| Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe | |
|---|---|
 Cover of The Criterion Collection release | |
| Directed by | Les Blank |
| Written by | Werner Herzog |
| Starring | Werner Herzog Tom Luddy Michael Goodwin Alice Waters |
Release date |
|
Running time | 21 min. |
| Language | English |
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is a short documentary film directed by Les Blank in 1980, that depicts director Werner Herzog living up to his alleged vow to eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven .
According to Herzog, he made the vow to encourage Morris, who was then a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley studying philosophy, to complete his film, Gates of Heaven. At that time, Morris was having difficulty finding producers to fund the project. In Herzog on Herzog, [1] he recalls telling Morris, "Stop complaining about the stupidity of producers, just start with one roll of film tomorrow. [...] And the day I see the finished work I am going to eat my shoe."
Filmmaker Tom Luddy recalls the bet in a less encouraging manner: "You'll never make a film, but if you do I'll come and eat my shoe at the premiere." [2] Luddy was at the time the director of the Pacific Film Archive at Berkeley, and he had become acquainted with Morris, a regular visitor. Luddy was the person to introduce Morris to Herzog. [2]
The nature of the vow has also been disputed by Morris, who has said that he does not recall the bet and that it was not what motivated him to complete Gates of Heaven. Morris says that he asked Herzog not to eat the shoe. Nevertheless, Morris had originally planned to appear in the documentary, but he decided against it after a delay in his flight. As a result, Morris was not involved in the project. [2]
Regardless of the exact details of the vow, it was not Herzog's first unusual promise: after a series of accidents during the filming of his 1970 work Even Dwarfs Started Small , Herzog agreed to jump into a cactus patch if filming completed without further incident. [1]
In an interview with filmmaker David Tamés, Les Blank recalls becoming acquainted with Herzog via Luddy, who had introduced Blank's work to Herzog. Blank also recalls that Luddy was the one who told him that Herzog was going to eat the shoe, which led Blank to seek permission from Herzog to shoot the film. [3]
Filmed in April 1979, the movie features Herzog cooking his shoes at the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. He claims the shoes are the same shoes that he was wearing when he made the bet. Herzog was assisted by chef Alice Waters. The shoes were boiled with garlic, herbs, and stock for 5 hours. [4] [5] He is later shown eating one of the shoes before an audience at the premiere of Gates of Heaven at the nearby UC Theater. He did not eat the sole of the shoe, however, explaining that one does not eat the bones of the chicken. [4]
Interspersed into the film are clips from Gates of Heaven and Even Dwarfs Started Small. The film also includes clips from the 1925 Charlie Chaplin film The Gold Rush , which features a shoe-eating scene. Unlike the leather shoe eaten by Herzog, the shoe featured in The Gold Rush was a prop made of licorice. [6] [7]
Featured in the documentary is a comical polka tune about "old whiskey shoes." [4]
Blank went on to direct Burden of Dreams (1982), a feature-length documentary about Herzog and the making of Fitzcarraldo . Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is included as an extra on the Criterion Collection edition of the Burden of Dreams DVD. [8] It is also included as an extra in the Criterion Collection edition of the Gates of Heaven Blu-ray disc. [9]
When Chez Panisse celebrated its 40th anniversary, a replica of the shoe was created, boiled, and eaten as part of the public anniversary celebration. [10]
The Academy Film Archive preserved Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe in 1999. [11]
Errol Mark Morris is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects. In 2003, his documentary film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. His film The Thin Blue Line placed fifth on a Sight & Sound poll of the greatest documentaries ever made. Morris is known for making films about unusual subjects; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of a wild animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot scientist and a naked mole rat specialist.
Werner Herzog is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusual talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature. His filmmaking process includes disregarding storyboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing the cast and crew into similar situations to characters in his films.
New German Cinema is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, gained notice by producing a number of "small" motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences. These filmmakers included Percy Adlon, Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Fleischmann, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Werner Schroeter, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders. As a result of the attention they garnered, they were able to create better-financed productions which were backed by the big US studios. However, most of these larger films were commercial failures and the movement was heavily dependent on subsidies. By 1977, 80% of a budget for a typical German film was ensured by a subsidy.
