Werner Herzog saw the first 30 minutes of Barbie, declares them “sheer hell”
Herzog, on Barbie: "For a movie ticket, as an audience, to experience sheer hell—as close as it gets”
Aux News Barbie
Set aside his filmmaking, his acting, his work as a teacher, novelist, and producer, and let’s all acknowledge this: There are few people on the planet capable of delivering a really good soundbite like Werner Herzog. It’s not just the iconic accent. (Although, the accent helps.) It’s that Herzog is, under the dour persona, an inveterate showman and shit-talker, with a finely tuned wit that makes him one of the most consistently funny interview subjects on the planet.
Which is why we did something we wouldn’t normally do, and subjected ourselves to several minutes of Piers Morgan’s YouTube show this week, to catch some of Herzog being Herzog. The interview is full of good Herzog moments—when Morgan tries to get him to give a kneejerk take on “cancel culture,” citing allegations of horrific abuse against Herzog’s long-time collaborator/enemy Klaus Kinski, Herzog gave a nuanced, thoughtful response instead of buying into the interviewer’s bullshit. But the big, headline grabbing bit of the interview comes right at the end, when Morgan asks Herzog: “Oppenheimer? Or Barbie?”
Amusingly, Herzog notes that he hasn’t seen Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer at all, but says he did catch the first 30 minutes of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie: “I wanted to watch it, because I was curious, and I still don’t have an answer. But I have a suspicion: Could it be that the world of Barbie is sheer hell? For a movie ticket, as an audience, to experience sheer hell—as close as it gets.”
Now, in context—and despite the way Morgan reacts—it’s not clear to us whether Herzog is offering a qualitative assessment of Gerwig’s movie, or genuinely speaking to its neon pink depiction of Barbieland, a world in which ostensibly happy “people” play out basic routines with no capacity for understanding any of the ennui or despair clawing at the edges of their psyches. His stated desire to eventually finish the movie suggests at least a hope of the latter, but either way, what a gift to the movie’s marketing department, huh? We can already see the stickers on the home video release: “‘Sheer hell, as close as it gets’—Werner Herzog.”
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Headline: Werner Herzog saw the first 30 minutes of Barbie, declares them “sheer hell”Herzog, on Barbie: “For a movie ticket, as an audience, to experience sheer hell—as close as it gets”Actual quote in paragraph three:“I have a suspicion: Could it be that the world of Barbie is sheer hell? For a movie ticket, as an audience, to experience sheer hell—as close as it gets.”Editorial voices:“Now, in context—and despite the way Morgan reacts—it’s not clear to us whether Herzog is offering a qualitative assessment of Gerwig’s movie, or genuinely speaking to its neon pink depiction of Barbieland, a world in which ostensibly happy ‘people’ play out basic routines with no capacity for understanding any of the ennui or despair clawing at the edges of their psyches.”—————It’s clear that this is clickbait bullshit and you know it.
Yes. This. ^^^The unfair thing is that, having not read the article, I thought Herzog was crapping on a movie he hadn’t seen all of, which was coming off as very misogynistic. Turns out, it was just the AVCLUB painting him in a bad light. Couldn’t they have found another way to clickbait us? Maybe tease Herzog’s take on Barbie (“Herzog has a hell of a take on Barbie Movie”) versus just misrepresenting his words?
If there is a God, then He created Barbieland out of anger. The dream houses portend nightmares and agony. In Weird Barbie’s eyes I see only a blank stare that speaks of a half-bored interest in fashion.
“And though something deep inside of me wishes to revolt against it…this is how I’d like to remember Barbie…on the battlefield of life itself”.
Robbie always says it’s full of erotic elements. I don’t see it so much as erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It’s just – Barbieland is vile and base. I wouldn’t see anything erotical here. Taking a close look at what’s around us there- there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of…overwhelming and collective murder.It’s not that I hate Barbie. I love it. I love it very much.But I love it against my better judgement.
it’s not clear to us whether Herzog is offering a qualitative
assessment of Gerwig’s movie, or genuinely speaking to its neon pink
depiction of Barbieland, a world in which ostensibly happy “people” play
out basic routines with no capacity for understanding any of the ennui
or despair clawing at the edges of their psyches.
