The Big Picture - ‘Pokémon Detective Pikachu’ Exit Survey, Plus Werner Herzog on His Epic Career | The Big Picture

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

Micah Peters joins the show to make sense of the public’s obsession with Pokémon and the release of ‘Detective Pikachu’ (1:30). Then, Werner Herzog comes by the studio to discuss his new documentary, ‘Meeting Gorbachev,’ and the scope of his long and successful career (26:30). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Micah Peters and Werner Herzog Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. The NBA playoffs are in full swing and we have coverage across all of our channels to keep you up to speed as we make our way towards the finals. Make sure to check out the Ringer NBA show for daily coverage of the games from each series and the ringer.com to read Kevin O'Connor, Dan Devine, and the rest of our NBA experts break down every key matchup. And don't forget to tune in every Sunday evening to the Bill Simmons podcast to hear Bill and Ryan Russillo's NBA reactions from the weekend.

As always, these can be found on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show, I think, about Pokemon Detective Pikachu, among other things. Later on in the show, I will be having an interview with the great filmmaker Werner Herzog, and I can think of no subject more dissonant and weird

than Werner Herzog's films than Pikachu. I'm here with Micah Peters. Hi, Micah. Hi, Doc. I don't even know what that means. Micah, of course, is here because I am an old and washed man, and I don't really understand anything about Pokemon. So what you're going to do is you're going to help me understand this film

that we've both seen together and the phenomenon of Pokemon at large because I am a bit confounded. And yet I recognize, perhaps for the first time in my life, as a sincere moviegoer connected to broad mythologies, that I'm just out of my depth. I don't know what is going on. I don't know what's happening. So let's just start at the very beginning. Can you summarize for me Pokemon and the phenomenon surrounding it?

Okay. summarize for me Pokemon and the phenomenon surrounding it? Okay, so the way that I interacted with it was that it was a trade and card game that was also a manga and also a cartoon that you could watch on Channel 10 on Saturday mornings, you know, and there would be, you know, Pokemon battles at the local Books a Million or Barnes and Noble or whatever, but then also at schoolyards, you'd have cards and you'd trade with your classmates. And then I once got into a fist fight over a holographic Charizard card. Like, it's basically like anything else

that is game towards just consuming, like, large quantities of it. Like, the same thing as TY Babies or Magic the gathering or eventually dragon ball z cards was the thing you know like it's it's just it's a phenomenon that like everybody my age participated in i don't know anybody that didn't and it was like i think i want to say it was ernest baker wrote an essay about this on ill roots like a couple of years ago but it's like you learn a lot of things about how to move through life from playing Pokemon.

So that's amazing. I mean, part of the reason why I think this is interesting is because I think there are a lot of people who would say the same thing about Star Wars or Marvel or all of these things that we have devoted a lot of our emotional and intellectual time to. That seen objectively seem really weird and really frivolous and very silly. Absolutely, to all of those things. And my experience walking into this movie, which hopefully you can help us understand through the prism of the success of the Pokemon experience, it was, I don't know any of the reference points. And not knowing any of the reference points, I don't know if it was necessarily confusing to understanding this movie.

Well, you have a lot of the reference points, though, if you've seen a number of movies. That's true. That's true. In some ways, this is attempting to be a Humphrey Bogart movie. Yes. It's like kind of even the lighting looks very Blade Runner-y. That's true.

It's very future noir. I thought about, at different points, Spider-Man 2. I thought about Zootopia throughout the whole thing. Interesting. So that to me, that's an interesting example of a more successful iteration of this kind of movie. For me personally, because Zootopia is made of characters that don't exist. Made of characters that don't exist and it's geared towards the racial allegory from the jump. Yes.

So Detective Pikachu is something different. Because these characters already have a sort of history with a lot of their viewers and there's an expectation going into it. Did the movie work for you as somebody who was like, I am a person who grew up with and I'm a fan of Pokemon? It was, you know, it was fine. But as like, like going into it, I didn't want it to be so good that it was going to inspire a bunch of sequels. Oh, interesting. What do you mean by that? I mean, like, I just didn't want more of this. I don't like it's the there's just an uncomfortable proliferation of live action cartoons from my youth.

And I mean, like, it's not like a thing that's going to stop because it's, I mean, like studios aren't going to suddenly start hating money, but. Right. But why, tell me about that exhaustion. That's kind of interesting because it seems like there is an entire generation of people who are absolutely thrilled that there is a live action iteration of this series, but there is also a little bit of like pre-release exhaustion somehow well yeah i mean because you largely know what you're getting and it's like living up to a standard or something that you've well attempting to live up to a standard something that you've already seen and it's just kind of like you have the thing already. Like animated characters aren't placeholders for real ones.

You know, like I still like hold to that. I know it's true. I mean, nostalgia is a tricky paramour. You know, on the one hand, it's very beautiful and inviting and reminds you of a warm time in your life. And on the other hand, it's held to an extraordinarily high standard. And if you change it ever so slightly, it feels like it's betraying you or tiring you out.

