Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.10.2017, Side 28

Guerrilla Film-
Making
An interview with RIFF guest of honour Werner Herzog
Legendary film-maker Werner Herzog
is no stranger to Iceland. Apart from
his recent documentary on the island’s
geological turmoil, ‘Into The Inferno,’
he also has an abiding love for the me-
dieval document the Codex Regius—
also known as the Poetic Eddas of the
Icelanders. He recently started his own
Rogue Film School, which attracted
international attention, not least of all
for being true to its name in teaching,
amongst other things, how to pick locks
and forge shooting permits.
Herzog returned to Iceland recently
as a guest of honour for the Reykjavík In-
ternational Film Festival. We were able
to catch him for a few minutes before he
joined the teeming throng downstairs at
Hlemmur Square.
"That's what I do,” he tells us, when
asked about the impetus for the path
his life has taken. “It was a decision of
whether I should accept my destiny,
which became very clear when I was an
adolescent, and I decided I would do this
work. It would not be an easy life, but
that's it."
The decision to start the Rogue Film
School was made for practical as well as
idealistic reasons.
Teaching self-reliance
"The Rogue Film School is a consequence
of a huge avalanche that is coming at me
for two, maybe three decades,” Herzog
says. “Young people want to learn from
me. I had the feeling that I don't really
have anything to teach. It's much bet-
ter to start a discourse and give a more
organised answer. Because if today, I
would announce publicly, let's say over
the internet, that I'm searching for in-
terns, I would have 15,000 people coming
at me. I'm just guessing, but it's prob-
ably a huge amount. And I try to give a
systematic answer. Of course, it is called
the Rogue Film School because it's a very
guerrilla-style approach to filmmak-
ing. Self-reliance seems like something
which you do not learn in film school.
It's very depressing what's happening in
film schools right now."
Is this, then, what is missing from
modern filmmaking, this sense of dar-
ing and adventure, to strike out fearless-
ly into the unknown? Herzog, as always,
rejects generalisation.
"'Modern filmmaking' is not really
acceptable as a term,” he says. “Because
you have a variety of filmmaking. Just
six weeks ago I was acting in one of these
gigantic American fantasy film produc-
tions, something like a 150-200 million
dollar production. All of the sudden
you're in a field where filmmaking or
acting is completely different. Of course,
it has to be taken seriously and I'm curi-
ous about it, because you're function-
ing as an actor with motion recording.

Words:
Paul Fontaine
Photos:
Art Bicnick
Culture
Herzog is really, really excited about the Poetic Eddas
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