Via DadWagon friend @CMonstah (“the Zen master of the hi-lo” who was, as if you hadn’t heard, called one of the 9 twitterers to read out of millions), comes this spoofy impression of German director Werner Herzog reading Curious George. For anyone who has even briefly contemplated the cruelty of George’s forced expatriation to the Big City, enjoy:
One cannot help but wonder, whether a creature of the true jungle can find actual happiness in a facsimile such as the zoo. Or whether his and the other animals’ terrible nature will someday overcome the walls and attack human society from within.
If this caricature of a self-important Mitteleuropean film director seems over the top, consider that the actual Werner Herzog was much, much worse. In this classic clip, he rhapsodizes about the brutality of the Peruvian jungle on location for 1982’s Fitzcarraldo (a film whose set became so poisonous that a local chieftain reportedly offered to kill lead actor Klaus Kinski for Herzog). Here’s Werner:
The trees here are in misery. The birds here are in misery. I don’t think the sing, they just screech in pain.
As someone who once sat through Herzog’s remake of Nosferatu, I can say that Herzog knows a good deal about making other creatures, especially film-goers, screech in pain.
i think he’s hilarious. If i had children, I’d start them off on Aguirre the Wrath of God, before moving on to My Best Fiend and Grizzly Man (all by the time they start pre-school, of course).
I’d only let my kids watch Grizzly Man if Herzog releases a version where he lets us hear the audio of Treadwell’s last moments. That whole ‘you must never ever listen to zis’ was such a cop-out.