I'm going to read the synopsis of this movie. Right. And see, just sort of wrap my head around it a little bit. Okay. In Rhyme City, a metropolis populated between the bonds of humans and Pokemon alike, a 21-year-old former Pokemon trainer named Tim Goodman comes into contact with a talking Pikachu that once belonged to his father named Tim Goodman comes into contact with a talking Pikachu that once belonged to his father, Harry Goodman, who went missing after an accident. Tim

and the talking Pikachu, who calls himself, quote, Detective Pikachu, investigate to find his whereabouts with the help of a reporter, Lucy Stevens, and her Psyduck until they come across something that endangers the Pokemon world. So that, I think, is the movie that i saw um it was hard to tell when i saw it because when say the psyduck am i pronouncing that correctly appeared on screen people started screaming with laughter because psyduck is such a funny character because it's just like any time that he gets stressed out like it's you have to like there's a there's a like, there's a scene in the movie where, again, like, Detective Pikachu

voiced by Ryan Reynolds, like, it's impossible to take anything he says serious. Everything he says is like, yeah, it's impossible to take anything he says serious.

Deadpool Pokemon, yeah. But, like, you know, it kind of pulls back as it gets towards making fun of the genre of, like, video game adaptations or whatever. But anyway,

there's a scene where he's talking to the Psyduck and trying to calm him down because if Psyduck frees out, as anybody that has encountered Pokemon before knows, it's a massive psionic shockwave bomb thing that goes off, emanating from Psyduck himself. So he's freaking out because he's just like, holy shit, Pikachu can talk. Something weird is happening.

And Ryan Reynolds' Pikachu is just like, serenity now, serenity now. And it's like funny because it's Ryan Reynolds' voice. I mean, when you saw the initial trailer or like the grainy footage of the trailer from wherever it was i can't remember if it was at e3 or if it was like from a japanese premiere or whatever but pikachu was talking and as soon as like people saw pikachu talk like the entire theater went into histrionics and like there were a lot of think pieces about why the fuck is pikachu talking This isn't what the character was. Because Pokemon just say their own name and cute voices. That's what they're supposed to do.

I was going to ask you to explain that for me. Because that is sort of one of the storytelling tropes of the movie, is that Pikachu is talking, none of the other Pokemon are talking. Yeah, I mean, that's the crux of it. Because you think about why do trainers and pokemon understand each other and like they go through like a kind of bare bones explanation of it in the movie where um they sort of explain it like the force is explained in uh the last jedi or whatever where it's just like look man here's all you need to know. Pokemon and trainers can understand each other

because they can understand what each other are feeling. Like, and like it becomes, you know, essential to the plot eventually why Tim Goodkin can understand Pikachu perfectly, like word perfect, versus why, you know, like he couldn't talk to other pokemon the same way you can imagine uh how confusing a lot of this would seem to somebody who has no experience with this sort of thing and that is sort of what fascinates me like i'm not like a like i'm not a buff like i mean like i don't like i didn't read all the like i didn't read all the comics i i remember once buying the ash hat because I was just like.

What is that? It's a trucker hat that has, like, a thing on the front. Like, it's a red and white trucker hat. And it has this, like, kind of A emblem on the front thing. And, I mean, like, I also, like, I mean, who, literally, who does not love the Pokemon theme song like that? Like it's I remember parts of it. You know, I have like I don't have the whole picture, but I knew enough to like get what was going on in the movie.

Bobby, let's hear focus specifically on Ryan Reynolds for a second. Sure. Because as you said, Pokemon are not supposed to have voices. But in order for this movie to be a movie and to work and to have a plot, Tim Goodman, this character played by Justice Smith, needs to interact with Detective Pikachu. Yeah. I couldn't figure out if this movie

was trying to make fun of the sorts of movies that it resembles or if it was a loving homage. That's what I was saying. It doesn't really commit to doing one or the other, does it? Yeah, and that was sort of why I struggled with it a little bit.

I think it seemed like it was very satisfying for people who were built into this world. And for the rest of us, I was like, is this a satire? Is it a pure spoof? Like there's so many, because I mean, the things that Ryan Reynolds says, like in the course of them doing something you know because the plot is telling them to like he'll have a size where he's just kind of like why like you know there's a there's an early dispute where it's just like why can't Pikachu ride on Tim's shoulders Tim's just like I don't want to like you know I don't want anything to do with you walk your own damn self whatever and he's just like look every step for you is a thousand for me and my lungs are the size of grapes that's like i wanted more of stuff like that like yeah yeah i i mean on the one hand

i think that made me feel like a little bit more clear about what the universe was and the relationship that the characters had and on the other hand i felt like we skipped this step it was sort of like see making deadpool the very first superhero movie you know if there was no superman and there was no batman and there was no Spider-Man and you were just like... If there wasn't superhero fatigue to play off of. Exactly. And it's interesting to make Ryan Reynolds the literal avatar for that because he can't help but be... He can't help but poke fun at the thing.

