Few subjects constitute a better benchmark than Werner Herzog, who quite literally needs no introduction and to whom I will, accordingly, not grant such.
He is presenting his new film, Ghost Elephants, a documentary concerning South African naturalist Steve Boyse and his quest for a near-mythical species of elephant. (Our own appreciative review, from the film’s Venice premiere, can be found here.) Those who’ve seen Herzog’s previous documentaries will be familiar with certain of its formal traits, but this is less a work about obsession, or pain, or even failure than many of those. As he brings up in our interview, it poses an interesting question: how does one live with success?
On our call we were joined by his producer, Ariel Leon Isacovitch. There is a belief that to win friends and influence people, it can be useful to refer to people by their first name. I forgot to change my Zoom display name from Jordan Raup, this website’s editor in chief, which is why Isacovitch—surely someone who has found success—kindly calls me such. Lest you be distracted amidst a conversation with one of cinema’s truest legends.
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Music courtesy of Lex Walton: “Love Theme from an Unreleased Film” from the album Giving It Up.
The Film Stage: There was a quote of yours in a Guardian piece from a few years ago where you talked about your approach to filmmaking being very physical. Since you’re now in your 80s and showing no signs of slowing down, I wonder how you’ve found the physical process of filmmaking in recent years—Ghost Elephants, Bucking Fastard, and whatever else you might be working on.
Werner Herzog: This film—I’m speaking of Ghost Elephants—has a very physical component: traveling to the highlands in Angola, traveling on-foot for long distances, wading through rivers, carrying motorcycles on your back, and then hastening after elephants in the highlands for eight or ten hours non-stop a day.
I am simply too old for that. I can do that hastening after elephants for an hour. This is why the Angolan part was delegated to one of the producers and a friend of mine, Ariel Leon Isacovitch. I said to him, “You have to go.” I shot in Namibia, of course, and I shot everything in the United States—the Smithsonian and Stanford and the scientists. Ariel had a very clear bucket list of what I needed. We were in constant contact; I saw what he was doing and I would ask him for a little bit more of this or to keep a shot longer. I was in direct contact, but physically, he was the one who shot that footage.
That connects to something I wanted to ask. I was surprised by a line in your voiceover where you say: “I know I should not romanticize this, but I feel surrounded by chickens. It cannot get any better than this.” It’s interesting because I know there is romanticism in your work, but I don’t necessarily think of you as a “romantic” filmmaker, and I wonder how you feel about that descriptor. Do you feel you have a tendency to romanticize in your depictions, or was that just an odd, fleeting feeling for you?
The best answer to that is to watch Burden of Dreams. I gave a speech there about the jungle, and if you think that is a contrast to romanticizing the jungle, the contrast couldn’t be any starker. I’m not in the business of romanticizing anything. Sometimes reviewers who want to make connections to cultural trends or epochs bring up “German Romanticism” because it comes in handy. I think it’s a misunderstanding. I’m the most unromantic man you’ll ever see out making movies.
But I wonder if that specific moment struck you—to say that “it cannot get any better than this”?
Yes, but I point out that, in that moment, you do not have any formal tasks. You are out there with no schedule for the day. You do nothing else but repair your musical instrument, sit on the ground and work and work, and enjoy the day. There are dozens of chickens around you. It can’t get any better than that. That isn’t romanticizing anything; it’s just the way I would like to spend my day.
In your films—fiction and non-fiction, which you admirably don’t distinguish between—there is an element of capturing something and then creating it. You invented one of my favorite terms: “The Ecstatic Truth.” I thought it was interesting that the first time we see Steve Boyes here, he’s looking up at the elephant with his mouth agape. There’s a feeling of him being captured by a camera. I wonder if you find an element of working with figures who might be performing for the camera and presenting themselves as “film subjects.”
It’s a good question, but Steve Boyes is not really performing. In his private life, he is exactly like that. But of course, when you are making films, everything, in a way, is performative. Behind the camera, I am performing my duty, setting the rules for shooting, and choosing things. So, in a way, it is performative, but it’s not really of any significance to the film.
Much more significant is that we are contemplating what our dreams are all about. We are pursuing dreams, but would it be better if we never fulfilled the dream? It’s a very general question, not only for this film. Would it be better never to encounter the White Whale in Moby Dick? Would it be better to live with the spirits of the elephants and never encounter them? That is of much deeper importance.
Even the tribal trackers, the best of the trackers—and they are great re-enactors—they are performers. For example: an ostrich sitting in the sand and wiggling in the sand—they are wonderful at that. Or showing how an antelope dies after being hit by a poisoned arrow. But it dies many hours later; it comes down. He was proud to show us the performance. I welcome these performances by the local people because they are so good.
The Moby Dick comparison is interesting: when Ahab meets the whale, he meets his fate, and Ishmael is the one who lives to tell the story. I suppose it’s good fortune that Boyes does not meet that fate and you get to tell the story. In some ways, Ghost Elephants is a much more successful operation than the one in Moby Dick.
May I add something? The film suddenly comes up with something you never hear in wildlife films. Steve Boyes filmed one of the ghost elephants with his cell phone. My commentary says: “Now Steve Boyes has to live with his success.” You never hear that in any of the films you’ve seen. He needs to live with the success.
You have had more success than 99% of filmmakers, speaking conservatively, yet you have not stopped. It seems you can’t live with success.
Oh, now come on. I’ve had so many defeats as well. You have to cope with it. It may appear on the surface that I’m a workaholic. I’m not. I have short shooting days. I edit very quickly. A film like Grizzly Man—almost two hours long, very complex story—was basically edited in nine days. I edit almost as fast as I’m thinking because I edit digitally now. My shooting days are short; I never go into overtime.
While we are sitting here, I have finished a narrative feature film, Bucking Fastard, with Kate and Rooney Mara and Orlando Bloom. And while we are sitting here, we just started a new film in Mexico two weeks ago, and in a few weeks, we will continue in Austria.
May I ask what that film is?
We shouldn’t speak about it because I am dependent on the protagonist of the film, who is a moving target. But I will do that film, and I will finish that film.
You have one of my favorite philosophies and pieces of advice from any filmmaker: “Read, read, read, read, read.” As I’m talking to you today (February 26th, 2026) I have to ask: what are you reading right now, and what are you getting from it?
I’m reading old Chinese chronicles dating back to the 8th century B.C. They were actually commented on and published by Confucius. And I’m reading an obscure ancient Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus—Diodorus of Sicily. He is quite dull as a writer, a dim light out there and encyclopedic, but when he speaks about the father of Alexander the Great, Philip II of Macedon, all of a sudden it sprouts into the wildest soap opera you can ever see of your life. Better than any Brazilian soap opera. Better than anything. I’m fervently reading stuff like that.
That’s wonderful. This Greek historian isn’t alive to hear you call him a dull writer, but you can say it on the record.
I can say it on the record, everyone will understand that. He’s not very imaginative, but some demon “wrote him” when he wrote about Philip II.
I feel like I could talk to you all day, but I know you have this live Q&A broadcast across 150 theaters to get to. Thank you so much for your time and for all the work. Maybe I’ll be talking to you in a year about the Mexican / Austrian project.
Yes, or about Bucking Fastard, which will come before.
Ghost Elephants is now in theaters, airs on National Geographic on March 7, and streams on Disney+ and Hulu on March 8.