Werner Herzog Defends His “Ecstatic” Approach to the Truth

The renowned German filmmaker Werner Herzog has become known for many things: his notoriously ambitious film productions like “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre, The Wrath of God”; his expansive documentaries; and his mellifluous voice, which he has used to great effect lately as an actor in productions like “Jack Reacher'' and “The Mandalorian.” But, according to Herzog himself, his fabulist work as his own biographer deserves just as much praise. “That’s my approach, that is beyond outside of facts,” Herzog tells David Remnick. “And it requires stylizations, it requires somehow shaping, creating something like poetry, a sense of poetry, that gives us an approach into truth.” In a wide-ranging conversation, the eighty-one-year-old Herzog looks back on his career, his newfound success embracing the “self irony” of his persona (“I had to spread terror . . . I knew I would be good at it,” he deadpans about his “Reacher” role), and why he never watched a “Star Wars” film until recently. “I am somebody who reads, there is not a day where I do not read,” the prolific Herzog says. “I love what I do. I think I made—in the last two years—two books, three films, and I’m working on a new feature film, and I’m publishing a new book next year.”