Exactly. And that's not... How did you receive... Did you think that was actively a good way to jet stream fans into it? I don't know. I think that there's a version of this movie that 27 to 34-year-olds would be... I mean, okay, 18 to 34-year-olds

would be just a cult classic amongst, you know, like people in that age group. And then you'd just be high as shit at 11 PM, like on some random streaming service. And it would be a movie that everybody loves. And there would be like anniversary pieces about it later. If it fully committed to being as weird as it should have been.

So that's not what this movie is. This movie is like literally a tentpole blockbuster from a major studio in the middle of the summer it is the movie it is the first movie that is attempting to take on the mighty avengers endgame at the box office and with it comes like a little bit of expectation you know and yeah it's like you have to i was sitting next to somebody in my screening we were there uh this this lady that was there with like her two children. And she turned to me before the movie started. She was just like,

are you surprised that there's as many people here as there are? Like, I mean, like there's a lot of adults. There's a lot of kids. There's a lot of teenagers, like people from all age groups.

Like, and if you're going to have one of those big tempo blockbusters that is going to be challenging the Avengers of the world. You have to be able to cater to all those groups. It's notable. This is not the first Pokemon

movie. There have been animated Pokemon movies that have been coming out, I think, since 1999. And some of which have been fairly successful though they're not at the scale of this movie. All of those movies are rated G. This movie is rated PG, which I think it speaks a little bit to the differentiation that you're making

and that your seatmate was making too. Yeah. You know, that they're seeking a wider audience. Yeah. And I'm curious as somebody who's at this stage of your life, what it's like to have nostalgia thrown back in your face this way

and iterated upon as somebody who has been experiencing it quite literally in movies for about 20 years. Yeah, I like it was what i was saying before it's just kind of like you want it to strike this note because at least you haven't totally heard that one before but again like i was saying like it's a nostalgia vehicle in which i was like thinking about other movies that I've seen at the movies like that like I was saying like it's Zootopia at one point a Spider-Man 2 at one point there's you know at one point I was thinking about Princess Mononoke there's there's this like it's almost like like what happens in that scene is almost like shot for shot the same thing.

One of the interesting things about the movie, and this has become common now because there are fewer movies that are made and tentpole movies are so important to Hollywood, but there's some very talented actors in this movie made to do very strange things. Ken Watanabe in particular. Just as like the random like police commissioner person that is just kind of like I am your bridge to your dead father.

Yes, exactly. And he is there is some sort of Pokemon sitting beside him throughout this movie. What is that thing called? I don't even know what that was called.

Some sort of bulldog? So like initially there was like there was a hundred Pokemon and Mewtwo was at the end of it. Like Mewtwo is like the big this is like the most powerful Pokemon

you would do just about. Is it like the Voldemort of Pokemon? Or like the He, this is like the most powerful Pokemon you would do just about. Is it like the Voldemort of Pokemon or like the He-Man of Pokemon? Or like, give me like a reference inside of my experience. It's more like the Sephiroth of Pokemon. I don't know what that is. Like, I mean, it's just like, he's like the Anubis of Pokemon.

Okay, you're just saying words that don't mean anything to me. I'm talking about like, okay, like Egyptian gods of death and shit. I didn't know if another mythology had been created out of that mythology okay but i mean like it's there's there's weird like a like there's egyptian mythology rolled into like this uh this pokemon but also like you know he's godlike etc etc etc but originally there was like only 100 and then they were just and then there were more and more

and more and more and like and i did not learn any of them after that and i've forgotten the ones that i remember like so that one maybe is a new one i don't know i haven't seen it before so that's crazy there is like an extraordinary amount of intellectual legwork that you have to do to categorize all of these things so there's's this, like early on in the movie, like as you are beginning to understand that this is a world in which, you know, the Pokemon and humans live in harmony, they do different things together. Like there's, in my head, because I didn't want to take out my phone and start taking notes, because like in describing the Pokemon that I was seeing you know like the bird one the hedgehog one the the dig dugs the the cubone the whatever whatever and seeing where they fit into that world like the the hedgehog ones are going across the ground

the bird ones are flying through the sky over a meadow so on so forth but it was just like all i could remember was like, they looked like something, and I remember that this is what that one does, but I couldn't remember the name because there are so many of them. But there are people that have encyclopedic knowledge about this sort of thing.

Yeah, and I wonder, I think about this, I take for granted when I go to a Star Wars movie that I know everything about Star Wars. Yeah. That I just understand all of it. I haven't read every book, I haven't played every video game, but in terms of what is legible in the movies themselves, you get it, you get the gist. I get all of it. You know, I understand

the composition of the empire's army, you know, like I can think of, I can specifically identify details. And I think it didn't really occur to me how much I am rewarded for knowing those things. Because there was like, there was Star Wars and there was Star Trek, right? And those were like the two big pieces of monoculture around the same time. And I am not a Star Trek person, so I never had to worry about it. Right, but there was Pokemon, there was Digimon, there was Yu-Gi-Oh, there was Magic the Gathering, there was Dragon Ball Z cards, there was, I mean, like all these things were happening around the same time. And, you know, earlier this year, there was a Dragon Ball Z

movie, which we covered a little bit on The Ringer, and it was pretty successful at the box office. And that was another example. It's at a lower, I guess, a sort of a lower octane than Detective Pikachu, but it's another example of this iterative nostalgia-driven thing that is kind of roping 12-year-olds and also trying to rope in 32 year olds which is just a fascinating critical corporate strategy for for movie makers um i guess do you think that we're gonna see big live action yugioh movies now and like the magic the gathering i literally don't think that you can rule it out i mean isn't there's... Isn't that fascinating? It is, and also a little depressing.

Yeah, yeah. Do all of these stories need to have the same scaffolding that Detective Pikachu does, which is sort of like using another format to tell the story of the thing because there's not enough genuine mythology inside of these stories that you were consuming as a kid? Yes, because, I mean, it's just the things that you would have to know about certain worlds. Like, I mean, it's difficult to create an entire new world and an entire new complicated world and pull people and have people interested to step into it. Like, I mean, think about Mortal Engines, where it was just like that. And I mean, I tried.

I went home a couple months ago. And usually when I go home and I'm just like, all the movies that I missed that are on demand, I'm just like, I don't, there's nothing to do. So I'm just going to there's nothing to do, so I'm just going to try to watch some of these. I tried three times to get through Mortal Engines and could not do it. But the first 25, 30 minutes of it are really compelling,

and I think it was... Because that's the sort of world-building stage? That was the world-building stage. It's just kind of like we are in a world where cities are moving around on, you know, like London is rolling around on however many gears devouring smaller cities like, I don't know, say like Croydon or whatever. Like this mining town, that mining town, this little nowhere, this cottage village, whatever. And everything is on wheels and the larger cities devour the smaller ones. And it's just like that kind of has like interesting kind of economic implications.

And then once you get inside of the London city and you see how the smaller villages are immigrated into the larger city, given jobs, given whatever, but they no longer have a home. And then you go to the museum and you see that this is happening several hundred years in the future. And they look at a cracked iPhone behind plexiglass and talk about the screen age, quote unquote.

Like those are like, that was interesting to me, like the world building part. Then you see like Michael Bennett randomly at one point. I had a similar problem with Pikachu, if I'm being honest, which is that at the very beginning, the setup, the sort of introduction to the world is interesting insofar as I didn't know enough about it, and it's compellingly told. And then as soon as we get into the full-blown mystery stage,

I was like, meh. I can't remember who it was that tweeted this. Maybe it was Jason DeMarco at Toonami. But he was just like, whether they knew it or not, the people that were making Mortal Rangers were making an anime, which is just like, that is a large part of it. We are rendering this entire world

that is very weird and different from the one that you know. And you need to get it quickly because then we're going to get into the story. It's not like this is happening down the street or whatever, whatever, whatever. It's a different Earth. Right.

Well, I mean, and this is also, Rhyme City is a different, is Earth even the planet that it's operating on? I can't even tell. I don't know. It's just like really futuristic and vaguely Japanese. What is success for you for a movie like this? Do you want to walk out feeling like your childhood was validated? Do you want to walk

out feeling like you are connected to a part of yourself that you've lost? Do you want to just be entertained? I would, I just want to be entertained. I want to be entertained and I don't want to be bummed out. Like those are, it's like a very baseline thing because the thing is that it's just one in hundreds of movies that are basically the same thing or are meant to fill the same space, so to speak. Let's talk a little bit about

video game adaptations because you mentioned that too. They are almost always bad. Yeah, why do you think that is and does this correct any of those sins even though this is a wider world than just a video game adaptations because you mentioned that too they are almost always bad yeah why do you think that is and does this correct any of those sins even though this is a wider world than just a video game i mean like there's a lot of different factors there i mean i mean like you see it with the sonic movie that's coming out and the fact they had to go back to the board and redesign it because that was a very uncomfortable first attempt. Like, but also... A controversial moment. Yeah, like, but making CG,

like, the actual practice of making CGI characters and putting them in a physical world is difficult. Like, I mean, maybe not as difficult as the Game of Thrones showrunners are making it seem at the moment.

Like, I'm sorry, if Hela can have a fucking wolf the size of, like, I'm sorry, if Hela can have a fucking wolf the size of, like, a castle in Thor Ragnarok with, like, basically, like,

Marvel is punting that movie and you can't have John Pitt as Direwolf goodbye? You seem to have found yourself on the wrong podcast, Micah. Sorry. There are so many

Game of Thrones podcasts here at The Ringer. It's okay. No, you're right, though, because I feel like this movie, in a weird way, makes the Pokemon characters feel practically oriented

inside the world that they create, which is ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, like, it's... But also, a large, a big, like, plus for the movie is that they just allowed the animals to be cute. Like, which is... that they just allowed the animals to be cute like which is

i'm sorry the pokemon to be cute like it's they didn't try to be like let's make it like let's give them actually proportionate legs and you know like make them do xyz or whatever because i mean like that was a big problem with like the, the Sonic characters, that, like, his legs are too human-like, his teeth are too human-like. Like, I don't want to see his thigh muscles. You know what I mean? Detective Pikachu does not have a thigh muscle to show. Exactly. Exactly.

And, I mean, like, again, it is very, like, the same feeling as the Porgs being in Star Wars. It wars is just kind of like we are going to sell some more of these fucking toys guys like there's i mean like even the deadly pokemon look cute there's a scene where like a charizard comes to himself and backs up a little bit like they all have dog-like qualities and it was like hard hard to look at Pikachu and not think about my dog. It's an amazing statement. Yeah. Would you broadly recommend this movie to moviegoers who are not obsessed with Pokemon?

It's a good time. Okay. I wouldn't say that like you are going to be disappointed with the $17.50 that you spent on it. Okay. But I mean like I also can't condemn just waiting until it comes out on demand or like on dvd or something or on a streaming service give me a number opening weekend that would scare you

because it means we're getting nine more pokemon movies in the next decade that i like don't have just do the math micah come on like no i'd like i don't i so like if if if kung fu like kung fu panda 3 made 10.3 million on its opening Friday I think it made something like I can't even

remember but like if it's like doing numbers in that realm like

probably more than that we're more than likely going to get a sequel I've seen a projection of 75 million dollars

in its opening weekend in which case it's going to be a Pokemon. I've seen a projection of $75 million in its opening weekend, in which case it's going to be a Pokemon decade. I think it was like 63 for Kung Fu Panda 3 or something. But like, anyway, yeah, it's more than likely we are going to get another one of these movies. And when we do, maybe you'll be back. Micah, thank you for sort of explaining this potential movie phenomenon for me.

Of course. From the ridiculous to the sublime, let's now go to my conversation with the filmmaker, Werner Herzog. Genuinely an honor to be joined by Werner Herzog. Werner, thank you for being here. Thank you very much for having me. Werner, you have a new film. You're the co-director of a new documentary. Yes. If I've counted correctly, this is your 30th documentary. Does that sound right to you? I have never counted them. However, I have to issue a warning. After meeting Gorbachev, I have yet finished another film that had its world premiere this Sunday at Tribeca Film Festival, and I couldn't even attend it because I still have yet another film finished,

a narrative feature film that I shot in Japan. And out of the blue, it was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. So I'm scrambling at the moment to get French subtitles in the DCP and the poster in the press kit and photos. You just name it. So I'm inside of an avalanche and I just follow the flow. I felt like I was in an avalanche trying to prepare for this interview, just trying to rewatch so many of your films.

I mean, so now you've got your 31st documentary coming and I don't even know how many feature films you've made narrative films. I haven't counted them either. That's fascinating. I mean, what drives the decision to make something at this stage having made so much, such a big body of work? Well, when I know something is really big, like Grizzly Man, I knew instantly this is so big, I have to do it. Gorbachev is something that started without me. It started with a co-director, André Singer, with whom I had a long relationship working, mostly his company as co-producer in some of my films. And he started the whole thing with a former East German TV station in Leipzig,

MDR, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Middle German Broadcasting. And they were thinking about various options and couldn't come to any conclusion. All of a sudden, somebody came up with the idea, Gorbachev. And it immediately clicked. And Andrei invited me after things were settled with Gorbachev and his entourage that he, Michael Gorbachev, was willing to do it. And Andrei invited me and he said, well, somebody has to do the conversations and you are totally unafraid.

And can you do it? And I said, yes, sure, I can do it. I did a lot of homework. By the way, Gorbachev also did some homework. I was going to ask you about that if he was familiar with your work? He had seen probably one or two films, but he had a stack of papers and wanted to discuss my own childhood. I said, Michael Sergeyevich, for God's sake, let's turn the cameras on. Let's do business. And he was glad that I was not a journalist with a catalog of questions. He said, are you a poet?

Good. Let's have a conversation. Tell me how you prepare for something like this, though. You say you're not a journalist, but I imagine you have to, in your mind, create some sort of expectation of when you will talk about certain phases of this huge life. Well, and if you are talking to arguably the greatest world leader of the end of the 20th century, you better come prepared. So I read his biography, his memoirs. I read a very, very fine, documents of discussions within the Politburo in the central committee now available. So unclassified now. Declassified now and very, very interesting stuff, stark, naked sort of debates about what politics and the role of the Soviet Union should be. How much are you devising the shape of a movie before you have

a sit down like this? Because this feels very different from the single person focused documentaries that you've made. Well, I always leave the doors and the windows open for the unexpected. And how can I say? I came very well prepared, I must say. But at the same time, I had no agenda. I had no roadmap for the discourse. And it was healthy. It was fine because we would go into things that nobody of the two of us would expect. What was an example of that?

Is there a place that you went? I was asked, for example, by his entourage, please be careful and do not address his wife. He was so in love with her and she was so important for him and was his closest political advisor and confidante. And he was profoundly happy in the marriage and has been a deeply lonesome man since she died way too early. Like 20 years ago, many years ago.

Yes, something like that. And in the course of the discussion with him, I had the feeling we were just somehow warmed up and I could ask a personal question. And I asked him, how was it when Raisa, your wife, died? When this happened, how much do you miss her? And he looks long, long, pause, pause, pause. He looks at me and then he says, when Raisa died, my life was taken from me.

And again, silence, silence, silence, silence, silence. It's really, really deep. And you get goose pimples when you see that. Goose bumps. Was that the most shocking moment that you had? Were you surprised by anything about him when you finally engaged with him? No, everything was a surprise in a way, because he's such a lively mind and very forceful. At one point, I had the feeling to tell him, well, you must have been very lucky. And he says, no, I searched for her and I found her. Did Andre know when he came to you that you had such admiration for Gorbachev?

He knew, and that was probably the reason why he wanted me to do the conversations. I would say admiration, very deep respect, and I have a very warm feeling for him. And that has to do with the reunification of Germany, where he played a central role. Did Gorbachev have a sense of that going into the conversation as well? He knew that I had traveled on foot around my own country, just to hold it together when politics at that time had given up on it. Was there any moment when you were having conversation with him when you felt like he was uneasy discussing anything? Yes, when it came to subjects he was completely unfamiliar with.

For example, I wanted to discuss with him Japan 1603. Background to it is in 10 years prior to that, there was a huge field battle. One of the war parties is well documented in the head. One third of them had firearms, meaning 60,000 samurai out there with firearms. Japan, without taking any formal decision, somehow took the decision to abolish firearms. And in 1603, there's yet another big battle where there were only 26 firearms, all of a sudden, almost nothing. And I asked him, and you only have the end of this, I asked him, what is the intrinsic quality? Why are these systems so persistent? Firearms in Japan, they tried to abolish it to no avail.

They came back big time. Nuclear weapons, every single decent human being on this planet wants to get rid of it. But estates with communal interests cannot abolish it. What is an intrinsic quality in it? So he was 87 years old when I filmed with him. He's 88 by now. And he's not very flexible in picking up a completely new thought and would rather answer with some sort of a political statement that almost sounds like a mantra. I was going to ask you about that, what it's like to, because you have interviewed so many people over the years and put people on camera who have a kind of effervescence and you don't

see them before and you show us them in a new light, but politicians are very skilled at creating their own message. And did you ever feel like you were perhaps operating on his terms sometimes during the conversation? Not really, because I think it was obvious that he probably would never speak to any media again. And it was good for him to speak to a foreigner, to the former enemy. And it's not that he's burying his soul or he's trying to set the record straight.

For that, he wrote his hundreds of pages of memoirs and other books. So he didn't need that anymore. It was more just reflecting on political events in his life, in the mood of his times with somebody who was very sympathetic. One thing that it seems like has happened with him is that his legacy has really evolved over time. And I feel like this movie is doing more work to kind of help evolve it. Did you sense that he understood that too, that the way that he was seen has changed? It's a difficult question, but I can only answer, I do have the feeling that some of the rejection of Gorbachev in his own country, there are some voices who label him a traitor, and that's painful for him because he really didn't want to betray the Russian people. He always was out for doing the best for them. But it seems to be shifting now because a week ago there was a very big screening, the closing screening of the Moscow Film Festival, overrun by many, many people. And the applause, and I hear that from Andrei Singer, the co-director, was extremely strong

and warm, and something seems to be shifting. What do you think accounts for that? Just the idea that the way that he approached the world was more modern than it seemed at the time? It may be almost outside of his time, almost a prophetic figure. And we need people like him when we look at today. Speak to the enemy. Do not demonize the other side. That's what we should adopt from him.

And the media, of course, in the West are completely out for demonization of Russia, which I think is a big mistake. You were very pointed, I think, in the film and even in talking about the film about not conflating too much of modern politics with some of the things in Gorbachev's life. I'm curious why... He didn't want to elaborate on and be the pundit and I didn't want to be the pundit on today's politics.

That was not what we were out to do. How did you go about determining what the film should actually be once you had had those conversations with him? Because you bring in other interviews, you're using a lot of archival footage. How do you construct something like this? It comes along in editing and it depends on how intense and how good your gems are that you find in the archives. There are phenomenal things that nobody has ever seen.

And that was one of the great achievements of André Singer and his very able team of researchers in London and in Moscow. So it comes to life, but both of us made the same mistake in the beginning. We had a first edited version that I only saw when I flew into London and we looked at it and both of us had the feeling there was too much about me in it because Gorbachev knew that our childhoods were fairly similar. Growing up in ruins, growing up at the very margin of your country without running water, without knowing what cinema was, that it even existed, and on and on and on.

