werner herzog: many say he's the only man who could take on chuck noris. i agree!

this german director - man! everything you hear about him is strange. he interests me and creeps me out intensely. he is very outside of my comfort zone.

Herzog Shot During Interview
By WENN Friday, February 03, 2006
HOLLYWOOD - German director Werner Herzog was shot by a crazed fan during a recent interview with the BBC. The 63-year-old was chatting with movie journalist Mark Kermode about his documentary Grizzly Man, when a sniper opened fire with an air rifle. Kermode explains, "I thought a firecracker had gone off. "Herzog, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, said, 'Oh, someone is shooting at us. We must go.' "He had a bruise the size of a snooker ball, with a hole in. He just carried on with the interview while bleeding quietly in his boxer shorts." An unrepentant Herzog insisted, "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid."

Herzog Helped Phoenix from Car Wreckage
By WENN Thursday, February 02, 20

HOLLYWOOD - Oscar-nominee Joaquin Phoenix was rescued from his car wreck last week by German cult director Werner Herzog. The 31-year-old Walk the Line star overturned his car on a canyon road above Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood after his brakes failed and he collided with another vehicle. Phoenix was saved because he was wearing his seat-belt, but has revealed he was helped from the wreckage by the 63-year-old, who has a home nearby. The actor says, "I remember this knocking on the passenger window. There was this German voice saying, 'Just relax.' There's the airbag, I can't see and I'm saying, 'I'm fine. I am relaxed. Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, 'No, you're not.' "And suddenly I said to myself, 'That's Werner Herzog!' There's something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog's voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out. I got out of the car and I said, 'Thank you,' and he was gone." Article Copyright World Entertainment News Network All Rights Reserved.

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)
A film exactly described by its title. German film director Herzog had made a bet with fledgling director Errol Morris that, if Morris made a film, Herzog would eat his shoe. Morris went on to film 'Gates of Heaven', so Herzog kept his promise. While eating the boiled shoe, Herzog carries on a dialogue with the film premier audience on film, art, and life.

His well-documented production difficulties - dragging a ship over a mountain, attempting to film the eruption of a volcano, hypnotizing an entire cast - may well be extra-filmic means of establishing the authenticity of his films, but in Herzog's case they threaten to become the real event of which the actual film is merely a record.

He explained how the rats that spill off the Count's ship were penned in just out of camera range and individually painted gray ("I was bitten quite a few times. But it was no big deal," he said).

Principal photography was 40 percent complete when the actor playing Fitzcarraldo, Jason Robards, became so seriously ill that he was forced to quit the production. After many production delays, the movie's other main actor, Mick Jagger, had to leave for a prior commitment (a Rolling Stones' concert tour). Virtually all of the film footage shot by this point was now unusable. After a year of filmmaking, director Herzog had to start over from scratch.
According to Herzog, he didn't cast Kinski initially because he thought Kinski would go "totally bonkers" if trapped on location in the Amazon during the production's lengthy shooting schedule. Herzog's fears were well founded. Once shooting resumed with Kinski in the lead role, Kinski flew into daily rages
Kinski became so difficult to work with that an Indian chief (who had a small role in the movie) went to Herzog and offered to murder Kinski. The Indians hated him. They weren't used to people ranting and raving at the slightest provocation.
But problems with actors were only part of the many complications faced by Herzog. While the crew was filming near the border of Peru and Ecuador, a border war broke out between the two countries, and soon afterwards, soldiers burned the movie's production camp to the ground. But Herzog's biggest enemy may have been the weather: he found himself working during the largest drought in 65 years. River levels plunged to depths of two feet or less. As a result, the movie's steamship became stranded for months on a sand bar while waiting for rains to return. However, when rains came, Herzog found himself working during the wildest rainy season in history.One crew member was bitten by a snake with venom so poisonous that cardiac arrest typically followed within seconds. Realizing what had happened, the crew member picked up a chain saw and cut off his own foot. Another man was paralyzed. Another man drowned. When Herzog talks about the movie's climactic scene, which involves a steamboat drifting down a river, he tells us how they had to lash down one of the actors to the helm for fear he would fly through the windows when the ship crashed against rocks. After the cinematographer's hand was split open trying to film this sequence, he underwent a 2½ hour operation to put his hand back together again--and no anesthesia was available. As he screamed and thrashed in agony, one of the two camp prostitutes (!) calmed him by pressing his head between her breasts. (According to Herzog, a Catholic priest urged him to include prostitutes as part of the movie's production crew or the men would go crazy in the jungle.)

Where most other filmmakers would have opted to go for miniatures and special effects shots, Werner Herzog decided for the real deal. What you see on film is what really happened. A huge aisle was cut in the jungle and the ship has been actually pulled over the hilltop to the other side.