Together how solid is a film legend the german director has made over 70 films ranging from art house to big hollywood productions hes traveled to the ends of the earth and peered into the depths of the human soul the dimensions the movie the most. Hes created iconic characters to images in feature films and documentaries. Always searching for a deeper truth his perspective is investigative and radically subjective van i have song of the adventurer. We met up with this great cinematic storyteller in munich where his story began. When did it become clear to you that you had to and could make films. When i was around 14 or 15 years old when various things happened at the same time which made my fate apparent to me. And 6. Among them was that i would make films that i was also a kind of poet. The. And it was always clear to me that i would do this better than others. It was also clear that since i knew little about film and had seen almost nothing i would have to invent cinema myself. This. Is a new version of. The. Very 1st feature film was a declaration of war on the triviality of postwar german cinema. And this anarchic surreal and disturbing drama about dwarves raising a riot at a correctional facility caused controversy upon its release in 1970. S. Showing the point of view of outsiders and people on society its fringes became hets ogs trademark. In 197900. 00 least nosferatu his all mushed f. W. Moore now silent film classic much more than a remake it was his 1st Big International production the night it suited could be duty. Its good if you personally. Please let me do it its you. Forget it its hardly worth mentioning just a little cut. Even yes i feel youve lived in los angeles in the heart of the dream factory for many years. Youve said you dont really feel part of the german film scene but in the us you enjoy a cult status as a bavarian in Hollywood Hollywood career thoughtless. Since 1st incident because if you know the cult status is a term you should only touch with pincers says so but it gets really wild when i show up in brazil for example or in russia poland ireland or algeria all hell breaks loose when i show up there with films. You say im part of the city with the dream factory but no im not part of it and i dont really belong to a german film either. I actually belong to something more regional to the variant films from the baroque can the world weary and thats why i sometimes say that apart from me vic the 2nd would have been the only person able to make its car although. Its going to do more who couldnt. Fitzcarraldo is the story of an eccentric adventurer ending to build an opera house in the amazon rain forest. Fitzcarraldo was a visionary with a mission. But he felt that judging what was done and. Someone who is prepared to defy gravity to realize his lifes dream pushing boundaries is a constant theme and hair talks work. Hes indian if youve been an extreme environments extreme situations what drives you to this day to seek out these extremes. He says makes dont actually see counter extremes rather i consider what i do to be normal. People are always saying shooting in the amazon rain forest is so extreme. But look its just a forest. This is more involved. Cats all return to the jungle again for the vietnam war drama rescue dawn that was a big american production but headstrong is also a nonconformist in hollywood for. The theory and with the will of the. Senate. And a passion for unhinged characters. And not just. With the. You called bad lieutenant of a very in film theres solvency its a wild and baroque. Wilder than the wildest drinkers in october fast it really goes to extremes and. Back to the bridge. Surely guess what for all his soul still dancing. See how you never went to film school thank goodness see how you dont think much of them schools why. I think theyre completely misconceived. And basically poor film students are cooped up there for way too long. For 3 or 4 years. In 3 or 4 years they could shoot 3 features instead of sitting around there learning film theory or other such nonsense. They can learn everything they need to know in a week so Everything Else is technical can be left to the technicians and taking this disconnect. Seriously you can learn about filmmaking from veron or had song on line for example and to not use a storyboard i think its instrumentals to cowards learned the same sense of the making. But theres more skip the rope film school i founded the rogue film school. It was designed to be the exact opposite of everything youd normally learn in film school and. The. There are only 2 things i tell people they really learn. The 1st time out or pick a safety lock using a surgical instrument. And 2nd how to fake a filming per man to not get caught. In lots of recently ive switched to doing more workshops. Those are just as something in the amazon rain forest in peru. And in the 1st minute of the 1st meeting i said the topic of your show. The framework is delirium in the jungle so. See what you can come up with and deliver the results in 9 days time and some great films came out of it will post. Again or the wrath of god was also shot in the south american jungle its the tale of a 16th century spanish comes he said or searching for el dorado its feverish drama tackles imperialism greed and megalomania shot in documentary style it follows a good day on his historical suicide mission. In the end klaus kinski a good day goes mad in a scene that wrote film history. Caught. Us with. A you know i and later fitzcarraldo r. T. Made headlines during shooting largely due to the unpredictable lead actor klaus kinski he made 5 films with parents on who works through their productive love hate relationship in a documentary. They dont much about the public can be friends or. With and thats the dark and it was a rich person