Knowing what hunger was, for example. I was hungry as a child for two, two and a half years, and he was hungry as a adolescent. So, and there were too many references and we saw this is a mistake, for God's sake, let's take it out and let's recalibrate the film. So you saw it instantly. How did you go about deciding who should be speaking from representatives from other countries, other politicians? Well, of other countries, the first question, who is still alive? Ronald Reagan is not alive. Helmut Kohl is not alive anymore. And you just name it. They were all gone.

And of course you had James Baker, George Shultz, the former Hungarian Prime Minister, Miloš Nemec and a few others. So you had a limited choice only. And all these conversations were done by Andrei Singer. Did you both learn anything about Gorbachev that you did not know in those conversations? And did you have an opportunity to go back to Gorbachev after doing some of them? No, you had only very limited choices.

We had, in fact, only two agreed-upon encounters with conversations. I was only allowed one hour because he's of ill health. And he was brought in an ambulance each time and taken by ambulance back to hospital. So he's really soldiering on. And I had to be vigilant is he still do I tire him is he feeling uncomfortable

or whatever so I had to be constantly on the lookout but he insisted all of a sudden come once more he literally summoned me and he said we are not done yet.

Let's speak to each other once more. And so that's why I met him three times. And it's limited, of course, limited. What did he want to tell you when he summoned you that last time? It was less formal. He, for example, we had arranged the same cameras, the same chairs, the same light. He said, oh, no, I'm not going to sit down here. Let's meet in my office.

But I said, well, Michael Sergeyevich, the light is really bad. You have all the light from behind you, and we can't reorganize our light and camera. Oh, it doesn't matter. He said, come on in. And we filmed the third encounter only with a small handheld digital camera. It's so fascinating. But it's less formal and deeper in human.

Yeah, it's intimate. Yes, and looking into his soul, looking even into the soul of Russia for a moment when he recites a poem by Lermontov, a poet who died in 1840, 41. Next morning, at age 26, he died in a pistol duel. And I think he wrote that poem the night before he died. And it's a wonderful, wonderful poem. And the funny thing is, I tried to tickle Gorbachev. I knew he knows hundreds of poems by heart. And I started to recite a poem by Pushkin to him. And I was sure he would chime in. And he said, no, no, I have a much better one. And then he says, I'm going to sing. And from there on, I cut in. He doesn't sing, he recites it. And it is so beautiful and so deep that I repeated the entire poem in a written scrawl again. I was going to ask you, you know, people are always talking about the ecstatic truth that you're searching for in

your movies. But this movie is based in a lot of facts and a lot of history. Sure, it has to. It has to. The content and what you are doing dictates the subject. I cannot do something wild like, let's say, in Cave of Forgotten Dreams about a Paleolithic cave with cave paintings done 30,000, 35,000 years ago. And all of a sudden I have a postscript about radioactive albino mutant crocodiles. So it's completely and utterly wild. And I'm inventive and I take you into sheer poetry and imagination. You don't do a thing like that when you do a film on Mikhail Gorbachev, period.

Were you ever tempted to in any way? No, never crossed my mind. No, it's a different film and it did not even originate with me. That's true. What about the process of doing the interview? It's not interviews. Conversation? It's conversations. I came without paper. I didn't have a catalog of questions. But you were listening in an earpiece because he was speaking Russian. Yes, the translation, yes.

And I spoke English and the same translator, his trusted translator for decades, did the live translation. And what was that like for you to be doing an interview, or excuse me, a conversation in that way? You have to get accustomed to it very quickly. And I had to learn very quickly. He would say a sentence and then fall silent. And in the very first 10 minutes or so, I kept asking something, but he continued the previous one. So I had to learn very quickly, listen to him. He says something, look at his face. There's still

something brooding in him. There's still something unsaid. Just wait and wait. And sometimes there are very long, strange, unusual pauses. And as an afterthought, he adds something that's much better than anything that came before. It's a tricky thing about having conversations like this, because you want to keep the conversation flowing. But by the same token, if you just wait, you will get something very fresh. You just wait and you have to read. You have to read the man who is sitting opposite of you. What was the one thing you wanted to know from him most when you decided to do this?

That's a difficult question because I had quite a few things that I wanted to know. I wanted to know about the secret machinations against him when the Soviet Union was about to come apart. And there were a secret meeting of Russia headed by Yeltsin at that time, Belarus and the Ukraine in a forest in Belarus, in a hunting kind of lodge or castle. And how much did he know about it? Was there anybody whispering in his ear? Was there a suspicion? I think he didn't have any intelligence on what was going on. And there was something like an avalanche that was triggered. And he had no clue that while he was on vacation in the Crimea, that a coup d'etat would take place.

Do you know for sure why he wanted to do this? I find that fascinating because you say he's at this late stage of his life, he's a bit older, but he's already written his memoirs. He is truly a figure in history. Of course, yes. So why now do this thing? I never asked him, but I had the feeling and it was made clear to me that Mikhail Sergeyevich was not prepared to speak to any media again in his life.

So that's a big load that's coming at you. And I think he has never talked to any media since we finished shooting a year ago. So this could be the final document? I would say probably, but who knows? He is of not good health, but he's a real soldier. He's soldiering on. He's fighting back. He's just very solitary, I would say. And he's a lonesome warrior out there.

