MasterClass: Werner Herzog Teaches Filmmaking

Sometimes I keep saying, films are stumbling into me.

Sometimes they are like home invaders.

There's something in the kitchen.

I've used this metaphor quite a few times.

You wake up in the middle of the night

and you hear something stirring.

And in your kitchen, you see five burglars.

Uninvited guests.

How they crawled in, you don't know.

Through the window, through the door, through the basement,

you just don't know.

But one of them come swinging wildly at you,

so you better deal with that one first.

Now, let's get serious.

Choice of subjects.

How do I choose subjects for a film?

I can give you a few examples.

My first feature film that I made was "Signs of Life".

What happened was that as a 15-, 16-year-old I traveled

to Greece in order to look into the life's work

of my grandfather, who was an archaeologist.

I arrived in the mountains to some sort

of a ledge in the terrain.

And I looked down and what I see is indelibly in my mind.

There's a valley, completely flat.

And in this valley there were 10,000 windmills.

I didn't know that it existed, but actually it

was called the Valley of 10,000 Windmills.

It was like a field of flowers completely filled

with flowers from horizon to horizon-- and all the flower

spinning with a strange creaking sound.

The moment I saw it, I knew this cannot be.

I must be insane.

It became the central image in my first long feature film.

A German wounded soldier, who is put onto a fortress.

He comes across these windmills and literally becomes insane--

lays siege on friend and enemy.

And manages to burn a chair and to kill a donkey.

And he is actually captured by his own men.

This image was something I encountered, where I

knew immediately this was big.

This was so big that it had to become a center of the story.

I didn't have the story yet, but it came later.

It fell in place very easily.

But it had nothing, originally nothing, to do with windmills.

But in fact, it was something physical.

Something where I stumbled-- literally

stumbled into something.

What helps is traveling on foot, for example.

You will experience a world in stories stumble

into you all the time.

The world-- I say it is a dictum--

the world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.

"Grizzly Man" is also a good example.

A producer, Eric Nelson, visited him

in his office in his work place in the valley.

And I was showed around.

And at the end, I sit down with him

at his table-- lots of things on this table--

and at the end, when I took off, I

was searching for my car keys.

I was standing.

And it was not in my pocket.

I had misplaced it somewhere on the table.

And I was not looking for a movie.

I was looking for my car keys.

I swear to God.

And he thought I spotted something and shoves

an article across to me and says read this.

We are doing a very interesting project.

And I went home, read it, and was right back at the office.

And I knew it was so big.

There was something so big about it, I had to do it.

And I asked him.

I asked him-- I had the courage to ask,

who is directing the film?