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Werner Herzog is the writer and director of over fifty films, including Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Even Dwarves Started Small, Fata Morgana, Stroszek, Lessons of Darkness, and most recently, Grizzly Man.
Travel on foot has been crucial to Herzog's own life and work. "The volume and depth and intensity of the world is something only those on foot will ever experience," Herzog once said. "I personally would rather do the existentially essential things in life on foot. If you live in England and your girlfriend is in Sicily, and it is clear you want to marry her, then you should walk to Sicily to propose. For these things travel by car or aeroplane is not the right thing." "When you travel on foot with this intensity," said Herzog, "it is not a matter of covering actual ground, rather it is a question of moving through your own inner landscapes. When I am walking I fall deep into dreams, I float through fantasies and find myself inside unbelieveable stories. I literally walk through whole novels and films and football matches. I do not even look at where I am stepping, but I never lose my direction. When I come out of a big story I find myself twenty-five or thirty kilometres further on. How I got there I do not know." Herzog's own account of his 500-mile walk from Munich to Paris to visit his dying friend Lotte Eisner has been published as a book called Of Walking in Ice.
Quotations are taken from Herzog on Herzog, edited by Paul Cronin and published by Faber and Faber. |
