From Word To Word

I read an interview with Werner Herzog in the Globe and Mail this morning.  I love Herzog, not just his films, of which I have seen too few, but his persona as a director, and the interview provides some fabulous examples of this persona at work.  For example, how many Hollywood directors are capable of an observation this articulate and this profound:  “I see a rigorous correlation between the explosion of instruments of communication, cellphones, the Internet, virtual reality, and the amount of human solitude, existential solitude. I can’t fully explain it, I can only observe it. More people are withdrawn, and they are incapable of real dialogue. The 21st-century will be the century of solitude.”  If more of our directors were capable of this kind of thoughtful reflection, if more of them were capable of articulating themselves half so well, perhaps we would have more films worth watching.