Interview with director Werner Herzog

By Scott Marks

It is probably not a good idea to invite directors Werner Herzog and Abel Ferrara to the same cocktail party. It seems the latter was none too pleased when the great German filmmaker announced that he was going to borrow the title from Ferrara’s “The Bad Lieutenant” and make a version all his own.
In a June 2008 interview in The Guardian, Ferrara, co-author and director of the first “The Bad Lieutenant,” likened Herzog’s version to being robbed and said the mere thought of remaking his film left him with “a horrible feeling.” He asked how Nicolas Cage “can even have the nerve to play Harvey Keitel” and called Herzog’s screenwriter William Finkelstein “an idiot.” Just to make sure his point was well taken, he proclaimed that those who participated in the remake “should all die in hell.”
“That’s show business,” Herzog joked when asked about Ferrara’s tantrum.
By now the once excitable visionary has learned to take things in stride. In “Fitzcarraldo” he managed to move a 340-ton steamship over a mountain with a bulldozer and without any special effects (unless you count the off-screen pyrotechnics that ensued between the director and his star, Klaus Kinski). Wishing Herzog dead is like shooting spitballs at a battleship.
“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” marks Werner Herzog’s 55th time in the director’s chair. We spoke with him about how film has changed during his nearly 50-year career, drug induced reptiles, Scorsese’s Jesus vs. Gibson’s Jesus and whether or not anything in his “Bad Lieutenant” remains Abel-bodied.

Scott Marks: At times, outsiders seem to have a better grasp of American culture than Americans do. Do you feel that having an ocean of separation helps you to make a truly objective film about America?
Werner Herzog: (Laughing) Oh, for God’s sake, nobody will ever make an objective movie about America. No. I am just following my instincts and my fascinations. I live in your country as a guest and I wouldn’t live here if I fundamentally didn’t like your country. I do a film like “Bad Lieutenant” as a friend who has been allowed as a guest in the country.

Q: Do you remember the first film that you ever saw?
A: Yes I do, but I don’t remember the name of it. It was very lousy and I didn’t enjoy it. Until then, and that was when I was 11, I didn’t know that cinema even existed.

Q: When was the first time you realized that the actors didn’t make up the dialogue as they went along?
A: I don’t recall, but I saw a film with a mistake in it where they recycled the same shot. I got suspicious and had the feeling that I should have a closer look at how a film is being made.

Q: So it was a mistake of cinema that brought about your awakening?
A: It was just a careless recycling of a shot. Yes.

Q: Why is it important that “Bad Lieutenant” takes place in New Orleans during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina?
A: Well, I think that’s where the film should be. It was written originally for New York, but I think New Orleans is a much better place.

Q: I’m a bit puzzled over the significance of the reptiles in the movie. What’s going on with the snake, the iguanas and the dead alligator on the side of the road?
A: Remain puzzled! (Laughing) They’re so demented! Don’t fight to find the real answer, just enjoy them.

Q: At the beginning of the film while Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) is still a good lieutenant, at least comparatively speaking, he dives into a flooded jail cell to save a prisoner.
A: Before he does so he wages bets (on) how long it’s going to take for the prisoner to drown, with plenty of dark humor. He’s never really a good lieutenant.

Q: Still, comparatively speaking, he’s a pussycat at that point in the film.
A: Well, yes. He gets more violent, more debased and more dysfunctional, but because he’s like that, he’s the one that solves the crime!

Q: Any other director would have probably put a camera underwater and showed him banging his back against a desk or something. I really admire the fact that you didn’t dwell over how McDonagh injured himself. Was that your decision or was it in the script?
A: Of course, no, no! It was mine. The film was written for New York originally and it started out in a subway station where the lieutenant rescues a suicidal man who jumps down to the tracks of an incoming train. I thought, number one, there is no subway in New Orleans and number two, it’s too heartless.

Q: It’s also too clichéd. How many times has that scene played itself out on network teledramas?
A: Yeah, yeah. Sure. Let’s face it. That was a very good screenplay with real fine dialogue.

Q: You have been working as a director consistently since 1962 and now find yourself working with a first-time screenwriter. Do you feel that the script by William Finkelstein reflects…
A: He’s not a first-time screenwriter. Come on. Let’s face it, he worked for decades writing screenplays, but I think it was mostly for television.

Q: Right. This was his first time writing a theatrical feature.
A: It doesn’t really matter.

Q: Did that affect the way you approached bringing the script to the screen?
A: No, no. He’s such a good writer. In fact he’s such a character that I cast him in the movie and he’s very convincing as a gangster as well.

