Legendary film director Werner Herzog was born on September 5, 1942, in Munich, Germany, making him 75-years old today, and fans are celebrating with amusingly dark tweets featuring the “Twertzog” hashtag.
Anyone who has seen Werner Herzog’s fascinating and groundbreaking documentaries is familiar with the director’s often dark and always brutally honest narration in which he expounds on the brutal and chaotic nature of existence. For example, in Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man which details the life of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell leading to the moment he was mauled by grizzly bears while trying to get close to them in Alaska, Herzog criticizes Treadwell’s naivety regarding the bears, according to a Herzog quote found on IMDb.
“In all the faces of all the bears Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy,” Herzog said. “I see only the overwhelming indifference in nature. To me, there is no such thing as the secret world of bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food.”
Having grown up in post-war Germany, Werner Herzog’s worldview is interpreted by some critics as a response to the horrors of Nazism, according to the Guardian . Herzog rejects this interpretation, saying that is is too simple and too obvious.
“The universe is not harmonious: you know that by looking outside,” Herzog said. “It has nothing to do with Nazis.”
Despite the dark and seemingly nihilistic nature of many of Werner Herzog’s quotes, they are often quite funny, and in an absurd way they serve to celebrate existence. Herzog is not simply interested in pointing out how awful, chaotic, and brutal the world is, but in finding deeper truths set beneath the surface of things. Werner Herzog’s concept of “ecstatic truth” involves sometimes bending the truth or fabricating events and facts in his documentaries. In his Minnesota Declaration , taken from the website of his close friend, film critic Roger Ebert, Werner Herzog explains what he means by “ecstatic truth.”
“There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth,” Herzog wrote. “It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.”
In light of that, one can start to better understand Werner Herzog’s particular view of reality, such as with the quote below about chickens, taken from Good Reads .
“Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity,” Herzog said. “It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world.”
Herzog quotes could fill a book, and perhaps someday they will. In honor of Werner Herzog’s birthday, and to both celebrate and poke a little fun at his peculiar style of observation, fans on Twitter are making up quotes that sound like something Herzog would say, accompanied by the #Twertzog hashtag. Of course, they are best read while imagining Herzog’s thick German accent.
The sun has risen on #Twertzog Day. There are no presents. Only an added awareness of the inexorable march towards death. #Twertzog
— Werner Twertzog (Parody) (@ParodyWerner) September 5, 2017
Always locate the nearest emergency exit. But know this: there is but one way out for any of us. #Twertzog
— Jonathan Potts (@jepotts) September 5, 2017
Another way to celebrate the birthday of Werner Herzog is to watch his films. From classic narrative films such as Stroszek and Aguirre, the Wrath of God , to his classic documentaries, such as The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner and Encounters at the End of the World , Herzog’s films are filled with fascinating observations, captivating characters, and amazing scenery. Herzog’s recent Netflix documentary about volcanos, Into the Inferno , is no exception.
[Featured Image by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images]
