Funny lookin' dudes

In my film tute the other day (we were supposed to be talking about Werner Herzog's documentaries La Soufriere and Lessons of Darkness) we went a little bit off topic from Herzog's particular brand of filmmaking and into rather more superficial territory. One of the guys in my class mentioned how he'd pictured Herzog as being this kind of crazy looking guy, with frizzy hair and a camera on his shoulder. Or with huge glasses. Or really, really ugly. Instead, he got really surprised when a quick Google venture showed him that Werner Herzog is a pretty average-looking man. He looks kind of like someone who could be your friend's dad, or an uncle, or something. Not like the man who seems to hate his female characters and once tried to hoist a ship over a mountain in South America rather than figuring out the waterways (for the movie Fitzcarraldo). And the guy in my tute had a point - turns out that most of us had pictured Herzog as looking more like Klaus Kinski (the actor he used in most of his films, and then later made a documentary about their stormy relationship called My Best Fiend. They're seen below, and I think this picture doubles as the DVD cover!)





I think what threw us is that it sometimes seems that being a little bit crazy looking is a prerequisite for making interesting films. I mean, look at Woody Allen. Wim Wenders (to the left). Even Jim Jarmusch (on the right) - who is one of my favourite people in the world, but admittedly, he looks a bit strange. As an aside, I really want Jim Jarmusch and Tom Waits to be friends with my Dad, because I think it would be awesome to come home and have them hanging out in my garage, smoking and listening to awesome music. Just saying.

What I find really interesting is that Klaus Kinski's real-life daughter is Nastassja Kinski (on the left), from movies like Paris, Texas. Now, Klaus is not exactly a good lookin' guy. But his daughter - where did she come from? She's gorgeous!! And Nastassja's daugher Sonja is even more attractive. As one of my very good friends would say, she's slammin'. Klaus must look at these ladies and be very glad with the way they turned out.