File under aye-couldn’t-have-scripted-it-carumba: via the impressively moustacchioed Aleks of Aleks & the Ramps, with whom I recently enjoyed Herzog’s ‘The White Diamond’ ( a tale of an obsessive character trying to build a jungle airship), this news of Herzog being snipered mid-interview~!
By WENN|Friday, February 03, 2006
HOLLYWOOD – German director Werner Herzog was shot by a crazed fan during a recent interview with the BBC. The 63-year-old was chatting with movie journalist Mark Kermode about his documentary Grizzly Man, when a sniper opened fire with an air rifle.
Kermode explains, “I thought a firecracker had gone off.
“Herzog, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, said, ‘Oh, someone is shooting at us. We must go.’
“He had a bruise the size of a snooker ball, with a hole in. He just carried on with the interview while bleeding quietly in his boxer shorts.”
An unrepentant Herzog insisted, “It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid.”
And of course, walking magnet to weird events that he is, Herzog recently found himself helping Joaquin Phoenix from a car wreckage in Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood.
“And suddenly I said to myself, ‘That’s Werner Herzog!’ There’s something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog’s voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out. I got out of the car and I said, ‘Thank you,’ and he was gone.”
related: le grizzle shizzle
tags: werner herzog, herzog shot, documentary, stranger than fiction
[…] Grizzly Man (among many many other films) director Werner Herzog has been up to some odd things. So he was apparently shot with an airgun during a recent interview. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any collaborating articles on this. From the same source we learn that Herzog helped Joaquin Phoenix when he wrecked his car. The actor says, “I remember this knocking on the passenger window. There was this German voice saying, ‘Just relax.’ There’s the airbag, I can’t see and I’m saying, ‘I’m fine. I am relaxed. Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, ‘No, you’re not.’ […]
Oh wow, I’m so confused. So was that actually werner herzog doing the grizzly man .mov, or was it a parody of him?
Wait. I just read your previous entry. I’d only seen the parody — I didn’t know there was a real Herzog.
heh – I can understand that the real herzog might seem somewhat fantastical ;- )
[…] Germany’s most famously eccentric yet arrrestingly provocative documentary maker, Werner Herzog was in fine form on Henry Rollin’s TV show recently, but proved a little too much for his interviewing host to grapple with. To be fair to the bodybuilding Rollins, it’d be a challenging interview to have the person opposite you speaking with Werner’s distinctive voice, and telling tales of ‘ecstatic truth’, a need for ‘new ways to use film to document reality’ and dismissing ‘minor flesh wounds’ ( about a sniper who had shot him during another recent interview, an event which didn’t seem to worry him too much ). […]
[…] Would you believe that German film director Werner Herzog has invited you to study with him? BYO bullet-proof vests. “The Rogue Film School will be in the form of weekend seminars held by Werner Herzog in […]