When asked if he had turned off his cell phone, author and director Werner Herzog replied: “I don’t have a cell phone. I don’t have to turn anything off. I just want to live and have a real conversation with a real person.”

Herzog got his wish: an authentic conversation not long ago at his home in the Hollywood Hills.

A true visionary of filmmaking in Hollywood and around the world, he has directed more than 20 feature films and more than 30 documentaries – from a journey into the heart of darkness in the Amazon to a life among grizzly bears in the Arctic.

He summarized everything in a treatise, the title of which is entirely in the spirit of Werner: “Every man for himself and God against all” (Penguin Press).

“A title has to jump out at you somehow,” said Herzog. “When you walk past a few books and you see that, you stop and say, ‘Man, what is that?'”

It is the story of a filmmaker like no other. “Yes, I experienced a lot, as if I had lived ten times before,” he said. “And the beauty of the memoir is that it’s so condensed. If you read it, you won’t be bored.”

Herzog was born in Munich during the Second World War and began making films as a teenager. He was drawn to characters with impossible dreams: this can be seen in his 1982 film “Fitzcarraldo” with a long-time collaborator, Klaus Kinski. The character of Fitzcarraldo wants to build an opera house in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. To do this he has to pull a steamboat up a mountain and then back down again.

Herzog said: “20th Century Fox was interested in financing and producing a film. But they wanted to make it with a small plastic replica of a ship in a jungle, a “good” jungle. And they thought, ‘We should do it in the Botanical Gardens in San Diego.’ And I said, ‘No, it really needs to be shot in a big jungle and big rivers and everything.'”

Without the benefit of CGI, Herzog found his great jungle, his great river. He made the amazing decision to tow a real 320-ton riverboat over a real mountain to the Amazon River on the other side.

I asked, “It sounds to me like there were moments in ‘Fitzcarraldo’ where maybe for the first time, maybe the only time, you were at least worried that the crew might not believe in you anymore.” Is that correct?”

“It’s true,” Herzog replied. “There were moments when it was very precarious. And only my inner fire somehow carried us. The power of my vision carried everyone along, even if many of them didn’t believe I could move the ship over the mountain.”

To watch a trailer for “Fitzcarraldo,” starring Klaus Kinski, click on the video player below:

The finished film impressed the team and the critics. Herzog won best director at Cannes, even though “Fitzcarraldo” was almost a completely different film. Jason Robards originally led the cast, with Mick Jagger playing his assistant. Then, almost halfway through the film, Robards became ill and had to be evacuated back to the United States. The delay also cost them Jagger – the Rolling Stones went on tour.

So Duke hired Kinski.

He said that if Kinski had not been able to make the film he would have played the character himself: “I would have done it. Because the main task of moving a ship over the mountain was no longer a cinema. It was the task I had to complete. I had to do it. And I had problems. I wouldn’t be half as good as Kinski and not half as good as Jason Robards or Mick Jagger. “Thank God on my knees” that I didn’t have to play it.”

That’s not to say Herzog isn’t a good actor; He was born to play badly. He played the villain in “Jack Reacher” and a sinister character in “The Mandalorian.” “Well, I got sucked into acting,” he said, “but I really enjoy it and I do it well.” I know I do it well, but only for very specific parts. and I can deliver. But I swear to God it’s an achievement.”

His greatest performance, however, is a love story: his own. Werner Herzog is a hopeless romantic. At the end of the 90s he fell in love with the photographer Elena Pisetski. To seal the deal, he sold everything he owned and flew from Germany to the US with nothing but a toothbrush in his pocket and passion in his heart.

“It’s just me; It’s me, just me, the man, the person, and that’s all,” he said of his arrival on Pisetski’s doorstep. “So I have nothing to offer, just myself. And I’m in America and in Los Angeles because I fell very much in love. And I was very lucky. I’m not here for Hollywood. I’m here because I’m in love.”

It is Herzog’s third marriage; he and Elena have been together for 28 years now. “I’m a very lucky bastard,” he said.

It’s been 63 years since his first film and Herzog is still at it. And he promises there is more to come. “I’m working on two feature films,” he said.

“You’re not full?” I asked.

“Well, who knows?” Herzog replied. “Ultimately you have to carry me feet first from a standing position. Hopefully that will happen.”

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The story was produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Emanuele Secci.