Werner Herzog

The filmmaking legend on inspired madness and the enduring power of ‘Winnie the Pooh’

What are the most important rules that you live by?

It’s curiosity, which doesn’t leave me. It’s also discipline, because we are in unusual times where you can only fight back with responsibility and discipline — sealing yourself off from contact with other human beings as much as you can. We have to starve the sucker.

Are you surprised that mask-wearing has become a politicized issue?

You see it very often in America, that there’s a certain disdain for science and for scientific advice because the West was made by men with their boots on the ground and coming in plain wagons and riding the horses and conquering a vast continent. . . . It’s a sense of “We settle our fate with our rifle in the hand, and with the right faith, and behind the plow.” It has not been deeply embedded in the psyche of America yet that much of what we are doing today has a scientific foundation and justification.

Do you hope Fireball, your recent film about meteorites, inspires people to delve into science more?

Yes, of course. I said to [the film’s co-director] Clive [Oppenheimer], “If there’s a single kid out there who sees this and says, ‘I want to do something like that; I want to go into science,’ then we have done the right thing.”

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

I’ve shaped my own life ignoring advice as far as I could. Ignore the advice, but stick to your culture, stick to your visions, stick to your dreams. Move the ship over a mountain, if necessary. Every grown-up should move his or her ship over a mountain. We have to reach out to something that’s much bigger than ourselves.

What book that you read as a child do you keep coming back to as an adult?

Winnie the Pooh.

I grew up so remote in a valley in the Alps in Bavaria. There was barely any school. Nobody would read. It was peasant kids. They would all come and cram together in our little kitchen, and my mother would read stories. We cried in joy to hear each night a chapter from Winnie the Pooh. You love Winnie, and you love Piglet, and you love Eeyore. They are indelibly present in my soul. The soul of a child can be explained in this book.

Who are your heroes and why?

The heroes are the ones who have made discoveries that were neglected and who had been derided for it. Dutch painter Hercules Segers made unbelievable prints, [but] hardly anything is left of him. He was hundreds of years ahead of his time and considered a madman. Or a musician like [16thand 17th-century Italian composer Carlo] Gesualdo. Mad like hell. Gesualdo became notorious because he murdered his young wife, whom he caught in flagrante with a young nobleman from Naples, and then he fled to his castle. And with his henchmen, almost singlehandedly, he cut down an entire forest around his castle. We don’t know why. He went into self-flagellation and had young men to flagellate him, literally, to death. Wild, wild, wild characters.

Do you consider yourself an optimist?

Well, I don’t think of such categories of optimism or pessimism. I’m looking ahead, and whatever is thrown my way, I’m going to deal with it, and I’m not frightened at what’s coming at me. I’ve never been frightened. I followed my vision, and it doesn’t matter if there are optimistic scenarios out there or pessimistic scenarios. You just throw things at me, and I will deal with it.

Do you ever think about retirement?

Retirement is something which is foreign to me.

If I had the finances ready, I could start five feature films. I am writing poetry and prose texts, which doesn’t cost much money and I can do it in a reclusive environment. I don’t know where it ends. I can’t catch up with all the projects, and they come with great vehemence. I can’t duck away into any trenches.

‘Fireball,’ Herzog’s documentary about meteorites and comets, is out now.