WERNER HERZOG IN CONVERSATION WITH PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER WAS THE 20th CENTURY A MISTAKE? February 16, 2007 Celeste Bartos Forum New York Public Library WWW.NYPL.ORG/LIVE
NATHANIEL KAHN: Hello. Okay, thank you for coming to the New York Public Library—and I have a couple of brief—I’m Nathaniel Kahn and I have a couple of—can everybody hear back there? A couple of brief notes, first of all thank you very much for joining us tonight. And this is a promotional offer—we’re happy to offer each person who signs up on our e-mail list, one free ticket to a LIVE from the New York Public Library program in the Spring 07 season. Just to give you a little preview of the coming events. On March 7th, Paul has a conversation with William T. Vollmann and it’s called “Are You Poor?” and the answer for all of us is probably yes. March 10th, Mira Nair and Jhumpa Lahiri, March 26th, Clive James in conversation with Paul Holdengräber, and that’s called “Cultural Amnesia.” And lastly, we encourage you to become a Friend of the library and support these wonderful events, and they are wonderful, at LIVE from the New York Public Library, and you can sign up at the Friends table.
This is an enormous honor for me to introduce Werner Herzog, who needs no introduction from me, but when Paul asked me to introduce him, of course I said yes—how can you not say yes to introducing your hero?—even if it is a little like asking the ant to introduce the elephant. There are lots of things I could tell you about. I could tell you about the fact that Herzog’s made over sixty films and he speaks many languages. I could tell you about how Herzog directs not only films but also operas. I could tell you about how he’s been to every continent on the earth—he just came back from Antarctica. I could tell you how he’s eaten his shoe, or walked five hundred miles in protest of death or how, recently, he was shot during an interview, but kept going, saying, “I am not afraid.”(laughter) But you could read all this in books. I am not a film critic or a film historian. I’m only a filmmaker, so I