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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.

Werner Herzog

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Werner Herzog
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: September 5
Author
Cinematographer
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Voice Actor
München
Werner Herzog Stipetić
Werner Stipetić
Poetic
Reached
Cinema
Mysterious
Deeper
Strata
Imagination
Fabrication
Truth
Ecstatic
Thing
Elusive

More quotes by Werner Herzog

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It's curiosity, and always a sense of poetry. You see it in particular in the chapter Iceland where I'm reciting ancient Icelandic poetry. It has this very beautiful gravitas in conjunction with the volcanoes.
Werner Herzog
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A fairly young, intelligent-looking man with long hair asked me whether filming or being filmed could do harm, whether it could destroy a person. In my heart the answer was yes, but I said no.
Werner Herzog
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Very often, footage that you have shot develops its own dynamic, it's own life, that is totally unexpected, and moves away from you're original intentions. And you have to acknowledge, yes, there is a child growing and developing and moving in a direction that isn't expected-accept it as it is and let it develop its own life.
Werner Herzog
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I prefer the material woman.
Werner Herzog
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There's this kind of strange mythology about me in the media because I've done unusual things.
Werner Herzog
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If you truly love film, I think the healthiest thing to do is not read books on the subject. I prefer the glossy film magazines with their big color photos and gossip columns, or the National Enquirer. Such vulgarity is healthy and safe.
Werner Herzog
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When you look at the paintings at Chauvet Cave, they're not primitive or like children's little scribbles, it bursts on the scene fully accomplished and when you look through the faces of cultural history, art history, it has never gotten any better.
Werner Herzog
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Along with this rapid growth of forms of communication at our disposal - be it fax, phone, email, internet or whatever - human solitude will increase in direct proportion.
Werner Herzog
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I see planets that don't exist and landscapes that have only been dreamed.
Werner Herzog
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In my films, I hope there are a few moments where you feel almost illuminated, like in a state of ecstasy, stepping out of yourself, beyond yourself and perceiving something which is only, in the case of cinema, possible in collective dreams.
Werner Herzog
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I do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books.
Werner Herzog
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Some of the most important caves, like Lascaux in the Dordogne region in France, have had to be closed down. There had been too many people allowed in, and they left a mold on the walls that is spreading and which can't really be stopped.
Werner Herzog
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I always had a feeling, for example, that there should be something from Verdi's Requiem in the film. You hear it when you see the lava flow in Iceland. That turned out to be a very easy choice.
Werner Herzog
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Never wallow in your troubles despair must be kept private and brief.
Werner Herzog
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The power of a volcano when it erupts is so evident, so visible, so palpable.
Werner Herzog
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As for the anger of the volcano, we leave it up to the local populations who create their demons, their gods and their divine punishment.
Werner Herzog
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North Korea is not an exception. Even there, where you think it would be completely sober, they have the myth of their revolution being connected to the volcano.
Werner Herzog
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We are just a blip. I found it very interesting when Clive [Oppenheimer] interviewed the Ethiopian scientists and asked them, Do we have another 100,000 years? In their calculation, mankind will be entering a very critical phrase a thousand years from now.
Werner Herzog
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You better make yourself acquainted to what the requirements are, what the value of money is all about and how you create a long-term survival, and in many cases it has to do with how you handle finances.
Werner Herzog
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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.
Werner Herzog