There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.
I have always postulated that we have to find a new way to deal with reality. It’s not so much facts that interest me, but a deeper truth in them – an ecstasy of truth, an ecstatic truth that illuminates us. That’s what I’ve been after.
Perseverance has kept me going over the years. Things rarely happen overnight. Filmmakers should be prepared for many years of hard work. The sheer toil can be healthy and exhilarating.
The danger is to stupidly believe that depicting facts gives us much insight. If facts were the only thing that counted, the telephone directory would be the book of books.
The universe is not harmonious: you know that by looking outside.
I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.
I don’t care whether the person is guilty or not guilty. It’s not my business to establish guilt or innocence. It’s a court of law that does that and a jury does that, but not me.
I am not an artist and never have been. Rather I am like a craftsman and feel very close to the mediaeval artisans who produced their work anonymously and who, along with their apprentices, had a true feeling for the physical materials they were working with.
I’m not a journalist; I’m a poet.
I travel without barely any luggage. Just a second set of underwear and binoculars and a map and a toothbrush.
I’m quite convinced that cooking is the only alternative to film making. Maybe there’s also another alternative, that’s walking on foot.
I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.
I live my life outside of the glitz and glamour of the red carpet events, and so you’ll never see me there. I’m never at parties.
It happens sometimes that the material itself carries things you have not fully planned. The footage has its own right, its own life, its own vibrancy and energy in it.
I have nothing against 3D films but I do not need to see them.
I find it interesting that there are impostors out on the Internet pretending to be Werner Herzog.
In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel.
Of course, as a German, I wouldn’t like to tell the American people how to handle their criminal justice.
I prefer to be alive, so I’m cautious about taking risks.
There is a fascination about crime, which is understandable, but hardly anyone talks about the families of victims of violent crime and the devastation that is beyond the victim alone.
In Germany, you would be hanged if you cracked a joke about Hitler and you would be killed by the state if you were insane in a project of euthanasia.