The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss

Werner Herzog

12 snips

Jul 24, 2024

Filmmaker Werner Herzog shares riveting stories from his new autobiography in a captivating conversation covering destiny, duty, endurance, leadership, courage, love, childhood memories, survival tales, and societal ethics. From poignant accounts of Holocaust survivors to contemplations on the significance of walking, heroes, religion, language, and unforgettable first-time experiences, this episode offers a multifaceted glimpse into Herzog's extraordinary life.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

First Orange: A Childhood Revelation

Herzog's first orange arrived in hospital when he was a child snowed in and unfamiliar with peels.
He discovered the fruit's segments and called the taste exquisitely transformative.

INSIGHT

War's Lasting Lessons

Being a child of war instilled hunger-awareness and respect for food in Herzog.
Wartime deprivation also amplified his later awe for undiscovered things.

INSIGHT

Checked Memory, Not Fabrication

Herzog defends his memoir's veracity and cross-checked stories with living witnesses.
He notes many incidents had multiple witnesses, making invention implausible.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

This is my second dialogue with filmmaker extraordinaire and force of nature, Werner Herzog. But after I read his amazing new memoire Every Man for Himself, and God Against All, which takes its name for the German title of his 1974 film The Enigma of Kasper Hauser, I had to have Werner back.

I have known Werner for almost 20 years. We met when I was a judge at Sundance and we gave his film Grizzly Man an award, and Werner, his wife Lena, and I have been fast friends ever since. He even allowed me to be a villain in the movie Salt and Fire, which we shot in Bolivia with Michael Shannon and Veronica Ferres. So, after all of this time I thought I really had a good handle on him. I was wrong.

So many people ask me about Werner, who has a reputation of being larger than life, and I always say what a kind, generous, pleasant man he is. All of that is true, but after reading his new autobiography, I realize that he IS larger than life!!

If it weren’t Werner, I would never believe all of the amazing stories and events. That he is still alive is alone almost a miracle. For this dialogue I decided that rather than following his story chronologically, I would read him various quotes from the book and ask him to elaborate. What followed was a rollicking conversation that is one of the most amazing I have recorded to date, and that I think presents Werner has perhaps few other interviews ever had. In the process we covered territory from science to philosophy to history to religion and beyond. And in the end, what arose most clearly from our discussion was that while he is a world famous filmmaker, what he really is at heart, is a poet. And we are all lucky to have him. Enjoy!

As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.

Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe