What little I know about Werner Herzog makes him seem like a cartoon character. He’s a creative legend, and he’s been doing adventurous and strange things for decades. I’ve seen a handful of his films, and read none of his books, and didn’t even know about the opera stuff he’s done. This book makes me want to become a Werner Herzog completist.
Every Man for Himself and God Against All is a memoir, covering sections of his life and career in a somewhat dreamlike, free-associating way. It starts with his childhood transition from postwar Berlin to abject poverty in a remote mountain village, and meanders through various sections of his life in a nonlinear but wildly engaging way. Herzog has big stories to tell, about ambitious and daring film projects, defying the odds and narrowly escaping disaster, but he also has stories like this sprinkled throughout, about his attempt to hike around the border of Germany:
I was hiking with very little in the way of baggage, no tent or sleeping bag. For a long time, two cows pursued me through the paddocks, as though they hoped to hear something to their advantage. “You are no cows,” I said to them. “You are princesses.” But that wasn’t enough for them; they wanted to hear more. Not until I crossed a rainy, spotty, snowy field did they finally give up.
From an early age, Herzog seems to have had the ability to rally people behind his wild ideas. His ambitions regularly exceeded his resources, and the people around him bailed him out financially and otherwise. He was lucky in a million different ways that a mere mortal would not be, and he knows it. Herzog is effusive but even handed in his praise for his co-conspirators, even the difficult ones like Klaus Kinski.
There are encounters with hostile indigenous groups, corrupt governments, inclement weather and other factors that threaten the lives or him, his crew and his cast members:
One of our woodsmen was bitten by a snake, a shushupe, the most poisonous of all. He knew that his heart and lungs would be lamed within sixty seconds and that the camp with our doctor and the serum was twenty minutes away, so he picked up his chain saw and cut of his foot. He survived.
Every Man for Himself and God Against All is not chronological, or organized in any clear way, but it’s difficult to dislike a book that has paragraphs like this:
…I slept in fields, in barns, and under bridges, and when it was raining and freezing and there was nothing but an empty hunting lodge or remote holiday cottage, then breaking into it was not a problem for me. I have often broken into locked-up houses, not causing any damage, because I always carry a little “surgeon’s kit” with me, a couple of wire rods with which I can open security locks. I will leave a note behind, thanking the owners, or I’ll finish the crossword puzzle on the kitchen table.
There were sections that meant less to me – references to actors I’m unfamiliar with or films I haven’t seen, but the stories and trivia surrounding them were engaging enough that it didn’t really matter.
It’s not a traditional memoir, any more than Werner Herzog is a traditional Hollywood figure. There’s little in the way of theme or introspection; Herzog isn’t looking for insight or wisdom gained from his past, he wants to tell remarkable stories in a memorable way.
If there’s one recurring motif in this book, it’s that Herzog trusts that anything is possible for a true believer: the capacity and ability of the human spirit to overcome adversity is something he has seen countless times (and experienced first-hand). His wonder at the world around him and willingness to indulge the most harebrained ideas is what defines him, and it makes for entertaining and inspirational reading.
Having some familiarity with Werner Herzog is an asset in reading Every Man for Himself and God Against All. The humour, adventure and shocking anecdotes will carry even a casual fan through.
