Werner is Cheney

So watching The white diamond, I couldn't quite put my finger on what was a bit... off about it till she said to me "don't bogart that joint Mark Anthony". It's true, they were all stoned. Werner allowed an amazing shift in tone from a man crying about how his dirigible killed a film maker to one of the locals (Mark Anthony - the hero of the film in a way) talking about how great his rooster was. Allowing Herzog to laconically voiceover about how he had to meet this wonderful character. So they took the film ("in celluloid we trust") to the chicken. A minor Herzog really. I like the flexibility he exhibits in going where the situation seems to be leading him (as in Finnisterre where he allows the film to be completely taken over by the beauty and power of the burning oil wells), but none of it is very substantial. He didn't make a nature documentary, he didn't make a documentary about flight, or about British Guyana, or about the waterfall...

It does include the classic line, when the scientist was insisting on flying the machine alone for the first flight, "there are different kinds of stupidity, there's dignified stupidity, heroic stupidity... but this is just stupid stupidity". For Herzog of course a dangerous flight is not the stupid part, but doing it without a camera on board - that's just stupid stupidity...