David Marchese interviews 77-year-old Werner Herzog.

[T]o go back again to the need for fresh images: In “A Guide for the Perplexed,” you say that our children will be upset with us for not having thrown hand grenades into television stations. I took that to be a criticism of the poverty of television’s visual imagination. Are Hollywood movies much better?

Hollywood, of course, is undergoing a massive shift. There are new forms of passing your films onto audiences and new expectations and new behavior and patterns of audiences. Everything is in great turmoil, and the dust hasn’t settled yet. But we should not underestimate how we can reach, with our films, to a village in Kenya. It’s phenomenal and strange. You’re sitting in front of a man who is unique. I’m unique in world history. My generation. Not just me. I grew up with pre-industrialized agriculture, with hay being turned around with forks and then hoisted up onto horse-drawn carts. Then I have seen gigantic harvesters, and they have three computer screens inside, and it goes by GPS. And I have seen — may I go wild?

Yes, please.

I have witnessed, as a child, the town crier with a bell coming up the street and shouting: “Announcement! Announcement! If you want to have subsidies for your new septic tank, opening hours will be then and then.” I am coming from a pre-industrialized town crier to today’s world. There’s no one like my generation.

Are you unique in any other ways?

There are no other men like me. I’m quoting from a film of Les Blank.

RTWT