Werner Herzog names his eight favourite films of all time
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Credit: Raffi Asdourian
Werner Herzog questions whether we’re living in a simulation
Celebrating his 80th birthday and 60 years in the movie industry, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog has been reflecting on his time in cinema, where he has gifted the art form with countless classics. An idiosyncratic mind with a deft ability to captivate an audience, Herzog has earned his stripes in the realms of both narrative and documentary filmmaking and has become a beloved industry icon in the process.
Becoming something of a modern-day filmmaking sage, Herzog has created a filmmaking niche where his psychoactive trips take audiences into a deep dive into some of life’s most fascinating topics. Musing on the philosophy of 21st-century living, the director’s recent films have explored contemporary existentialism in the likes of Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World and Family Romance, LLC.
In each of these films, as well as his previous masterworks, Fitzcarraldo, Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fata Morgana, Herzog questions the limits of human existence, asking what it means to be mortal among a bounty of other ponderous thoughts. Watching a film from the German director is like stepping into an entirely new form of thinking, a new world ordered by the thoughts and philosophy of Herzog himself.
His modern philosophy was tested recently during an interview with IndieWire, where he was asked, “Are we living in a simulation?”.
Responding with an answer which feels appropriately sagacious, Herzog states, “Well, it’s not a simulation made by anyone. It’s made by us. We create our cultural norms. In earlier cultures, it was normal to have human sacrifice. Today, of course, we’ve shifted someone else where we create our own norms, our own rituals, our own performative life”.
Continuing, the filmmaker, who explored this same concept in his 2016 documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World, added, “When you’re in the military, if the drill sergeant yells at you, and you stomp your feet down, that’s completely performative. That would be very strange to see for an ancient Roman legionnaire”.
His obsession with modern technology radiates throughout many of his modern movies, with the filmmaker clearly fascinated by how the internet has constructed an entirely new ‘fake’ reality. One of the most obvious ways in which consumers can see how far technology has come is in the realms of video games, where graphics and performance have improved beyond comparison since the 1990s.
Also fascinated by this new form of entertainment, Herzog adds, “Of course, what is fascinating is that we often invent realities like in video games. Quite often, young people in particular get addicted to them. They prefer this world of pure invention to the reality outside their doorstep. I find that fascinating. Apparently, tests have shown that sometimes — I say sometimes — mice prefer completely artificial worlds created for them with video projection. This is really wild! What the hell is going?”.
As always, the wise words of Werner Herzog make for quality reading, and if you fancy more musings, we highly recommend his documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World.
