Werner Herzog has led a charmed life, from frequently avoiding death while making his singular films to getting semi-randomly cast in popcorn fare like Jack Reacher (as the villain!) to continuing an interview after being shot in the belly by a stray BB gun. Also remember that time he popped up on Parks and Recreation? So we’ll see what his new bosses at Disney, who allowed him to be cast in the forthcoming Star Wars show The Mandalorian, have to say about his latest bold statement, namely that pirating movies? To him it’s fine.
As per The Independent, the filmmaker/actor/madman — who almost went crazy filming Fitzcarraldo in the Amazon Basin and once rescued Joaquin Phoenix from a car accident — was speaking at the Vision in Nyon film festival in Switzerland when Ukranian producer Illia Gladshtein mentioned she was only able to find his noted films on illegal download sites.
¨Piracy has been the most successful form of distribution worldwide,” Herzog responded. He clarified that he, of course, likes being paid, but if a film of his is not available via proper channels, then, you know, go with God. “If someone like you steals my films through the internet or whatever, fine, you have my blessing.”
For the record, Netflix has three of Herzog’s over 60 films: His recent docs Into the Inferno, about volcanos, and Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World, about the internet, plus the Nicole Kidman-Robert Pattinson biopic Queen of the Desert. Amazon Prime offers free to subscribers a fair amount: Fitzcarraldo, Nosferatu the Vampyre, and Cobra Verde, plus Les Blank’s short Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, whose title is scarily self-explanatory. The newly-launched Criterion Channel has only Shoe and Burden of Dreams, Blank’s classic doc about the chaotic making of Fitzcarraldo, which features this classic Herzog rant.
Of course, you can pay a small amount on Amazon to rent such classic Herzog fare as Aguirre: The Wrath of God or Stroszek or Grizzly Man or Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. But if you want to watch his debut Signs of Life or his ski flying doc The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner or his auctioneer doc How Much Wood Would A Woodchuck Chuck…, you may have to be creative. But if you do, you’ll have their maker’s blessing.
(Via The Independent)
