Werner Herzog is a celebrated and award winning German director, actor and writer who arguably has one of the most eclectic resumes of any filmmaker working today if only because he’s the only filmmaker we’re aware of who wrote a film starring himself eating a shoe.
Something we feel compelled to clarify before saying anything else is that when we say Werner Herzog ate a shoe we mean that he cooked and then ate an entire whole-ass shoe, on camera, for a bet.
Which begs the question, why?
Well the genesis of this bizarre tale was a heated argument between Herzog and fellow documentarian, Errol Morris, a talented but aloof young man who had trouble seeing a project through to completion, in the 1970’s. A trait that reportedly annoyed the shit out of a young Herzog.
You see, Herzog was, and still is, a fiercely ambitious and enterprising filmmaker who fully ascribes to the idea of asking for forgiveness rather than permission when it comes to realising his vision. For example, early in his career Herzog famously just up and stole a professional grade 35-mm camera from the Munich Film School because he needed it and it was there. For the curious, Herzog still encourages aspiring filmmakers to break the law if they deem it necessary for their art, holding seminars on things like how to break into abandoned buildings or the, we shit you not, “exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully“.
Anyway, during the aforementioned argument with Morris Herzog became increasingly frustrated with the multitude of excuses the young filmmaker had for not being able to finish his documentary, Gates of Heaven. After hearing one-too-many of these excuses Herzog snapped and told Morris –
“I’ll eat the shoes I’m wearing the day I see your film for the first time.”
A mocking jab Morris took quite personally, with the young filmmaker finishing the documentary a short while later. Much to surprise of Herzog who immediately set about fulfilling his promise of eating his shoe rather than pointing out that the boast was obvious sarcasm or just, you know, not eating an entire fucking shoe over a bet.
Spying a chance to turn the whole thing into a pseudo-performance art piece, Herzog decided to eat the shoe live on stage and film the whole thing for a short film unimaginatively titled, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.
Hilariously, Herzog somehow convinced a world-renowned chef called Alice Waters to prepare the shoe, cramming it full of herbs and spices before boiling it in duck fat for five hours. Herzog’s reasoning being that doing this would soften the leather enough to make it palatable to eat. It didn’t, with Herzog later noting that boiling the shoes actually made the leather tougher. So tough in fact that he had to cut the shoe apart with shears whilst eating it. Which he did, live on stage, before the premier of Gates of Heaven.
A move that actually ended up annoying Morris who felt like the stunt would end up distracting people from the premier of his film. Which yeah, was a reasonable thing to worry about because we can’t imagine it was easy to forget a terrifying-sounding German man slowly inhale an entire shoe.
