A few gentle reminders from filmmaker Werner Herzog: “A badge of honor is to fail a film theory class.” “Thwart institutional cowardice.” And a few moments about my minutes onstage with the outspoken legend.
Herzog quibbles about a point. (Photo: L.A. Cicero)
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The Another Look is a community book club for everyone, founded by National Medal of Arts winner (and Stanford professor) Tobias Wolff and I launched it in 2012. It’s offered online and in-person, and currently boasts what I believe is the largest book club in the world with 4,088 members. Join our mailing list here, and we’ll inform you of upcoming events.
Perhaps our greatest moment was on a rainy night, February 2, 2016, we featured an onstage event at Stanford with legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog discussing J.A. Baker‘s The Peregrine – and so much more. The film is now available on youtube, in a full-length version (here) and a highlights version (here). Or look to the links below.
Another Look’s director, Prof. Robert Harrison, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and host for the popular “Entitled Opinions” radio talk show, was the interlocutor for the discussion.
The event was covered by Caille Millner in the San Francisco Chronicle (here). Meanwhile, you can watch the highlights version below, and the full hour-and-a-half discussion below on the link below.
I return to these maxims which enjoin us to “thwart institutional cowardice.” And this koan: “Manuever and mislead, but always deliver.” You’ll find favorites of your own.
True story: At the carefully managed 2016 event, I was appointed as the person to keep the crowd from swarming Herzog after the onstage conversation. It wasn’t too cautious: afterward the crowd did climb onstage, as the managers of the had event feared. A solitary woman trying to manage a mob. Herzog gently pushed me away, and let the crowd storm him. He was laughing, and he loved it.
If you’d like to read my interview with artist/photographer Lena Herzog, Werner’s wife, go here.