who started small mad with yorks didnt talk about so much about event but then because of that you know its hard. To tell i was not looking so i was trying to get in to join the Sports Community and im the president. Going to if hes. Got this feeling. Some green last didnt get lost in the star theyre still actors as extreme as klaus kinski was. Infin didnt. Consider him extreme. He was kinski and in a certain sense he was a singular figure but he wasnt the best actor i worked with. The deepest and best one was bruno s who played the title roles in constable house. Ive worked with the worlds best with christian bale. Nicolas cage Nicole Nicole kidman. Tom cruise it is then no one. Not any one of them. Ever came close to porno as is depth than charisma. Or his ability to convey isolation and parasitic off to write this blog that was likely due to his real life fake musicianship practically 23 years from his childhood onwards he kept getting put away in correctional institutions and later in jail and in other places where he didnt belong. In the skittish scene or. Being in this state school with little subtlely of a victim. But on the side it didnt i didnt think. This the stuff and the clip just least i will. Stick to the city not. The funny good. There are others who have similar biographies but who dont have the depth and presence on screen that porno s. Did. Pales in comparison. As does nicholas cage nicolas cage and tom cruise to talk. Then i had thought worked with tom cruise on the Action Thriller jack reacher but this time had stood in front of the camera playing an evil gang leader i. Spent my 1st winter wearing a dead mans coat holding what. I saw for the frost bite turned again dream. The housing to how did you manage to be that evil. Or worse it was ever lists so totally effortless work so i didnt have to do a screen test in life and i knew that i could do it with us i earned good money for being terrifying on screen. She. Didnt. At least. Its how many other stick not. Van i have thought has his own unique perspective on the world and people his documentaries also focus on eccentric and obsessive types. Like fanatical Animal Rights activist Timothy Treadwell. Im here with one of my favorite pairs express the chocolate iris chocolate has been with me for the grizzly man spent his summers in alaska and lost all sense of distance between himself and the bears these animals out there i will die for these animals. Im. Now going on in the end he was himself killed by a bear. My mind. How many jurors after treadwells death in 2003 hertzog followed his trail right to the bitter and. Escaped and. Taught from to move to traitor and so theres an audio recording of the death of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend. Libby talked of them were eaten by a bear eaten alive piece by piece from why you would say and the distributors and producers absolutely want to disregarding to be in the film so and so i said ok ill listen to it. And i listen to it and it was so incredibly horrifying that i said only over my dead body will this make it into the film you come to see and feel can turn into. You. 2 must never listen to this i never heard him to ever go into. The soup you know you should not keep it you should destroy right yeah. Ethical boundary. Because the dignity and the privacy surrounding an individuals death must not be violated. Period. Didnt shy away from interviewing condemned prisoners awaiting execution for as many series on death row. Coming from a different historical background and being a guest in the United States i respectfully disagree with the practice of capital punishment. Ive watched several episodes of your series on death row what boundaries were you confronted with their. New talk with and film people on death row who know that theyre going to be executed in 8 days and that theres no escaping that. Then of course there are certain boundaries their. Respect respect dignity. Due to respect their condemned persons human dignity. Is one of them. In order to feel death row inmate you have to be invited by him in writing. I was behind the camera you only ever hear my voice. But behind the camera i wore a formal suit in time which i almost never do it was a sign i respect you respect. They were always very open with you. Meant for me right in the very 1st moment. And thats a question of how you work as a director. You can only do that if you know the heart of men. If you can look deep into their souls then it works it is even the looking at your films the boundaries between documentary and feature film are really fluid. Do you still differentiate between them oh sure theres a big difference which i also recognize. But i dont worry about it for me theyre all films as film me as i was ever. You once said facts do not constitute truth per se. In this age of the internet and fake news whats the truth beyond the facts that you seek. If you have the facts can be misleading the truth is created or certain layers deeper layers are created through stylization through invention through imagination. The supposedly realistic picture often seen in documentaries is a misconception. Which is why i say i invent things too because they serve the truth better than the found. A sting fuck. Back in south america again in the impenetrable tropical rain forest of guyana against the spectacular backdrop of chi to a falls a mythical location for the indigenous population. This is where hats off made the White Diamond a documentary about dreams and the limitations of technology. The dream of flying a floating above the earth here to hertz all dared to experiment. In that case we had the music 1st. So in the rain forest the camera man asked me how are you going to do it with the rhythm in the shooting center on my gave him headphones and said listen. This is