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Also this issue: Good Grief From a Scream to a Whisper Screen Picks |
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October 3- 9, 2002
interview
 Strongmen: Jouko Ahola (left) and Werner Herzog on the set of Invincible. |
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City Paper: What gave you the idea to engineer the relationship between Zishe Breitbart and Erik Jan Hanussen, who hardly interacted in real life?
Werner Herzog: It's not entirely my idea. The two actually met in court. But it is my invention that both of them work in the same variety theater, in the so-called Palace of the Occult, which actually existed. Hanussen's character is more precisely based on historical fact than Zishe Breitbart. Zishe Breitbart is, yes, a true story, but more re-invented than Hanussen. I'm working in movies in storytelling. For a strong leading character, you really need a great antagonist. Otherwise you wouldn't have a story, there wouldn't be drama, there wouldn't be cinema.
CP: You don't seem to have the Hollywood concern with accuracy in minutiae.
WH: Both Hollywood and I are not accountants of history. Hollywood and I are storytellers.
CP: It's interesting how you blur the line in both ways: your historical pictures are not entirely, and you resist calling your non-fiction films "documentaries."
WH: They have too much of a common borderline with feature films. Many [parts] of the documentaries are highly invented, and stylized. They're scripted, rehearsed, almost like a feature film. Very often, I'm looking for a deeper truth, what I call the ecstatic truth. You can apparently only find it by going beyond the surface of the mere fact.
CP: You've frequently worked with non-actors. What led you to cast Jouko Ahola, the World's Strongest Man, as Zishe?
WH: Even though in my film he's the strongest man of his time, I didn't look for the strongest man alive, because normally they are huge, unattractive hulks. I was not looking out for the world's strongest man -- I would have picked no. 122 in the ranking. But I wanted to have someone credibly strong, where when he takes his shirt off, you know this is not a joke anymore. The sweetest man, such a sweet good young man, and he's so awesomely strong -- that was the key to it. I needed a very good young boy, a good-hearted man. What's striking for me is when I see the film together with audiences, women instantly recognize this; finally, a good, solid, trustworthy young man. It was nothing very [unusual] for me to cast him. But of course it is not an easy task to find among the truly strong men in the world one who has this kind of boyish innocence and kindness.
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CP: On the one hand you cast actors with little or no experience, and on the other, a flamboyant, theatrical actor like Klaus Kinski? Are you avoiding the polished "professional" actor?
WH: I don't make the distinction. There is no such thing as a professional or nonprofessional actor. There are only people who radiate something from the screen or not. I don't consider Kinski an actor. He was not, in my opinion -- not a professional actor. He was something else. He was some sort of a strange beast, always prone to hysteria and panic and madness, some wild animal out there. Not a real actor. When you look at Tim Roth, sure he earns money with [acting], but there is something else about him, something which is unique, a presence and intensity on screen that you barely find anywhere around. The young woman on screen is actually hypnotized by him. I always wanted to have audiences back in the position that they can trust their eyes again. When the strongman lifts 900 pounds, it is 900 pounds, and when the young pianist plays Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, it is the young lady herself.
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