Original subtitles

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

A Film by Les Blank

We look at the TV, we see that she's ridiculous and destructive.

She kills us. The talk-shows they kill us, they kill our language.

That is why we must declare a holy war...

against what we see every day on TV, commercials and...

I think it should be, there must be a real war...

against the ads, a real war on talk shows,

real war on Bonanza and Rawhide and all that.

In honor of the premiere of "The Doors of the sky", on Wednesday, April 11

Werner Herzog will eat his shoe. Live, in the balcony of the UC Theatre.

I'm convinced that cooking is the only alternative for making films.

Maybe there's another alternative, to go out for a walk.

Let's put some of garlic in each.

It's pretty spicy.

I recently discovered that that He hates me so much because...

when I stopped to think later a lot of work done,

I realized that in almost a year I hadn't prepared a meal.

And... a grown man like me, I don't you should let go...

a week without having prepared a great meal.

And that's what I hate about it...

then I should to care more about cooking.

What are you putting in?

Duck fat to soften up.

I think you should put a little more rosemary.

Yes, it will be tasty... Looks good, doesn't it? Look here...

- Is that enough? - Yes. We must put in more water,

and cook for two hours.

So, let's spice up this devilish thing.

And we put this on him.

It must be like a pig's foot,

that... I think it's a little like shoe leather,

and is served with things like the beans, the

chilli and onion sprinkled on top...

and some raw garlic, and spices like oregano or rosemary.

Yeah, there's a lot of garlic in there

and onion, cumin or chili. Shall I put salt?

Chili and beans... Forget the salt, right.

FIVE HOURS LATER

Hey, I want my shoe back!

Shout loudly so I can see. Scream loudly.

Nice shoe.

- What was...? What is that? - It's a shoe made of sugar.

It's not licorice, like Charlie Chaplin's.

Werner said, "I doubt it! They don't think it's worth it."

"But if you do, I'll come to Berkeley and eating the shoe...

at the film's premiere."

Emboldened, the next morning, Errol called me on the phone...

and asked if he had a camera or knew people with equipment...

because I'd like to shoot something with her with no money or commercial intentions.

I gave him a name of a very Well, she went to film, and in two days...

became a director with so much trust that fired the cameraman...

and then hired another cameraman who also fired...

and a third one who stayed and little by little little did it become a movie...

that she showed to the New York City Festival...

premiered last October at the New York City Festival.

Then he exhibited it at the Festival of the London Film Festival, where...

the American Film Magazine wrote that it was the best film.

Then he showed it in the Berlin Festival and

recently in the Los Angeles Festival

and, of course, it's one of the best

films released by the decade in America,

so you must stay and see it.

And Werner called on Monday and, to our surprise and horror...

he said he wanted to eat his shoe.

And here it is. I don't know to what extent we should let him get on with it.

He cooked his shoe... and will try to eat it.

I would suggest helping him by cutting it off in pieces, but...

You can give a warm welcome to Werner Herzog.

I have no intention of eat his shoe in public.

My intention was to eat it in a restaurant...

but I was pushed a little bit, and to some extent it makes sense...

because it should be an encouragement for those who want to make films...

and they're too afraid to to begin with and they don't have the courage.

So you can continue a good example.

And I think we should also... I also do this in public because...

I want to help Errol's film, which is not yet distributed...

and that it should be distributed by the big studios,

would make me happy. And that's why I'm here.

And don't worry, because we cooked it for five hours...

but it's even harder than before, so I brought...

I brought a pair of bird scissors and some sharp knives.

You can have the same experience whenever they want...

so they have to go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I survived so many... I survived so many Kentucky Fried Chicken...

that this won't do me any harm.

It's true that you swore to play about a cactus at the end of...

"Even dwarves are born small"?

That was a different story.

I realized that the danger was when one of them was hit by a car.

The car ran over from him and even set himself on fire...

when we wet the flower vases with gasoline and lit a fire...

it caught fire and I put it out with my body, I threw myself at it...

and when it went out I said, "I'm going to play about a cactus if everyone survives."

So I had fun drinking photos and filming in super-8.

Was he in a lot of pain jump into the cactus?

No, it wasn't a big deal.

It was a horrible one, with big thorns.

Some of them are still in my knee.

I can't get them out of there, I just are still there. But they don't hurt.

Werner, you're a man of your word when promises of self-destruction are made.

