Andrew Goldman: Your new documentary, Into the Abyss, focuses on 28-year-old Michael Perry, who was executed for killing a nurse and two teenage boys in order to steal a Camaro for a joy ride. Given your stated opposition to the death penalty, why not focus on a man like Troy Davis, who might have been innocent?
Werner Herzog: What’s wrong about Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood? Did he need to prove the innocence of someone? Perry knew I was not in the business of guilt or innocence. I was after completely different things, like what’s it like for those who know exactly when and how they are going to die.
AG: Your director’s statement says, “A state should not be allowed under any circumstance to execute anyone for any reason, end of story.” Would you feel differently if someone killed one of your sons for a car?
Photo: REUTERS
WH: I would plead for life in prison. Under the Nazis, we had an excessive amount of capital punishment, parallel to a systematic program of euthanasia. And on top of all this, a systematic genocide of 6 million Jewish people. End of story.
AG: So Nazis should not have been executed for their crimes?
WH: No. I had a lively argument with my neighbor, who is Jewish. He said, “I’m against capital punishment, but it was good that Eichmann was executed.” I said: “Not even him. Give him life in prison without parole.” It is very much a question of principle, because the next person would come and say, “Yes, but he murdered a child, and he should be executed.” Principles don’t allow for exceptions.
AG: You’ve admitted to having your own homicidal feelings. You once said you “seriously planned to firebomb” the house of Klaus Kinski, but your plot was foiled by his dog. You also promised to shoot him in the head if he abandoned the set of Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
WH: It’s fine to engage your mind with things like this, but you obviously do not end up doing it. The funny thing is that, at the exact same time, he planned to shoot me. We laughed so hard over all this. It somehow solidified our friendship.
AG: You seem to always be barely escaping death. During a 2006 interview with the BBC, someone shot you with an air rifle. Any near misses lately?
WH: Not to my knowledge. But I have been shot at more seriously too. It’s exhilarating for a man to be shot at unsuccessfully.
AG: You are known for your incredibly difficult productions. Christian Bale ate real maggots for Rescue Dawn. You literally dragged a ship over a mountain for Fitzcarraldo. Why not take advantage of special effects?
WH: Even if special effects existed 30 years ago, I still would have moved that ship over a real mountain — not only for the sake of realism, but for the sake of a big operatic drama. I want audiences in a position where they can trust their eyes again.
AG: In the late 1970s, you ate your own boot to settle a bet with Errol Morris. Anything surprise you about eating footwear?
WH: Humans’ digestive systems are prepared to digest our boots or belts or leather jackets. Ask a nutritionist. But the leather was still so tough that I had to cut it into little pieces with poultry shears and could swallow it only with a big swig of beer.
AG: Remind me why you threw yourself onto a cactus while filming Even Dwarfs Started Small?
WH: We had some incidents in shooting. One of the dwarfs was run over by a driverless car, and then the same one all of a sudden caught fire when we ignited flowerpots with gasoline. As I extinguished him, I said, “If you remain unscathed until the end of the movie, you can use your little Super 8mm camera, and I’ll do a little stunt for you.” So they had their fun.
AG: Not long ago, you did a dramatic reading of a humorous book I’ll call Go the F to Sleep at the New York Public Library. You seem to understand that Americans find you funny. Do Germans?
WH: The Germans haven’t even seen my films in the last 25 years.
AG: Why aren’t you considered a favorite son?
WH: I don’t know. You’d have to ask the Germans.
AG: You’re a German. I’m asking you.
WH: I’m a Bavarian. The Germans have never really embraced their own poets unless they were dead for at least half a century.
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