The NFTS was privileged to welcome Oscar nominated, Cannes and Sundance winning director Werner Herzog for a masterclass with the students this week.
Considered one of the greatest figures of cinema, film critic Roger Ebert said the following of Werner Herzog: "He has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons, or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular.”
His work includes the Sundance winning Grizzly Man, Cannes winning Fitzcarraldo and Oscar nominated Encounters at the End of the World.
Students were treated to a special preview of Werner’s new film Into The Inferno followed by a Q&A with the director himself and film journalist Ian Haydn Smith about the film and his wider body of work. Into the Inferno is a documentary that explores active volcanoes around the world and is due for release on Netflix on October 28th. The film has been described as a ‘masterwork filled with stunning visuals and captivating environs’ and ‘a memento mori aimed at the whole human race, and only Herzog could make this non-pretentious, funny, curious, and respectful at the same time.’
Into the Inferno was a highly enjoyable watch and full of epic shots of the active volcanic lava interspersed with captivating interviews with characters who live or work in close proximity to volcanoes and how they affect their lives. There are many comedic moments which elicited laughs of appreciation from the students as well as awe inspiring moments that conveyed how powerful and destructive volcanic eruptions can be.
Ian asked Werner how he chooses the music for his films as the soundtrack selected for Into the Inferno as with many of his other films gives the film a sense of continuity and fluidity, and draws the audience in. Werner said he often knows which music he wants before shooting and described the piece of classical music that accompanies the shots of volcanoes as having a flow and mood of poetic tragedy and that the instruments ‘sing’ in this particular recording.
Werner covered a number of big subjects in the masterclass from the performance he gets from his actors; to his drive and sense of destiny to make films; and the question of whether it’s possible to ‘create reality’ when making documentaries. On working with big name actors like Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman, Werner said: “I don’t work with stars. I treat everyone in front of my camera like royalty. It is a privilege as a filmmaker to be able to work with such talented people.” And on method acting: “No one got better because of that!” He doesn’t encourage actors to focus on the psychology behind their characters and encouraged Nicolas Cage when ruminating on why his character in Bad Lieutenant is so bad to stop worrying and “just enjoy the bliss of evil!”
The subject of truth and reality is something that Werner is very clear on: “It’s impossible to create reality. We have to ask ourselves if we are already in a fictional reality. I modify and invent and sometimes find an ecstasy of truth; I try to get the audience to step out of themselves and thereby get some kind of illumination.”
Illustrating that he is by no means a run of the mill director, Werner talked about Heart of Glass and the fact that most of the cast were hypnotised during their performance, which Ian described as having the effect of casting a spell over the audience. Werner said he had even tried out hypnotising audiences themselves as he is curious about how vision and dialogue functions under hypnosis.
Ian highlighted that Werner came to the world of cinema quite late. “I feel I invented cinema sometimes! I saw cinema very late in life and didn’t know it existed until I was 11 years old. It was such a novelty; I wanted to make films better than what I saw. I felt I had a destiny to make films.”
Werner also stressed to the students that despite being seen as having a very singular voice, he "had to make many compromises and you have to be able to live with these compromises. You have to derive a force and dynamic out of compromises.”
One of the students asked Werner how he works with editors: “I learnt very quickly early on thanks to working with a very competent editor who had an uncanny sense of what needed to be cut. It’s important that your editor can see the value and gems in the narrative even if it’s different to your original intentions. I don’t look at footage while shooting and don’t allow anyone else to other than my assistant cameraman. I then watch the entire footage with the editor in one go and write down notes, which enables me to memorise it. I add one exclamation mark for something that’s very good; two exclamation marks for something exceptional and three for something that must be in the film or I’ve lived in vain! Due to doing things in this way, I can edit very fast and the continuity is somehow suspended if you can cut from one extraordinary moment to another. Continuity comes from dynamic footage – there is no need to slavishly try and create film continuity.”
Another student was keen to get Werner’s thoughts on Virtual Reality: “I am very curious about Virtual Reality and have met with people who are making this kind of thing. I think it’s difficult to tell stories this way as the editing is so hard and think movies in a 360˚ format will fail. The goggles are also very uncomfortable after anything longer than around 8 minutes. Some of it is hype; it may be the next big thing but you have to show me really different narrative forms so it will catch on.”
Werner left the students with the powerful thought that filmmaking is ‘a basic feeling and a natural right’; he told them how he had worked as a welder at night to get the money to make films when he first started out and learned through mistakes.
If you would like to be part of the exciting world of the National Film and Television School and attend masterclasses like these, we have a wide range of courses starting in January 2017 that you can still apply for. These range from Film Studies, Programming and Curation to Marketing, Distribution, Sales and Exhibition and Directing and Producing Natural History and Science.
