Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)

A short documentary in which directors Werner Herzog and Errol Morris make a bet which results in Herzog being forced to eat his own shoe.

Director:

Les Blank

Writer:

Werner Herzog

Stars:

Werner Herzog, Tom Luddy, Michael Goodwin

Cast

Credited cast:
Werner Herzog	...	Himself
Tom Luddy	...	Master of Ceremonies
Michael Goodwin	...	Driver / Interviewer
Alice Waters	...	Assistant Cook
Chris Strachwitz	...	Dwarf Voice (voice)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Phil Harberts	...	Himself

Storyline

A passionate cook, acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog stuffs some culinary aromatics into his shoe and uses the laces to truss it like a chicken, before he sticks it into a pot with water and duck fat to stew it. It is so that he can bring the stewed shoe to one of the first screenings of Errol Morris' debut film Gates of Heaven (1978) to eat it. This act will fulfill his loss of a bet to Morris, who he met as a student filmmaker, that he would never be able to make a movie. The bet was not Herzog's attempt of a jab against Morris, but rather to support a struggling but gifted Morris in his quest to do whatever was required to finance a movie project. In the process of eating the shoe, Herzog wants to encourage other aspiring filmmakers, and to set an agenda of increasing what he calls adequate images as a true reflection of the world.

---

Plot Keywords:

director name in title | five word title | shoe | bet | director | 

---

Genres:

Documentary | Short

---

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

October 1980 (USA)

Also Known As:

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Filming Locations:

USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Flower Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

20 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Herzog once promised to eat his shoe if a certain young American film student went out and actually made the film he was always only talking about. The young student was Errol Morris, who met the challenge with his off-beat 1978 pet cemetery documentary Gates of Heaven (1978) (and went on to make The Thin Blue Line (1988) and Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)). Herzog makes good on his promise in this film.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Werner Herzog: If we speak of television it's just... ridiculous and destructive. It kills us. And talk-shows will kill us. They kill our language. So we have to declare holy war against what we see every single day on television, commercials and... I think there should be real war against commercials, real war against talk-shows, real war against Bonanza, Rawhide or these things.

---

Connections

Edited from The Gold Rush (1925)

---

Soundtracks

Old Whisky Shoes
Played by Walt Solek Band
Courtesy of Starr Records

User Reviews

pretty funny

A short little film, where Herzog eats his shoe, although in reality he just eats the leather part of his old shoe after boiling it in water. But still the principle of the whole thing is humorous, Herzog promised to do this if a filmmaker would actually just make the film they were always dreaming of making.

Errol Morris accomplishes this and so Herzog submits to it. Les Blank also did this documentary on Herzog "Burden of Dreams" so I think if I recall some footage of that is intertwined into this story.

Herzog should constantly have a camera on him, he strikes me as very interesting, I don't always love his films but he is always worth hearing from.