Q: From a filmmaker’s point of view, what are some of the most significant changes you’ve seen in your almost 50 years behind the camera?
A: No significant changes at all. You see, moviemaking will remain the same, like making children, no matter when you do it. It’s basically the same. There are new technologies but it doesn’t really affect the core of filmmaking.

Q: There has been a lot of gossip concerning “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” and Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant.” Is it true that you still have yet to watch the Ferrara version?
A: I haven’t seen it and it is, of course, irrelevant. Everybody knows that the two films have nothing to do with each other, including, apparently, Ferrara. The gossip is wonderful because it’s like the moment when the manager of a baseball team storms out on the field and yells at the umpire and kicks dust. Abel Ferrara, who seems to be quite a character, created one of those moments and we just don’t want to miss a moment like that. That’s show business!

Q: Is it true that you wanted to call the film simply “Port of Call: New Orleans” but Edward Pressman decided to add the “Bad Lieutenant” moniker because it was similar to the Ferrara film he produced, and he liked the idea of a franchise?
A: Yes. I always thought that “Bad Lieutenant” was a bad idea. Now it’s part of the title. We have some sort of a hybrid title which is okay. I don’t worry about it. I think (Pressman) held the rights to the title. What matters most is what you see on the screen and that’s the director’s cut. It is very rare that a director’s cut ends up on the screen. I’m completely content and my voice was completely respected. What more can you ask for?

Q: When it comes right down to it, the only similarities between the two are that he’s a violent cop who is also an inveterate gambler and drug abuser.
A: Right. It’s the same thing Martin Scorsese’s Jesus Christ film has in common with Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”: They both have Christ in them. It’s not as though Martin Scorsese’s was the original and Mel Gibson’s the remake of it.

Q: Brilliant analogy! Do you still go to the movies or are you too busy making them?
A: No. I don’t go to a lot of movies. I see two or three films as an average each year.

Q: That’s all?
A: There is a great joy in it and I wish I could see more films, but I’m making them mostly, and in a way it keeps me away from watching too much.

Q: This is your 11th collaboration with cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger. What is it about his style of shooting that appeals to you?
A: Well, I put the style in.

Q: (Laughing) Of course. How silly of me.
A: He’s a wonderful man…strong like a bison. I am not the one who creates style because I do not want to organize style or aesthetics. They will creep into it by themselves. If we start to try to create style it will always end up as a stupid artsy-fartsy film.

Q: The one image that comes to mind when thinking of a Werner Herzog film is the dancing chicken at the end of “Stroszek.” That is one the most damning and devastating indictments of a certain sector of American life that I have ever seen put on film. They had one of those coin-operated dancing chicken booths at an arcade that I’d visit every year with my day camp. I was delighted by it until one of the employees told me that the reason the bird danced was because my nickel sent electric shocks through the chicken’s feet.
A: Not at the place where I filmed it in Cherokee, North Carolina. In this case they were given a few grains of corn as a reward when they danced.

Q: It was more Pavlovian.
A: Yes.

Q: Your next film, “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done,” was shot here in San Diego. What’s it about?
A: It’s based on a real murder case that took place 30 years ago. It always fascinated me and a friend of mine, who is a professor of classics at Boston University, who has always been interested in ancient Greek drama. Somehow, with the staging of one of these ancient dramas, “The Oresteia,” a murder occurred where the leading actor, who has to murder his mother on the stage, did something similar in real life.

Q: Any fond memories of filming in San Diego?
A: Working in San Diego was very nice. The only thing was our main location was not very far from the airport and we always had to wait until the plane flew over. We had 60 seconds to quickly do the next shot. San Diego was really welcoming us.

Q: As well we should! Are you going to be making the promotional rounds when the film opens in San Diego?
A: I think the film opens on December 11 in New York and at the end of December probably in Los Angeles. I’m sure it’s going to be shown in San Diego, but that will be in January, I guess.

Q: Any more acting in your future? You were a hoot in “Julian Donkey Boy.”
A: Sometimes I like to work as a paid stooge. I’m pretty good at it when it comes to a dysfunctional character that is completely hostile and vile. (Laughing.)

Q: In talking with you, you are a very funny man. You have a wonderful sense of humor.
A: I hope so. My wife will confirm to you that I am a very fluffy husband. People always think I’m this gloomy, obsessed German filmmaker. Well I’m not. I’m Bavarian and I have a sense of humor. (Laughing.)

Q: Thanks so much for taking the time. I think you have a hit on your hands and if I’m wrong, I’ll eat my shoe.
A: Thank you very much. (Laughing.) That’s very encouraging.