"What's his name who did Star Wars?" asks German filmmaking legend Werner Herzog. He nods his head at the mention of George Lucas' name, but rather than launching into an anti-Lucas tirade, as you might expect from someone whose spent decades avoiding mainstream Hollywood, he says instead, "You shouldn't be worried about George Lucas going to the outer galaxy; he's making a film within his culture." It's a refreshing viewpoint, almost too fresh to take seriously, but Herzog's not joking. Cultural identity is important to the Bavarian auteur, who insists, "I have left my country, but I have never left my culture."Herzog's in good humour, despite just entering his fourth hour of press-meetings. When he first enters the room, in the bowels of London's Charlotte Street Hotel, he moves around the table and gives each one of us (there are eight) a firm handshake and a smile, before we settle down to business. He's in London to promote his latest feature, Rescue Dawn, the true story of German-born US Navy pilot Dieter Dengler who was shot down during a top-secret bombing campaign over Laos in 1966. After spending months on the edge of starvation and subject to medieval conditions in a remote prison-camp, he and fellow prisoner Duane Martin made a daring escape into the dense jungle. Christian Bale takes on the role of Dengler, bringing a sprightly spirit, optimism and unrelenting determination to the character who Herzog says, "had all the qualities I like in Americans." Quick to play down Bale's weight-loss, achieved to portray a prisoner living in such conditions, Herzog states that his primary concern was "to stop Christian from going too much into an imitation of the real Dieter Dengler." He goes on to explain that Dengler's heavy German accent would have never worked for the project, and it becomes clear that Herzog was keen to focus instead on what he refers to as the "frontier-spirit" that kept the pilot alive during his ordeal.
Rescue Dawn in fact marks the second time that Herzog has approached the subject of Dieter Dengler's "wild" life, the first being his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. The film only touched briefly, however, on the time Dengler spent in the prison-camp, and Dengler himself turned to Herzog at the documentary's premiere and said "this is unfinished business". Herzog reveals that the feature-film would have come first if circumstances had allowed it, but funding complications led to the documentary coming to fruition first. Herzog believes that "the films complement each other very well," adding, "in spirit, in its heart, the feature film has always been the first one."
It's clear that Herzog feels a strong connection to Dengler, having invested so much of himself in bringing the pilot's story to the big-screen over the past ten years. The two men shared strikingly similar upbringings, neither having a father-figure in their lives as children, and both suffering from deprivation and hardship in postwar Germany. Although touched upon with only a few lines of dialogue in Rescue Dawn, Dengler's childhood is looked at in Herzog's initial documentary, for which Herzog met with the man himself, in the process forming a close friendship. Dengler sadly died in 2001, but Herzog has a clear and lifelong affection for the man: "Even now, when I get into complicated situations," he says, "I often ask myself: 'What would Dieter have done?'"
Of course, Herzog is no stranger to 'complicated situations', be they physical or emotional. Take Klaus Kinski, the German actor with whom Herzog experienced an at-best tumultuous, at worst near-homicidal relationship, during the filming of such jungle-set classics as Aguirre, Wrath Of God and Fitzcarraldo in the 70s; the mere mention of his name leaves Herzog instantly stony-faced (for the record, Herzog doesn't think Bale, or anyone for that matter, should attempt to tackle a Kinski biopic - the journalist in question hastily adds his tongue was firmly in his cheek). Beyond Kinski, however, Herzog is notorious for journeying to the most inaccessible corners of the world in pursuit of cinematic gold, and of course he's particularly well-known for his apparent affinity with the jungle. In discussing the making of Rescue Dawn, it's clear he relishes a challenge, as he describes scouting for appropriate locations in the thick Thai jungle and discovering a dense wall of vines: "You literally cannot imagine that a human being can penetrate," he says, adding with a sly smile, "we stopped and said 'Let's go for that one!'"
Rescue Dawn may be Herzog's first collaboration with Hollywood actors, with Christian Bale heading up acting talent that includes unlikely casting choice Steve Zahn (as downed helicopter pilot Duane Martin), and also Jeremy Davies as the deluded and antagonistic Gene DeBruin, but otherwise the production is, in Herzog's words, "not Hollywood". Although the lack of pestering studio executives gave him the freedom to shoot the film his way, remaining outside the system brought its own problems. "There was always financial trouble," he says, explaining the pitfalls of working with committed but inexperienced producers: "There was one day when over thirty people in the Thai crew quit because they were not paid in time... I, as a filmmaker, had to make something out of a disaster."
Beyond the set, the film has become the subject of a low-key internet campaign, instigated primarily by Gene DeBruin's family. They object to Herzog's depiction of Gene as deluded and even traitorous, as he is shown threatening to thwart Dengler's escape plan, so convinced is he that their release is imminent. Herzog acknowledges the campaign as unfortunate, but states that he has stayed true to Dengler's story, in bringing the project to the big-screen. Rescue Dawn is Dieter's story, and, for all its apparent controversies, it is without doubt a remarkable one.
Click here for a full review of the film. This article can also be read at reviews site The Smell of Napalm.
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