Thursday, December 17, 2009

There has to be something mysterious.


Still from My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done - an upcoming film by Herzog and David Lynch (source).

There's a interview with filmmaker Werner Herzog on Slate today (thanks for the tip C-Monster). One particularly interesting part of the interview reads,

Jacob Weisberg: I've seen you quoted as saying that you'd rather die than see an analyst. Can you elaborate?

Werner Herzog.: I think it's a mistake of the 20th century. You could not live in a house that was illuminated to every last single corner. And human beings become uninhabitable when they are scrutinized and illuminated into their last little dark abysses. Just leave people as they are and don't touch it. I think psychoanalysis is one of the great mistakes of the 20th century. It's one of the reasons why I would dismiss the 20th century as a mistake. I think the 20th century in its entirety was a mistake. Psychoanalysis is just a small brick in my argument, that I could build up.

J.W.: Filmmaking developed in the 20th century.

W.H.: Yes, yes, some good sides as well. No doubt.

J.W.: But I'm interested in what you say about psychoanalysis. Is the concern that self-understanding would make one less of an artist, or make people less interesting in general?

W.H.: I think people become uninhabitable, as I say, and less interesting. There has to be something mysterious. Just think about being with a woman who had not, no mystery left at all. If everything was explained about a woman, it wouldn't fascinate me anymore. If I could be explained like an encyclopedia, it would be awful.

(my emphasis added)

No comments:

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails