German Filmmaker Werner Herzog shoots new film in Dublin’s Docklands
By Brian Bowe
Werner Herzog, the legendary German filmmaker behind such art house classics as Fitzcarraldo (1982), Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), along with acclaimed documentaries Grizzly Man (2005) and Into the Abyss (2011), was in Pigeon House Film Studios in Dublin’s Docklands the last couple of months shooting his latest feature film, Bucking Fastard.
Featuring Hollywood stars Rooney and Kate Mara (real-life sisters working together onscreen for the first time), Orlando Bloom, as well as a handful of Irish actors — including Domhnall Gleeson, Hugh O’Conor and Terry McMahon — the film is based on a true story about eccentric twin sisters who are so close to each other that they speak in unison, move in unison, have the same dreams, and soon become obsessed with the same man.
Perhaps best known for his acclaimed 2014 directorial feature Patrick’s Day, the Irish filmmaker and actor Terry McMahon took to social media to share his delight about working alongside one of his idols:
“Whoever said you should never meet your heroes is missing out on miracles. Last week and this week I got to dance on a film set with Werner Herzog and Rooney and Kate Mara. It’s a small role and the character is a despicable prick but … if someone had told the kid watching the VHS copy of Fitzcarraldo that his future self would be directed by Herzog in a film, that kid would have wept. Sometimes movies make miracles real. And sometimes reality makes movie miracles.”
On April 22nd, Screen Ireland welcomed Herzog for a special conversation at Dublin’s Irish Film Institute (IFI) as part of Section 481 Skills Development Screen Talks. During a candid chat with Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan, Herzog discussed his love for Ireland, his dislike of intimacy and stunt coordinators, and why filmmakers should never rely on storyboards.
“I love the locations, I love the crew, I love the backgrounds for filmmaking,” the director said. “Ireland has been good to me, and it’s been good to me before — way before many of you were even born, I shot on Skellig Rock at the end of Heart of Glass (1976), and I shot on Croagh Patrick during the pilgrimage for a dream sequence for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974). So, I’m very, very pleased to be here. I’ve done wonderful work with Irish people here. Everyone was wonderful.”
Reflecting on the dangerous challenges faced during the filming of Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Herzog voiced his discontent with contemporary filmmaking norms. Specifically referencing the shooting on his new film, he criticized the excessive dependence on intimacy coordinators and stunt coordinators.
“There’s a scene [in Bucking Fastard] where my leading actor, Orlando Bloom, and the two sisters — who are very similar, they speak and move in unison — have a love affair with a neighbour in a garden shed … and, of course, Orlando is naked; you see him up from the waist, and the two girls have nightgowns on. So what do you do? And I spoke to Rooney and Kate Mara, I said, ‘How do we handle it?’ and they said to me, ‘Stay out of it; we know how to handle it.’ And I said, ‘Of course, the intimacy coordinator is going to stay out of it as well, but we’ll have to pretend you’re shooting something else on that day.’”
The filmmaker then highlighted the need for practicality over protocol, citing a scene in which the two sister characters toss trash from a slowly moving car. When informed by the production team that he would need a stunt coordinator and two stunt women to execute the scene, he responded:
“‘No, I will not do that, because the car is just starting to drive, it’s at the speed of 3 km/h, and they throw the garbage from the side.’ To hell with the stunt coordinator. To hell with the two stunt women who are going to do that. You will never find two stunt women with the same body shape, and the costumes… I would’ve spent 5 percent of the budget on that.”
“You have to be street smart and outsmart some of these fools. It’s common sense: when it’s really something dangerous you better stick and adhere to the rules.”
When it comes to storyboarding – the process of creating a series of sequential visual representations, or panels, that outline the key events and shots of a narrative like a visual roadmap – Herzog is not a fan. For him, it’s “the instrument of cowards who do not trust in their own imagination.”
“Be imaginative, let the moment evolve. Storyboarding is always lifeless.” He then (quite hilariously) pleaded with any budding filmmakers in the crowd: “Don’t ever, ever, ever think about storyboards. Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
The director then recounted several instances where he was “nearly killed” while shooting a film. He’s been shot several times and, while filming in Cameroon, was thrown in prison, where he suffered from malaria. Of course, in true Herzog fashion, he chalks up these harrowing experiences to being merely part of the job of a filmmaker:
“I don’t like the culture of complaint, there’s too much complaining out there. In filmmaking, you’re not allowed to complain; just roll up your sleeves and do your job, that’s it.”
Bucking Fastard has not yet been scheduled for release. Although it will not be screening at the Cannes Film Festival itself, it will be presented at the Festival’s Marché du Film, commonly known as the Cannes Market, where a rough cut will be shown to potential investors for distribution.
“Bucking Fastard is a film that, for me, completes a circle in an operatic triptych with my previous films, Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man,” Herzog explained. “We cannot see the world as Jean and Joan Holbrooke [the characters the Mara sisters portray] see it, but we do see how the world reacts to them — through the courts and the press, through those that want to help and those who want to use them, through the eyes of beasts both tame and wild, and even through their own echoes in the core of the earth.”
