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Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

 
Movies:

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

  • Director: Les Blank
  • Genre: Film, TV & Radio
  • Movie Type: Performance Art, Biography
  • Themes: Filmmaking
  • Release Year: 1980
  • Country: US
  • Run Time: 22 minutes

Plot

While he was struggling to complete his first feature-length film, documentarian Errol Morris was discussing his problems with his friend and mentor, the acclaimed German director Werner Herzog. In a moment of frustration, Herzog blurted out that if Morris ever actually finished the movie he kept talking about, he'd eat his shoe. In 1977, Morris finally completed his feature, Gates of Heaven, and he contacted Herzog to tell him that after several well received screenings at film festivals, the premier showing had been scheduled. Herzog, a man of his word, flew to the United States and cooked his shoe, eating it on-stage at the screening. Les Blank, a good friend of both filmmakers, captured the event on film for posterity, and Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe offers a witty look at how to cook a shoe, Herzog's history of keeping unusual promises, his views on the relationship between cuisine and cinema, and the movie by Morris that made the event possible. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cast

Werner Herzog

Credit

Les Blank - Director
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Wikipedia: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
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Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
Directed by Les Blank
Written by Werner Herzog
Starring Werner Herzog,
Tom Luddy
Michael Goodwin
Alice Waters
Running time 20 min.
Language English

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is a short documentary film directed by Les Blank in 1980 which depicts director Werner Herzog living up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven.

The film features Herzog cooking his shoes (the ones he claims to have been wearing when he made the bet) at the Berkeley, California restaurant Chez Panisse, with the help of chef Alice Waters. (The shoe was boiled with garlic, herbs, and stock for 5 hours.) He is shown eating one of the shoes before an audience at the premiere of Gates of Heaven at the nearby UC Theater. He did not eat the sole of the shoe, however, explaining that one does not eat the bones of the chicken.

Blank went on to direct Burden of Dreams (1982), a feature-length documentary about Herzog and the making of Fitzcarraldo. Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is included as an extra on the Criterion Collection edition of the Burden of Dreams DVD.

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Copyrights:

Movies. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Movie Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe" Read more

 

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