Werner Herzog Explains His Fascination With Insanity | Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend

it's interesting because I been thinking. about all of your work and. uh what comes up so often for me this is. my. interpretation uh and and so much. there's been so much discussion of your. work but will there's an iron will that. you have and I'm wondering uh with these. film Productions which are you know. impossible to pull off you're in the. jungle it's things are collapsing your. your your main actor kinsky wants to.

murder you you want to murder him it all. sounds impossible and yet you always. keep going and I'm wondering to move a. ship over a mountain in falo you have to. move a ship over a mountain and you've. made work about how difficult the work. was there documentaries about how. impossible the project is and what I. keep coming back to are a couple of. themes and one is will Iron Will and I'm. wondering was that something in your. opinion is that in your soul or was in.

in your genetics or was that something. that somehow was the product of having. so little growing up I think it's not a. correct description to point it Iron. Will um because you can dissuade me from. from my will with a real good argument. and I do the doable I really do the. doable I knew I could move a ship over a. mountain in the jungle it can be done.

and I knew I would be able to do it. although nobody believed in it anymore. and you become very solitary when there. are 800 people around and nobody. believes in it in the next town where. you can buy a torch light battery is 800. kilomet away so you become very solitary. but it's not I wouldn't call it Iron. Will it's it's a very very clear Vision. yeah okay very deep vision in me and I.

knew moving a ship over a mountain would. be a great metaphor something like um. Mobby dick yes uh uh the white whale. something embedded very deep in our soul. in our Collective Soul probably and I. can articulate it and all of a sudden. everybody understands although I I must. confess meta for for what I cannot. explain well everyone can have their own. interpretation because.

it's we've all whatever in our lives. we've all we've all pulled a giant ship. over a mountain sure whe uh and when I. say that I mean we've all battled with. something that most people thought well. that can't be done yeah I'm curious if. when I look at your work I think did you. have. um you seem very solid the whole time. even during all this uh insanity and Cha. chaos you seem very solid and I think uh.

do you have a good mask a good poker. face or did you feel true true despair. if there's if there's only a mask uh it. it would get cracks and it would become. visible that it's only posing right you. have to you have to have it in you yeah. and um so what can I say uh that has it. has carried me that I'm just myself mhm. and essentially myself in many of the.

situations there's another theme that. you you love to explore which is madness. and I I it it comes up again and again. and again uh and I was noticing it even. came up in so many of your films there's. that line between someone being obsessed. and are they have they gone mad have. they lost control of themselves you've. worked with people who uh could. clinically be called mad if that's a. real clinical diagnosis anymore um when. you did documentary encounters at the.

end of the world and you're in. Antarctica I remember very clearly. there's a scene where you're looking at. the Penguins and you start to wonder. have they gone mad um at least one at. least one has there one penguin gone mad. but I thought well Warner Herzog went. all the way to Antarctica and he's. looking at penguins and he's still. wondering about Madness is this what is. what it is it right that that is a that. that is a a true uh that's a theme that. you like to try and M.

or explore yes it's not only Madness but. a state where we can be out or Beyond. ourselves like an ecstasy like uh. religious Mystics in the late Middle. Ages or it could be a penguin I asked a. penguin researcher and I was told he has. not spoken to anyone for 24 years so I. said I will be the first one and I I. tell him uh some things that he has. never heard why um do for example.

species of ants uh create colonies of. slaves of some sort of lice that they. milk for droplets of uh droplets of. sugar why is that and why does a chimp. not saddle the goat and ride off into. the sunset of Death Valley or Monument. Valley yeah why does this happen uh is. there Insanity among animals not only. among people is there Insanity among.

Penguins MH some because I observed a. penguin that marches right into uh the. continent and it's 5,000 kilometers of. uh of ice and and mountains and there's. no way to turn the penguin around you. can do that and you shouldn't do it by. the way but you can turn it around it. will immediately stubbornly March into. his death into the interior of the. continent not to the water not to the.

Colony so what is going on I I've been. fascinated by this.