Cinéma vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind reality. It is sometimes called observational cinema, if understood as pure direct cinema: mainly without a narrator's voice-over. There are subtle, yet important, differences between terms expressing similar concepts. Direct cinema is largely concerned with the recording of events in which the subject and audience become unaware of the camera's presence: operating within what Bill Nichols, an American historian and theoretician of documentary film, calls the "observational mode", a fly on the wall. Many therefore see a paradox in drawing attention away from the presence of the camera and simultaneously interfering in the reality it registers when attempting to discover a cinematic truth.
Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 West German epic adventure-drama film written, produced, and directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Klaus Kinski as would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon basin. The character was inspired by Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald, who once transported a disassembled steamboat over the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald.
Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. In 1971, she opened Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine.
Gates of Heaven is a 1978 American independent documentary film produced, directed, and edited by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.
The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend. The 50th edition took place on August 31–September 4, 2023.
Les Blank was an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians.
Burden of Dreams is a 1982 documentary film directed by Les Blank.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a 1974 West German drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. The film won the International Federation of Film Critics award for best in-competition movie and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. It is considered to be one of Fassbinder's most powerful works and is hailed by many as a masterpiece.
Vernon, Florida is a 1981 American documentary film produced and directed by Errol Morris profiling various residents living within the town of Vernon, Florida. Originally titled Nub City, this follow-up to Gates of Heaven initially focused on residents of the Southern town who cut off their own limbs as a way to collect insurance money. After Morris's life was threatened by the subjects of the film, he re-worked Nub City into Vernon, Florida.
Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers is a 1980 documentary film about garlic directed by Les Blank. Its official premiere was at the 1980 Berlin Film Festival.
The UC Theatre is a music venue on University Avenue near Shattuck Avenue in Downtown Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States. From 1976 until 2001, it was a movie theater known for a revival house presentation of films. In 2013, The Berkeley Music Group was formed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the mission to renovate and operate the UC Theater as live music venue. It reopened its doors on April 7, 2016.
Marius is a 1931 French drama film directed by Alexander Korda. It is based on the 1929 play of the same title by Marcel Pagnol. The film is a part of the Marseille Trilogy which includes the films Fanny and César. The film was selected to be screened in the Cannes Classics section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. The restored film was also given a limited re-release in the United States by Janus Films on 4 January 2017, first premiering at Film Forum.
The Gourmet Ghetto is a colloquial name for the business district of the North Berkeley neighborhood in the city of Berkeley, California, known as the birthplace of California cuisine. Other developments that can be traced to this neighborhood include specialty coffee, the farm-to-table and local food movements, the rise to popularity in the U.S. of chocolate truffles and baguettes, the popularization of the premium restaurant designed around an open kitchen, and the California pizza made with local produce. After coalescing in the mid-1970s as a culinary destination, the neighborhood received its "Gourmet Ghetto" nickname in the late 1970s from comedian Darryl Henriques. Early, founding influences were Peet's Coffee, Chez Panisse and the Cheese Board Collective. Alice Medrich began her chain of Cocolat chocolate stores there.
César is a 1936 French film, written and directed by Marcel Pagnol. It is the final part of his Marseille trilogy, which began with the film Marius and was followed by Fanny. Unlike the other two films in the trilogy, César was not based on a play by Pagnol, but written directly as a film script. In 1946 Pagnol adapted the script as a stage play.
Thomas William Luddy was an American film producer and the co-founder of the Telluride Film Festival. He has a longtime association with the production company American Zoetrope. He has been a member of the jury at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival, the 38th Berlin International Film Festival and the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
Werner Herzog is a German filmmaker whose films often feature ambitious, sometimes mad protagonists with impossible dreams. Herzog's works span myriad genres and mediums, but he is particularly well known for his documentary films, which he typically narrates.
Maureen Gosling is an American documentary filmmaker, editor, and director. She is best known for her 20-year collaboration with the late director Les Blank.
