

Not only would I direct actors or human beings,

I would also direct landscapes.

In a way, opening of Aguirre is directed landscape.

It's somehow understanding the essence

and doing the right thing in this landscape

and incorporate it into a dynamic

that you do not normally see in a movie.

Sometimes I have spent many weeks scouting like Aguirre

rafting down on Amazon tributaries.

Yes, this is near Machu Piccu near Urubamba.

And here you see this zigzag path.

It's almost vertical and slippery.

And many of the native people who

come from the highlands came from very high up,

were frightened.

Some of them altitude sick.

Some of them had vertigo, vertigo, more than anything.

And I would run up and down the zigzag path to exhaustion

and tie some of them onto bushes so they wouldn't slip down,

and I said stay where you are.

We'll get you out later.

It was filmed only once.

and those are moments where I had the feeling I was blessed.

Something fell into my lap.

That in a way, I knew I deserved it,

but you have to be lucky as well.

And it's a really wonderful moment

when you see how stupid is this chick in the llamas.

Everything.

It really was a location that I loved

and I had great disputes with Kinski about it.

He wanted the entire ensemble because you

see the ruins of Machu Picchu, one

of the most photographed sites on our planet.

And I said no, this is postcard kitsch.

I want a detail of it, and he started

to scream and yell and kick at the camera

and so I took him out of the shot.

So of course, the quality of pre-production location

scouting made the quality of what you see on screen.

And it's not that you can organize it quickly

and you say ah, let's go there.

You just can't go there and start shooting.

When it comes to location, it is not only the location

that you see on screen.

Yes that's the key to all.

That overwhelms every other consideration.

But at the same time, you have to consider logistics.

Where M you have there were no hotels at that time.

There was a tiny hotel eight rooms.

Up near Machu Piccu.

Nothing else at that time.

So where do you house your 450 extras?

Where does the crew stay?

Crew was very small, but still.

So we went into a tea plantation down

at the river which had a huge barn, which

we emptied out and filled it with sort of hammocks and beds

on top of each other for 450 people.

So we had to organize that.

At the same time, where the crew stay.

We were very provisionally housed.

I stayed in a mud hut of a woman who was actually--

she had a hunchback.

A very, very sweet woman, and she

had six children and something like over 200 Guinea pigs.

And at night, the Guinea pigs would run around and run over

me.

I had to learn how to sleep with Guinea pigs running over me.

There's a pint of no return which

comes very early in the film in process of filmmaking,

but you always should look for the most elegant solutions

for logistics, for example.

Don't make a choice for a mountain

and you have to have Sherpas for three weeks just

to carry a camera there.

And then you might end up in snow and fog

and you won't see anything.

So you have to be prudent.

People sometimes think I'm the one who gives himself

these crazy obstacles about filming in the Sahara Desert

or filming in the jungle just to prove himself.

What a stupid idea.

I still try to find a place where

logistics are functioning, to have electricity.

I don't have it all the time, but once you

are settled for doing something, don't be afraid

and to not shy away from entering

into real difficult terrain.

When I travel, I travel very light.

I try to have only one bag, which would

be hand luggage on a plane.

And that's how I mostly travel.

And adapting, I try to understand the people

with whom I'm going to work.

I try to speak their language.

In practically all the cases, I use accommodations

that you find with them.

I lived in a hammock 1 and 1/2 year in the jungle,

and it was fine.

Or I would eat the food that the native people would eat.

So I ate alligator, I ate snake, I ate live maggots.

I mean, big, white, crawling maggots.

It was in the jungle and some of the chiefs

were poking in a huge, rotten tree

and it was all coming apart and they dig deep

with their machetes and they come up

with a handful of these big maggots.

And they eat them live.

And the chief-- I didn't expect it.

I was just curious.

The chief comes with three or four of them in his hand

and gives it to me and offers it to me as a special delicacy.

And they all stand and wait.

And of course you have to eat them.

You have to be careful with permits

and you have to develop a right sensibility how to do it.

In some cases-- Fitzcarraldo, for example--

I would just wildly forge shooting permits.

There was a military coup d'etat also in Peru

and very hard to get permits in.

My boats were stopped and a young soldier

was already a barefoot 17-year-old soldier

took a shot at me.

I was in a small boat next to my big ship.

And of course, you better stop and you go and land.

And I met the colonel who ran this and he said,

you are not allowed here.

Actually, what happened but nobody of us

knew that a border war would break out very, very soon,

and there was a high military presence.

Nothing was allowed to us any more.

And I said mi colonel, I will be back

with my shooting permit which is in Lima,