Going through a bit of a Werner Herzog-fest at the moment. This is from a book published in 2002 -
'I have often spoken of what I call the inadequate imagery of
today's civilization. I have the impression that the images that surround
us today are worn out; they are abused and useless and
exhausted. They are limping and dragging themselves behind the
rest of our cultural evolution. When I look at the postcards in
tourist shops and the images and advertisements that surround us
in magazines, or I turn on the television, or if I walk into a travel
agency and see those huge posters with that same tedious image of
the Grand Canyon on them, I truly feel there is something dangerous
emerging here. The biggest danger, in my opinion, is television
because to a certain degree it ruins our vision and makes us very
sad and lonesome. Our grandchildren will blame us for not having
tossed hand-grenades into TV stations because of commercials.
Television kills our imagination and what we end up with are
worn-out images because of the inability of too many people to
seek out fresh ones.
As a race we have become aware of certain dangers that surround
us. We comprehend, for example, that nuclear power is a
real danger for mankind, that over-crowding of the planet is the
greatest of all. We have understood that the destruction of the
environment is another enormous danger. But I truly believe that
the lack of adequate imagery is a danger of the same magnitude. It
is as serious a defect as being without memory. What have we done
to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes?
I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I
am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die
out like dinosaurs. Look at the depiction of Jesus in our iconography,
unchanged since the vanilla ice-cream kitsch of the
Nazarene school of painting in the late nineteenth century. These
images alone are sufficient proof that Christianity is moribund. We
need images in accordance with our civilization and our innermost
conditioning, and this is the reason why I like any film that
searches for new images no matter in what direction it moves or
what story it tells. One must dig like an archaeologist and search
our violated landscape to find anything new. It can sometimes be a
struggle to find unprocessed and fresh images.'
As the T-shirt says - 'No i dont know who won X-factor because im not a fucking moron'.
