MasterClass: Werner Herzog Teaches Filmmaking

One of the things that is quite often overlooked by directors

is orientation in film, that you know

where you are as an audience.

When you are in a complicated apartment,

and it's, let's say, a hostage taking film,

and you know the hostage takers, because you look down

the corridor, come from the right,

and that's where the kitchen is.

So I want the audience having a general pattern of orientation.

Where are we?

what's coming from which window?

And also, for example, a film, Waterloo,

it's interesting, because there are three different armies,

and they're marching all towards the battlefield.

And just from the direction, the way it's filmed,

you know, oh, those are the French.

Those are the Brits.

Those are the Prussians.

You know.

And it's very hard to establish that.

And I want to have an audience that

doesn't need to worry about where am I suddenly.

And of course, it has to do with basic principles of filming.

For example, a dialogue, if you have two actors,

the two faces, and there's an invisible axis between them,

you better stay on one side with the cameras,

or with your camera.

On the axis, you film this face from there and that face

from there.

Or you can be behind it, over the shoulder,

but stay behind this axis.

So otherwise, you immediately have an disorientation.

But it's such a primitive law of how we see movies

or how we see configurations.

Because if you trump the axis, you film that actor

from this side of the axis and then the reverse shot

on that from the other side.

Both actors on screen would look in the same direction,

and it would be immediate disorientation

for the audience.

One example where you really can learn a lot

is a wonderful film by the French director Melville.

He did a film that is Le Deuxieme

Souffle, the second breath.

And there's a scene.

A little gangster goes up the stairs to an attic,

because he's been summoned to meet some rival gangsters.

And he knows they want to kill him.

And he goes into this empty apartment under the roof,

and he looks around.

And you see empty chairs.

Where are they going to sit?

If they hold him up, where would he stand?

And he stands behind an armoire, and he raises his hands.

So he, in the future, the configuration in space,

he figures it out.

He raises his hands, and he takes his gun

and places it only inches away from where his hands would be.

And then it's very beautiful.

One of the rival gangsters has watched him entering the home.

And he wonders what did the guy do there.

And he goes up into the empty apartment and looks and says,

what did he do there?

And he sits in one chair and then in another chair,

and walks around and stands against the armoire.

And he finds the gun.

So the configuration, which is only something that

becomes essential for life or death,

of the protagonist in the future becomes an architecture

of possibilities.

It's beautiful, very, very beautiful.

You should watch the film.

And Melville has done some very, very fine movies anyway.

There's one shot which I learned from Klaus Kinski, the madman.

But he was technically very, very intense and good.

And he had a way to step in front of the camera

and somehow spiral into frame.

And he would stand right next to the lens of the camera.

He would be standing right next to it and then spiral in frame.

But how did he do it?

You have to look at my feet as well.

He would be there, and then he would

swing his leg, almost the other leg, 180 degrees,

like this here, twisted.

And then the entire body twists in front of the camera.

So it's a phenomenal, phenomenal effect,

because as a spectator, the person who

spirals in front of the camera looks like disoriented.

And I've used it.

I've used it.

And the real trick is standing right next to the tripod.

And the feet, it's not-- if you step sideways into frame,

it doesn't have this kind of enormous power or intention.

But if you spiral in it, and it starts with your feet,

it starts with this here, and the body follows.

There's also one shot, which I'd like to mention, Bunuel.

I learned from him the film, Nazarin.

In Mexico, a man carries a cross, in religious fervor

carries a cross, all through Mexico, 1,000 miles or so.

And he needs three or four shots.

And what does he do?

The camera crouches down, and it looks into the sky.

And nothing is there for a split of a second.

And the actor moves into frame with a cross.

So if I am the camera, I have to follow him and look.

And he does this three or four times.

Out of nowhere, the character comes in,

walks into the distance.

And within 20 seconds or so of film, within 20 seconds,

you have the feeling this actor has covered 1,000 miles; very,

very mysterious.

And I have used this myself, for example,

in the film, Heart of Glass, where

the leading actor , who has prophetic gift,

walks down from the mountain.

And he spiral-- he does the same thing like in Bunuel's film.

So you have to rehearse these things,

and you have to be aware how to operate a camera.

I have no problem sometimes to give

a feeling of disorientation to the audience

or show the disorientation of an actor, the Kinski spiral

spiraling in front of a camera.