# Intense off the wall commentary by Werner Herzog on the obscenity of the jungle **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455 "2011-04-15T05:22:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/1 "2011-04-15T05:22:53Z")
[Herzog on the obscenity of the jungle](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQyQnXrLb0). I was entranced, and then lost it when he intoned: "Taking a close look around us . . . there is some sort of harmony . . . it is the harmony of . . . _overwhelming and collective murder_." I think if I was in a cafe at 2 am with this guy, he could hypnotize me into joining whatever cult he wanted. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/2 "2011-04-15T05:31:36Z")
…and now is the time on Sprockets when we dance to the birds screeeching in pain! ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/3 "2011-04-15T05:36:11Z")
Exactly, I feel like I finally understand what Sprockets was parodying! ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/4 "2011-04-15T06:26:02Z")
I found his whole spiel rather droll and orthodoxically Christian. The Fallen nature of “nature” is quite tedious and shpent in the eyes of Original Sin. ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/5 "2011-04-15T08:03:02Z")
I think that is a clip from [Burden of Dreams](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083702/) - a documentary about the making of his film [Fitzcarraldo](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083946/). They lived in the jungle for several years (!) a fact that probably coloured his view upon the surroundings. IIRC he says something similar about the bears in Grizzly Man. Burden of Dreams is an absolutely amazing film, by the way (so is Fitzcarraldo). Highly entertaining - and freaking wild. There is a scene where he is wondering how many indians will get killed trying to drag the steamer across the mountain. He is actually contemplating how many lives his film is worth. Crazy guy. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/6 "2011-04-15T09:57:04Z")
> [@Panurge](#): > > Crazy guy. Quoted for truth. Here are some snippets from his [biography section on imdb](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001348/bio): [Quote=IMDB] Herzog once promised to eat his shoe if a young American film student went out and actually made the film he was always only talking about. (…) Herzog makes good on his promise in the film [Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081746/) (1980), directed by Les Blank. (…) In late 2005, during an interview with BBC film critic Mark Kermode regarding Grizzly Man (2005), a sniper opened fire on them with an air rifle. Kermode panicked when Herzog calmly said, “Someone is shooting at us.” One of the pellets then hit Herzog. An unmoved Herzog said that the bullet was ‘not a significant one’ and insisted on continuing the interview. [/Quote] He also seems to be the only director who was somehow able to work with the raging lunatic [Klaus Kinski](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001428/) for more than one movie (although they mutually threatened to kill the other one from time to time). ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/7 "2011-04-15T10:58:28Z")
It’s worth mentioning that the film student who made Herzog eat his footwear was director [Errol Morris](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errol_Morris), who went on to have, shall we say, a pretty decent career. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/8 "2011-04-15T11:12:52Z")
Here’s the clip of Herzog getting shot (it’s not very graphic, but maybe NSFW due to his alarming purple boxer shorts): [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXqc8TQ15w) ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2011, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/9 "2011-04-15T11:22:30Z")
Interestingly, Kermode just talked about this sometime in the last few months on his Radio 5 film review show (available via iTunes as “Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews”), and pretty much confirmed that Herzog was seemingly little concerned with the whole event. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/10 "2011-04-16T01:06:14Z")
Herzog is fantastic as a personality. You must see “My Best Fiend,” about his relationship with Klaus Kinski. Joe ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/11 "2011-04-16T04:39:46Z")
> [@wheresgeorge04](#): > > Herzog is fantastic as a personality. You must see “My Best Fiend,” about his relationship with Klaus Kinski. > > Joe Aye, the whole Fitzcarraldo 3 (that’s how I think of them) (_Fitzcarraldo_, _Burden of Dreams_, & _My Best Fiend_) are a powerful bunch of films, especially when watched back-to-back-to-back. Oh, _Aguirre, The Wrath of God_ is a great film too. One of my favorite things about Herzog was what happened in _Grizzly Man_ [spoiler]when he was listening to the audio of the fatal attack, he reaches a point where he simply can’t listen anymore and advises Jewel Palovak that he thinks she should go ahead and destroy the tape. She herself had never listened to it, but she knew what was on it. What I love is that here’s a guy who’s lived with a violent schizophrenic (Kinski), worked with him numerous times, including filming a movie in a jungle during a real-life war; he’s been shot, he’s been there when they put out the fires in Iraq in the early 1990s… he’s seen some truly horrifying and bizarre and fucked up shit… and that audio recording was just too much for _him_.[/spoiler] Werner Herzog is one of my favorite directors and is without a doubt a fantastic and unique personality. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intense-off-the-wall-commentary-by-werner-herzog-on-the-obscenity-of-the-jungle/578455/12 "2011-04-16T19:20:35Z")
> [@Panurge](#): > > I think that is a clip from [Burden of Dreams](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083702/) - a documentary about the making of his film [Fitzcarraldo](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083946/). They lived in the jungle for several years (!) a fact that probably coloured his view upon the surroundings. IIRC he says something similar about the bears in Grizzly Man. > > Burden of Dreams is an absolutely amazing film, by the way (so is Fitzcarraldo). Highly entertaining - and freaking wild. There is a scene where he is wondering how many indians will get killed trying to drag the steamer across the mountain. He is actually contemplating how many lives his film is worth. Crazy guy. Even though _Fitzcarraldo_ is one of my favorite films, I hadn’t managed to see _Burden of Dreams_ until a few weeks ago, when I got it through Netflix. And this is exactly the bit from the film that most blew me away. As someone who loves the tropical rainforest and working, I found Herzog’s comments both demented and hilarious. Who but a German who condemn the jungle for being “disorderly,” or decide that even the stars were different there. (Of course they are, for the most part, the same stars that shine over Germany.) I’ve actually worked in that exact area, though I didn’t realize it at the time. In the late '90s I participated in some large-scale biodiversity surveys sponsored by Shell in connection with exploratory wells they were drilling for natural gas in the area. We worked out of four well sites in the area of the Camisa and lower Urubamba Rivers. We were way out there - a half hour by helicopter over nearly unbroken forest from Shell’s main base. Our field assistants came from the Machigengua and Yaminahua tribes - some might have been related to the people who worked for Herzog 15 years earlier. (By the way, although _Fitzcarraldo_ was filmed over a period of several years, I don’t think Herzog and the film crew were on site for more than a few months at a time. Still, plenty long enough to go crazy if you didn’t start out that way.) After seeing _Burden of Dreams_, I decided to rewatch _Fitzcarraldo_. I got it from Netflix and watched it a few days ago; I’ll probably watch the director’s commentary tonight. Incidentally, the bird “screaming in pain” in the background of the clip is actually named the Screaming Piha. Now I’ve got to get _My Best Fiend_, which I’ve also never seen.