Every Man for Himself Except for Me and My Buddy Werner Herzog
Let's Get Lit 002: Finding Inspiration and Similitude in the Unlikeliest of Places.
Every Man for Himself Except for Me and My Buddy Werner Herzog
Let's Get Lit 002: On Finding Inspiration and Similitude in the Unlikeliest of Places.
The older I get (and, as unfair as it is, I just keep getting older), I find kinship with people I’d never once expect. Hell, I find kinship with people whose names I didn’t even know, or at very least only had a baseline awareness of, a few years ago.
All that to say, Werner Herzog’s a lot like me fr.
My husband decided to listen to Herzog’s Every Man for Himself and God Against Us All and couldn’t stop raving about it. On paper, it didn’t seem like something I’d personally be all that into. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly knowledgeable about Herzog’s works. Honestly, gun to my head, I could probably only definitively name his role in The Mandalorian (“I would like to see the baby” guy) and as the intro narrator to Conan O’Brien Must Go. I was fully aware of who he was in the cultural zeitgeist, sure, but that was about the extent of it.
Please do not let a lack of deep pre-existing knowledge of a person, place, or event stop you from learning more about it. Most of the biographies I read throughout school were exactly that, but now, as an adult, I get to choose the random people whose lives I get to learn about.
One of the big selling points for me was that it’s an audiobook, as narrated by Werner Herzog himself. Herzog could read a list of ingredients in Subway’s Sweet Onion Teriyaki Chicken sandwich, and he’d have my attention. So, getting to hear him narrate the story of his life, which, from the anecdotes I heard, felt like a worthwhile venture.
This audiobook might have been the longest I’ve ever endeavored to listen to—not because the book itself was long (though it was), but because it was dense, and because there are so many moments where I needed to pause, rewind, and re-listen. After about seven renewals on Libby (God bless Libby, if you aren’t using it, please start ASAP, and Hoopla too, while you’re at it), I finally made it all the way through… and I’m better for it.
Every Man for Himself is not a self-aggrandizing look at Herzog’s films. It’s not a laborious task to deconstruct the mind of a creative genius. It’s just a dude talking about his life, in wonder, amazement, awe, and oftentimes, disbelief. It’s a man who’s lived many lives, taking it all in, reflecting, and just sitting with who he is, what he accomplished, and what he regrets. He does not attempt to try to make his life have meaning on some sort of grand scale; instead, hyper-focusing on the smaller moments, the events, people, and places that stuck out to him on a personal level. If anything, it’s more a sort of childlike wonder with which he reflects on his past and recalls key moments in his life.
Sure, there are over-the-top moments, though only in the mundane, much like how a child would perceive the world around them. It is these smaller, factual anecdotes that, when given a grandiose nature, make for a compelling story that, at their core, really aren’t much, but damn, if they’re not relatable. Take, for example, this analysis of his youth in regards to education:
“I was quiet, reserved, inclined to sudden outbursts of temper. In general, I was a danger to those around me. I was capable of silent brooding, for instance, because I wanted to understand why 6 x 5 came to the same thing as 5 x 6, it even seemed to be a general principle, so 11 x 14 was the same as 14 x 11… why? There was a law hidden in the numbers that I could not wrap my head around, until I pictured a rectangle with rows of six pieces by five spread out in front of me and if you turned the shape by 90 degrees, then the principle became visible. Even now, I find mathematics thrilling.”
Werner, my guy, that’s how a lot of kids understand math. And yet, I was rapt. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent most of my life doing my best to avoid thinking about numbers, but is there not something relatable, if not admirable, about approaching something you don’t quite understand as not an obstacle, but rather a mystery to be solved? Herzog’s ability to focus on these small moments gives insight into his creative thought process, but that’s never his point. This is just how he thought then, how he thinks now, and he’s sharing it because, well, it’s his life and his memoir, and he can do what he wants.
Herzog also, despite the many accolades throughout his life, remembers each person who made an impact. A particularly bizarre and captivating chapter focuses on a family with which he briefly lived in America. Here’s his run-down of each family member:
“The name of the mother was Evelyn Franklin; she had six children between 17 and 27, and she said a seventh would be good, seeing as how her oldest daughter had just married and moved out. So, there was a vacancy in the gang. The father had died an alcoholic, which must have meant years of misery for Evelyn; she only mentioned him briefly in passing, and always as “Mr. Franklin.” The youngest were twin girls, Genie and Joanie, then there was the brother Billy, who was a failed rock musician and then two more brothers—one of whom, the only one—was a bit boring and bougie and then another, 25, a little slow and with a soft heart who some people considered mentally disabled. As a child, he had fallen out of a moving car and, since then, had been a little slow. Then, there was a 90-year-old grandmother and a cocker spaniel who went by Benjamin, as in Benjamin Franklin.”
Of course, I think all writers and artists take special note of the people whose lives we could imagine using as a framework for a creative endeavor. And yet, in this case, the family is just presented as exactly who they were, not exaggerated (at least not any further than beyond Herzog’s usual overactive imagination) for a film. These people gave him a place to live, and for that, they’ll forever be a part of him.
Also, we learn that even ol’ Herzog’s a fan of a good ol’ fashioned rib:
“It was by no means unusual, in this atmosphere of chaotic creativity, for the twins to set off after me, squirting me with Woolworth oldie cologne. They were full of ideas. One day, I spotted them plotting an ambush for me behind the door that led down to the garage, and I crept into the top-floor bathroom intending to jump all the way down and, coming from the garage, attack them from behind. My own preferred weapon was shaving foam.”
I’ll let that visual stand on its own. That’s up there with another one of the funniest moments of the book, in my opinion:
“But after Hanz had been brought to the site of the mishap, he took a quick look at the damage and remarked that his vehicle wasn’t powerful enough for this. We boys had an inkling of what was coming next. Hanz climbed down into the stream and began by pulling off his shirt. I presume now, with the wisdom of hindsight, that this was to show off his extraordinary muscles. He looked like the fellows who nowadays compete for the title of Mr. Universe.”
But what jumped out at me the most was the admission that Werner Herzog, you know, THE Werner Herzog, even suffers from impostor syndrome:
“Sometimes, I feel a similar shock when someone names one of my films to me. Did I really make that? Is it possible I’ve just persuaded myself that I have? Or could it be that the film exists, but someone else has made it, not me at all?”
While he never outright states that, just by his admission of feeling detached from well-respected works of art, we see that Werner is human, just like so many of us. So when you’re feeling down, when you don’t feel like you’ve accomplished nearly enough or that your accomplishments aren’t your own, just remember: Werner Fucking Herzog feels the exact same way.
“I didn’t think of myself as an artist, and that this term was better applied to pop singers and circus performers. If I wasn’t an artist, then what was I? I said I was a soldier and hung up.”
If Werner Herzog isn’t an artist, then what are any of us? We’re all soldiers fighting to put our creative energy out into the world without apology. So march, onward, and keep telling your stories.