Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

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.

Filmed in April 1979, 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 shoes were boiled with garlic, herbs, and stock for five hours.) He is later shown eating one of the shoes before an audience at the premiere of "Gates of Heaven" at the nearby UC Theater.

This film is great because it connects three of the finest filmmakers of the era. Werner Herzog is a great documentarian and director, while Morris (just starting out) has gone on to become possibly the best documentary filmmaker in the business. And who should be filming this? Les Blank, the chronicler of America culture... quite possibly the best before Morris came along. All three being linked like this is a rare moment.

Entertaining, funny, and oddly thought provoking 20 minute short, in which, quite literally, director Werner Herzog eats his shoe.

He does it in response to a bet he made with then budding, but procrastinating film-maker Errol Morris. He told Morris that if he ever finally got a feature finished, he'd eat his shoe. And so he does, after cooking it, in front of a live audience before the local premiere of Morris' great first feature 'Gates of Heaven'.

As enjoyably silly as it all is, Herzog also makes some real points about needing to be willing to do foolish things to encourage art and artists, and that only by risking being absurd can we have the hope of transcending.

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.

Those who know of Werner Herzog and his film work know he communicates with seriousness and intensity. Every sentence is a deliberate act of poetry. Herzog has no interest in wasting time saying anything that is not important.

In case it isn't obvious from the title, this movie is literally about Herzog eating his shoe after losing a bet. The levity and absurdity of this act is only amplified by the seriousness and intensity with which he approaches it. He must prepare the shoe as one would prepare a last meal, or prepare a body before burial.

If you haven't seen anything by Herzog before, don't bother just yet. If you have, I hope you laugh and cry as much as I did.

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)

*** (out of 4)

Funny short has director Werner Herzog eating his shoe after losing a bet to a friend. The documentary does a nice job building up tension and there's some nice side talk about the importance of film.

Burden of Dreams (1982)

**** (out of 4)

Incredible documentary from director Les Blank about the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. The Herzog film is one of the most amazing films I've seen and it's rather shocking, due to that film's troubled history, that a documentary was being filmed on it. In the Herzog film you realize that the main character played by Klaus Kinski was crazy because of what he was trying to do. In this documentary, you realize that Herzog was crazy for even trying to make this film.