
I Am Werner Herzog, the Filmmaker. AMA - sergeant3
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4sjaoe/i_am_werner_herzog_the_filmmaker_ama/
======
js2
This is a terrific AMA. I'm not sure I can pick a favorite Q&A, but perhaps
this one:

 _Well, I would say, reading is some kind of essential prerequisite to
everything you do. Whether you are a scientist or a filmmaker, or just a
normal human being working in a more "normal" profession. I cannot argue much
about it. Read, read, read, read, read. The other side, traveling on foot,
nobody does it and what I said will disappear into thin air any moment from
now. Traveling on foot has actually given me insight into the world itself.
The world reveals itself to one who travel on foot. I can give you one
example, you start to understand the heart of men. I was, for a film, at the
Johnson Space Center and had to take to five astronauts who had done a space
mission in a space shuttle. I wanted to persuade them to be extras in the film
in a very strange way. They were sitting in a semi circle when I was taken in
and my heart sank that I didn't know "what should I say? what should I do?" I
looked around and looked into their faces and all of a sudden I had the
feeling, I understand these people. I understand the heart of these men and
these women. I said "since I was a child, when I learned how to milk a cow
with my own hands, I can tell that since I've traveled on foot and in the
meadow first you milk a cow to have something to drink. I know by looking at
faces, who is able to milk a cow." I looked at the pilot and said "you sir!"
and he burst out in smiles and says "yes, I can milk a cow." Somehow when you
make films, you understand the heart of men. In a way you cannot learn it, the
world has to teach you. The world does it in it's most intense and deepest way
when you when you encounter it by traveling on foot.

I'd like to add that when I travel by foot, I don't do it as a backpacker
where you take all your household items with you, your tent, your sleeping
bag, your cooking utensils. I travel without any luggage and I do not travel,
let's say, the specific trail 2000 miles which is marked. I do traveling for
very intense quests in my life. I do that on foot._

~~~
a_bonobo
His AMA answers cover much of what Herzog is covering in his book "A Guide For
The Perplexed", including traveling by foot (he once walked from Bavaria to
Paris as some kind of pilgrimage for a sick friend there). Highly recommended
reading, it feels like his extreme drive imprints itself on your brain.

