Werner Herzog

Last night, at the New Beverly, I was lucky enough to sit a few seats away from the legend himself, Herzog.

He is exploring some interesting things with his life and career:

1. The difference between Fact and Truth. This has become particularly relevant in the age of photoshop and digital effects...we can no longer trust our own eyes.
2. The deep sickness in our civilization. Why do so many obese women claim to be abducted by aliens and gang-raped? This does not happen in Nepal or Somalia.
3. Nature is not harmonious - but chaotic, murderous, and short.
4. He is interested in characters who try to leave the confines of civilization and become something else - a man a part - a man with only his own soul.
5. Ecstatic truth - not aesthetic - he is trying to discover what it is it in those ecstatic moments that we feel, what is it we touch, when we feel those moments of intense joy, some form of human truth that transcends everyday reality.
6. What is it about our collective dreams that allows many of us to believe in the supernatural?
7. A person deserves dignity and privacy with their own death. It is why he would not incorporate the tape of Treadwell's death in Grizzly Man and why home video of people dropping from buildings on 9/11 will never and should never be shown. He recommends destroying the tapes.