You seem like sort of the opposite to me right now. You seem very busy. You seem to have a lot of ideas. I've always been like that. I've always had a lot of ideas. But many people after... I've made some 70 or whatever films. Yes, but after making so many films, a lot of people, they slow down or they think about retiring. You don't seem even close to anything like that.

Well, I do other things as well. I've been acting, for example, in The Mandalorian. I heard all about that. workshop all in the same year in the last 12 months workshop with 48 young filmmakers in the peruvian jungle from 28 countries and they all had to make a film within 10 days what brought you back to the jungle you're of course very familiar with the jungle yes but i wanted to take them out of their comfort zone and you couldn't arrive with a prepared little screenplay for either documentary or feature film i would give them the frame which in within which they were going to work i gave them this frame in the very first minute we met all together and in this case it was fever dreams in the jungle. It gives you a lot of fantasy, even documentaries.

And I said, I do not want to have any documentary here that gives me statistics about the native Indian village, how many percent are illiterates and how high is infant mortality. I do not want to see any of that type of films. Bring me something that has a fever dream. You remind me of something by mentioning that. I'm so interested in your writing process because especially in your documentaries,

your narration and the writing of it is very well known and has a very particular style. How do you write? When do you write? While editing. So immediately, I immediately know here this needs a connection to the follow-up. It needs explanation. So I would immediately write, scribble down the dialogue and immediately speak it into a professional microphone

that we have prepared in the editing. Sometimes it happens that the commentary is three seconds, four seconds too long. So I think, can we make this shot a little bit longer? If not, I just reduce the text a little bit. So I speak it a second time and it fits then it's fascinating so you're editing it goes right right there right then and there what do you most like doing at this stage you've done you've written films you've made feature films narrative films documentaries operas books you've done millions of things i like all of it i i must say i like everything that i love everything that has to do with cinema, writing, directing, producing, editing, acting, being my own cinematographer.

Like in my last feature film now, the Japanese feature film, I was my own cinematographer. What is that movie called? It's called Family Romance, LLC. And that will be out this year, next year? No, it will be out in a few days at the Cannes Film Festival. Oh, okay. For the world to see, but maybe not for me to see. Yeah, but you will see it eventually.

But it came as a surprise at Cannes, put it in their official selection. But it's not in competition. It's a fairly small film, and you don't compete against one of the very big films and against a film that has a lot of stars in it. It would be lopsided. You just, in the festival, I think, did the right decision. Only a couple more questions for you.

One, I'm curious about your perception of your place in the popular culture i feel like people particularly those who want you to act see you as an interesting kind of figure sometimes you're the villain sometimes you're a very wise person what do you make of that at the stage of your life well it's uh it's a funny question because you see that uh all over the place in the internet, imposters are popping up. I have at least three dozen impersonators, three dozen stooges, the unpaid stooges who claim to speaking in my name and with my voice.

What is that like? Well, you have to get accustomed that representation of self in the last 20, 25 years has drastically changed. And you better leave it out there. By the way, it's not unhealthy to see satire on you and parodies on you. And I take it with the necessary amount of humor it's some of it is very amusing by the way i'm a very easy target to be to be in focus of satire very easy yeah but it's i think the majority of it is quite loving if I had to guess. I haven't seen all of it. And things like, let's say,

being in a guest role in The Simpsons. I knew I would do it because the role was funny and I had the feeling if I do that, that will be my apotheosis in American pop

culture. And the funniest of all things is I didn't know that the Simpsons were speaking when I was invited to do this. I said, why do you send me a text for speaking it? Aren't they silent in the newspapers as as his strips and the creator of the simpsons called me and he said to me werner do you not know that we are animated on television every week so and so many times and we move and we speak and i said are you really positive can you send me um a dvd with one of the last shows to just understand how cartoonish the voices are? They believe until today that I'm pulling their leg. I swear to God. Have you seen your episode?

No. But I swear to God, I swear to God, I've never seen Simpson on television. And I believe they were silent. I can assure you that they're there. They're there every day. How would I find them? Under which one of the channels? Table television, I guess.

Okay. I should, I should have a look at it. I end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what is the last great thing that they've seen? I'm curious. Have you seen a great film recently? No, not recently, but one of the greatest films ever made. Something that you will see only every quarter of a century,

The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer. You, of course, were involved in this film. I was dragged into it and I had some role in it, yes. In the credits as a creative, not creative, executive producer, but I had some influence in shaping the editing of the film. And what would you say that you loved about it or that you would recommend about it? It's a film so stunning and with such depth and also so shocking that you are not going to see anything like this in the next quarter of a century.

Werner Herzog, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you again to Micah Peters and thank you again, of course, to the great Werner Herzog for chatting with me today. Please come back to The Big Picture next week. We're going to be talking about the best movies of the year we want to hear from you. What movies do you want to hear us talk about? Amanda Dobbins and I are going to be breaking it all down. See you then.