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Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
The fundamental question is not, why would Werner Herzog eat his shoe? Judging from what we know of the German New Wave director, the question that we really must ask is, Why not? The myths that surround his legacy are legendary and, for the most part, true: He is a man willing to haul a 340-ton steamship over a mountain simply to capture the shot of its metallic body groaning at the pressure, willing to risk his life shooting on the rim of an erupting volcano, willing to cast and direct a paranoid schizophrenic in his lead roles at the risk of his cast and crew, willing to take an entire film crew thousands of miles into the jungle where indigenous tribes are right in the middle of a savage border war. With such a remarkable, even mad, list of feats behind him, eating a shoe seems like a minor event. Yet in a way, it is an appropriate, humorous summation of his career as a filmmaker—a perfect allegory for the extremes that he is willing to go to make his films. Most people run the risk of eating their own foot when they take chances on the scale of Herzog’s obsessions; remarkably he always triumphs (I’ve yet to see a film by Herzog that does anything less than succeed), and he prefers to eat his shoe without any prompting. Herzog, after all, famously said, “If I had to climb into hell and wrestle the devil himself for one of my films, I would do it.” When he will eat a shoe on a whim and it occurs to us that it is one of the most “normal” things he’s ever done in a movie, we take such a claim seriously and literally. The real question at hand is, why would any person—even one of the world’s greatest filmmakers—risk so much to capture a few moments of cinema? This short documentary by Les Blank (Burden of Dreams) is helpful because it allows the director to clearly outline his mission statement: “We are at war,” Herzog explains in the film’s opening moments, “with talk shows and commercials and television programs. We are at war with Bonanza. Television kills our imagination and what we end up with are worn-out images because of the inability of too many people to seek out fresh ones.” And
there you have it. Here is the maker of mesmerizing pictures—indeed,
some of the greatest—who is obsessed with capturing new
images, with ripping ideas out of dreams and recreating them on
the screen as only slightly more tangible. All for the sake of
his war to give us new images, to wake us up from the possession
of Oprah and Survivor. And he will personally put himself
on the line to give us these images, just like any good soldier
is expected to risk their life for their cause. He will even eat
his shoe if it can inspire someone to follow in his footsteps
and take up his crusade. This 20-minute documentary simply follows the director to the premier of The Gates of Heaven, watches him prepare his shoe in a large pot, and listens to him talk about his role as a filmmaker, and his utmost respect for Errol Morris. In a sense, this short is sort of an extended promotion for Morris’ film: Herzog says of The Gates of Heaven, “You listen to the president’s state of the union address, and you have no idea what is going on in the union. If you watch this film, you will understand instantly.” The film has been heralded as one of the greatest documentaries ever made, and Roger Ebert ranks it among the ten greatest films of all time. Shoe also works as a bridge between The Gates of Heaven and Les Blank’s own Burden of Dreams, a film about the turbulent making of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. Blank and Herzog are collaborators and friends, and after his short production, Herzog invited the filmmaker along to record the making of the troublesome shoot, considered one of the most difficult in the history of cinema. I was recently asked to make a list of films that best showcase a vision of a descent into hell, and Burden of Dreams is near the top. Blank perfectly captured Herzog’s genius and madness as Fitzcarraldo fell deeper and deeper into complicated ordeals that time and time again nearly brought death to both the production and Herzog’s career (“I should not make any more movies. I should be locked up in an insane asylum.” he tells Blank at one point.). Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, then, is the film that came in between—it is the epilogue to Morris’ film and the prologue to Blank’s. Together, the three make an interesting trilogy about the relationship between noble intentions and mad pursuits. Here, we see that Herzog is a fascinating person who deserves a far more thorough examination. Herzog’s true depth, of course, is explored in Burden of Dreams, so it is appropriate that this, the opening chapter, is now a special feature on the Criterion Collection’s DVD of that film. Watch them together, but watch The Gates of Heaven first. Then watch Fitzcarraldo, and support Herzog’s war on television. Cast: A Flower Films presentation.
Directed by Les Blank. No M.P.A.A. rating, but contains gruesome
images of shoe abuse. Running time: 20 minutes. Original year
of release: 1980. |
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