how well do it and he understood immediately. Else right there goes music evokes the beauty of nature and its vulnerability. Will be seen im the type really old there were one and a half 1000000 swifts which came out of the sky in a huge swarm and flew in circular movements into their nests behind a huge waterfall. And it was overwhelming. And the music is equally overwhelming. This one sorry these who 1st raised who are the singers were sardinians who almost all have prehistoric voices. And they started singing with far too much energy and the meter was far too clear so i stood up and made flying movements for them. And they understood. And suddenly the movement became that of an eagle gliding from sri up. In hats august films music itself is often a performer such as in the show of a case where strikes against music brings the prehistoric paintings to life. In 2019 the venter had sought Foundation Awarded the prize to reisa he was praised for creating spaces with his music that were larger than what could be seen on the screen. That is so im sick you do this with your new use an extraordinary visionary. 2 in the log event of hes able to transform an entire world with music and to transform a world of images and suddenly the combination of music and images gives rise to something new and different that the audience can perceive and experience in a different way. Than i have saugus relationship with music is a story of its own. He has also staged many opera us going back to wagner again and again his 1st time was knowing playing at the buy of what festival in 1987. Video of him clearly many of your colleagues vendors last frontier were also supposed to direct and buy rights but they shied away from doing it whats so difficult about staging wagner is that he can help operates according to different rules because film directors cant expect to use the same criteria and the same working methods as they do in the cinema that was always clear so i told the singers and the others that we had to forget that i work in film. I said that we had a task and that there would only be an opera when the whole world transformed into music and you can see belt in music from uncle. Place. So its unfair back to film youve been in some very extreme places in the mountains in the amazon underwater in the desert on the ice caps is there anything else that youre still seeking or that youd like to explore more. Id like to go to the space station or to the moon. Or id like to make a short visit to mars if that ever becomes possible mogs in this and. Or and this is bavaria still your home even though you havent lived here for 20 years and seen many of my Cultural Roots are here my 1st language was a very and i miss it actually and when im traveling around the world i miss the fact that i never hear bavarian dialect being spoken. Ish understand it isnt that of it its a taco list culture this end. Yes go to its a cinch to its none to it it. Will some day miss the tumbling of the earth apocalyptic imagery more than 50 years after launching his career katz og still seeks sole scapes on the edges of the planet. He says they plans to burst forth if you can this country. Is middle of you have been winning prizes for your Lifetime Achievement for 10 years now this time its from the european film academy. How does that feel different. So next time i mean if you distances go taste well to begin with i think its grotesque really and of course its a little strange because im still in the middle of my work. And now my output is higher than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Last year i made 3 films but i. Know there is need 6 to 8 years to do that yog the day before yesterday i was still shooting in norway on a new film and in less than a week ill be in mexico to continue it it. Isnt so much to get this prize 10 years after i stopped making films and have to be rolled under the stage in a wheelchair. He ordered to audit that i helped thank you its been a pleasure to go. Whats going on here although house of your very own from a printer. Computer games that are healing. My dog needs electricity. Shift explains delivers facts and shows what the future holds. Yet living in the Digital World shift. In 15 minutes on d w can see a walking through quite high and then crash its time to come on stage meta was once filthy rich and regarded as a model businessman bankers and politicians contributed to his success. The scheme would never have worked in the banks hadnt played along theres no way. Big money big surprise this story of a german car. And 30 minutes on d. W. Every journey begins with the 1st step and every language but the 1st word published in the book. Rico is in germany to learn german and why not learn with helmut simple online on your mobile and free to sap d w z e learning course nikos fake german from a to z. Didnt beethoven invent jazz did did did did did. Did is it was a dud of 16 when he. Was rocknroll. So many romances still in beethoven. Of course the subconscious always one thing is clear the beethoven just want to look popular. I see a sure shot i feel sure. Little blood cells the biggest composers all time i cant even begin to imagine a world class one Player Center willers on a musical journey of discovery. With the hope for a total. System or 16 on. The be played. This is d w news a live shot from berlin at the Battle Ground of bela groups more mass protests as antigovernment protesters a step up the pressure on hardline leader Alexander Lukashenko hundreds are arrested and dragged away by masked men in uniforms our correspondent in the capital minsk reports that the prodemocracy activists believe that every time has come. To the authorities warned that there could be mass fake tallies as wildfires ravaged 3 u. S. States firefighters are working around the clock to say