“the chicken stops here”
I saw Grizzly Man for the first time a few weeks ago. It was an interesting movie; painful to watch at times, but excellent overall. Anyway, I can be a bit slow on the uptake, and it wasn’t until I was halfway through the movie that I realized it was by Werner Herzog. This held some personal significance.
When I hit age eleven or so, my sneaky dad started sitting me down and slipping weird foreign films into the VCR (or rather, I thought they were weird at the time, since none of them starred Keanu Reeves or involved a speeding bus). At first, I balked at the injustice of being forced to watch anything black, white, and subtitled. By age fifteen I’d developed a secret love for Toshiro Mifune.
I remember most of the movies we watched together, but there was one in particular I could always picture with crystal clarity. It was probably the first incredibly good movie I ever saw; it was certainly the first ‘boring,’ grownup movie I truly enjoyed. I thought about it now and then over the years. I wanted to watch it again. A while back I decided I was gonna track it down, once and for all, and find myself a copy. Only problem was, I could not, for the life of me, remember the title or director. All I could recall was that the title had the word “God” in it.
Do you have any idea how many movies have the word “God” in the title? I do. 788.
Still, in the end, I persevered: the movie was Werner Herzog’s Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. (Apparently, what I remembered was the ALTERNATIVE title: Every Man For Himself and God Against All.) I ordered it, rewatched it, and confirmed to myself that it is, indeed, a fine film. I highly recommend it. (The actual true story it’s based on is pretty fascinating, too, if you’re up for some light German-historical-anecdote action.)
Yes. So. This has been my circuitous way of saying that Werner and me, we gots HISTORY.
Tonight, as I indulged in my favorite hobby of Not Sleeping, it occurred to me that both Grizzly Man and Kaspar Hauser are fairly bizarre, especially considering that they were structured around/inspired by true events. Thinking specifically about how singular Herzog’s interactions were all through the Grizzly Man interviews, I decided to wikipedia him. I figured he was bound to be a slightly interesting character. I was wrong.
PEOPLE. It turns out that Werner Herzog may well be The Coolest Man Ever:
- Herzog once ate his own shoe after promising to do so in an
attempt to inspire then-fledgling filmmaker Errol Morris.
- On January 26, 2006, Herzog helped to rescue actor Joaquin
Phoenix when his car overturned after a brake malfunction
on a winding road in Laurel Canyon, CA, near Herzog’s home.
- Herzog once jumped into a cactus patch after one of his actors, a dwarf,
survived being set on fire and run over by a car while filming.
Earlier he had stated, “I’m going to jump into a cactus if you all survive.”
He allowed the crew to film and take photographs of him executing the stunt.
- The original vinyl release version of Joy Division’s posthumous album
featured the following groove notations: “The chicken won’t stop,” etched
chicken tracks across the grooves, and “The chicken stops here.” These
are all references to the grim finale of Herzog’s film Stroszek.
- On 3 February 2006, Herzog was shot with an air rifle by a
crazed fan during a BBC interview. Herzog said afterwards:
“It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid.”
He responds to getting shot with “NOT A SIGNIFICANT BULLET”(!?!?!!) and creates a “grim finale” that appears to revolve around a chicken. The man has clearly attained true greatness.
I know what movie I’m watching next.
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