No, it's not self-destructive lie on a cactus.

It was just a way of have some fun...

to show them that I was aware of the problems they had...

and giving them a little of fun in return.

Maybe we can make some questions as he prepares.

How did Errol get money to make the film?

It's still a mystery, he borrowed in every way, he stole...

I don't know how, but this is one way to do it.

If you want to make a movie, steals a camera, steals the film...

Invade... Invade a lab and do it.

It's all good.

Take a bite here.

I don't think I'm gonna eat the soles, because they're very sticky.

When you eat a chicken, they leave their bones behind.

Not bad, he's got a pleasant garlic flavour.

I'll eat another shoe when the 20th Century Fox or Columbia...

or Warner Brothers distribute the film.

So, we're going to save the other one.

The position of the U.S. is not known after of the State of Union Address.

But after seeing this movie, you'll know.

"It's not a film about pet cemeteries."

It's a film about a family...

with all its faults, all his dreams, all the dramas.

It's the only movie about true love,

the emotions and the late capitalism...

and perhaps the only authentic film about the emotional void and the loss of...

distortion of feelings, the degeneration of feelings.

It's a very, very sad and very pure film, and a very pure and very mature film.

This guy came and made his first film...

and yes, it's a very mature director...

and I really like it a lot.

Scene deleted from "Gates of Heaven" A film by Errol Morris

The most important trophy I won in California.

I received a necklace of $1 bills.

There were about 600 dollars hanging there.

I had no idea I'd won.

I had sold more policies in that period than in any other...

and represented each policy with a dollar, so I got a big head start...

but I couldn't walk with him. I don't dare expose him here.

But it was a beautiful trophy. It took me four hours to remove the tape from every dollar.

I like Errol Morris. I knew him when he was a student...

I had seen some of my films.

I encouraged him to make a movie because he'd done a lot of things.

He was a cellist and gave up, abandoned his career as a scientist...

and he was a writer.

It had thousands and thousands of pages of the most incredible material...

I've ever seen in my life.

But he hadn't finished his books, so I said, "You're a man...

that I should be making movies, and you're going to do them now."

And he said, "Well, I don't have any money and no one's going to give it to me."

I said, "Money doesn't make movies. Just you have to do it, take the initiative.

I'm going to eat my shoe if you finish this film."

And now the time has come.

In fact, these are the shoes I had when I made the promise to Errol.

I had to bring these shoes. I could come with the running shoes...

but that doesn't make sense, not as a coward.

Well, I think we should let Werner eat the rest of his shoe in peace.

Is it getting better or worse?

Better.

- Tear this part off there. - Yes.

Werner, can you tell us about the social use of your films?

What is the value of the films for society?

Do not ask questions that they're not up to it.

What is society? I don't know.

I wonder...

since I've been in contact with the public...

about the value of films.

And I think... I don't know, provide a "vision".

They don't change people's minds, do not cause revolutions, do not ...

films can modify our perspective on things,

and ultimately, in the long run...

can be valuable, but it has also a lot of nonsense involved.

As you can see, I became a clown.

That happens to everyone. Seeing Orson Welles or seeing...

even people like Truffaut are turning into clowns.

Would it be because of the publicity?

No, because what we do as directors of cinema is not important...

is just a projection of light, and doing that all your life...

makes him a clown, and it's almost an inevitable process.

I feel the same way about photography.

Yeah, it looks a little like this. It's the work of a magician.

And it's embarrassing to be a filmmaker and sitting here like this, I mean...

Thank God I don't have to sitting here for one of my films...

I'm sitting here for a film made by a friend.

That doesn't give you an image ethic.

We have no ethics of the images, our

civilization does not have ethics of images.

I think our civilization is doomed, she will die like the dinosaurs...

if no ethics of the language or an ethics of images.

This is a dramatic situation.

For example, we discovered that the serious ones

problems encountered for civilization...

like energy, the environment, or nuclear power, overpopulation...

but in general they don't understand that a problem just as big...

is in the absence of adequate images. And I'm working,

in a new grammar of images.

Errol brought a good example. He is now a reference point...

and I'm proud of that.

I'm proud of the and proud of me,

that I pushed him a little bit for this.

So, eating a shoe it's a stupid act, but it's worth it.

I think sometimes we have to be pretty stupid enough to do such things.

More shoes, more boots, more garlic.