It’s not clear to you because you’re not German.
It is the latter.
Well I’m from Hamburg, and I’ve never heard anyone call Barbie “Sheer Hell”.
So we agree, his comments aren’t about the movie, they’re about Barbieland.
Well, yes, of course, but you’re supposed to respond with, “Oh, not in Hamburg, no, it’s a Bavarian expression”
I was initially going to respond that Bavarians don’t consider Hamburg to be really Germany anyway, but I live elsewhere and hence have tact. 😉
I thought we were having seared quail.
Since Franky didn’t oblige, I will:“Oh, not in Hamburg, no. It’s a Lübeck expression.”
Is that the hellfires of Barbieland burning or Aurora Borealis?
You just made the four Hamburg commenters really mad. You could say they’re…..Four steamed Hams.
I’m giving you a star- but you owe us a lap.
Strange I heard it from a bartender in Essen.
It’s more of a Dresden expression.
Too soon!
Yeah, it’s Herzog. Calling it “hell” isn’t necessarily an insult coming from him.
He was also probably trying to be a bit silly, it’s just hard to do when you look and sound like Herzog
We need a Herzog/Lynch buddy cop movie before either of them dies.John Waters to play either their chief, or a pimp. I haven’t decided yet.
I can see him an nosey dispatcher; insisting on all the goss and any gore that may have been witnessed.
“Oooh. Did the victim soil himself when he was killed?”
Oh yeah. He’d put that in the script himself.
WhyNotBoth.jpg
Make Waters a pimp/chief and get Cronenberg in there somewhere and you got a green light
Lynch: “Have you met the new chief?”Herzog: “They say has he spent thirty years in the vice squad before being assigned to homicide. He spent his career immersed in the baseness of humanity, trying, failing to hold back the endless depravity and bring order to it.”Lynch: “Sounds like he finally earned himself a good promotion!”Herzog: “Murder. As a promotion. Such is the world. It is said he spent four years undercover as rent boy to investigate a drug ring. I have seen the surveillance tapes. He was…enthusiastic. Dedicated.”Waters: “Oh, honey, I cracked that case in six months. The other three and a half years was just because my clients kept asking for me. And I needed another storey on my house.”
Oh, and Cronenberg’s definitely the coroner/medical examiner (since, sadly, Wes Craven is no longer with us). If we can get the Coen Bros. back together to be forensic science weirdos that would be ace, too.
Or their pimp?
Given the number of films he’s made which are expressly trying to depict various kinds of hellish scenarios at their most hellish… yeah.
Oh, those whacky, zany Germans.
I mean, the Germans still pale in comparison to the Scandinavians when it comes to weird movies. Ultra Black Comedy is an… uhh… acquired taste.
True.
With a hypnotic psychedelic soundtrack provided by Popol Vuh.
God, those soundtracks were glorious. I’ve been buying editions of ‘em for decades, they are really nice to have bubbling in the background. Nosferatu really suits weird games.
I read this a few weeks ago. If you haven’t yet do yourself a favor and check it out. Especially the audio version since he reads it himself. Maybe my favorite thing he’s ever done.
This has got to be equal first with BRIAN BLESSED reading his own autobiography, titled Absolute Pandemonium.“Hello, Brian-”“GET IN HERE, YOU DISEASED SHIT, AND DON’T GO FUCKING UP OUR REHEARSALS, OTHERWISE I’LL CHIN YOU…”
I didn’t even know that existed before now, but I just got a copy of the audiobook. Patrick Stewart reading his own was also very entertaining and he actually mentions that he and Blessed became friends at the very first acting school he attended as a boy.Just finished Matthew McConnaughy’s too after seeing a Frankie Boyle tweet talking about it the other day. It’s fucking wild. Pretty sure he just recorded it and then they transcribed it for the physical book. At least part of it he recorded in his van for sure.Leslie Jones’ book was similar in that there’s no way she was performing what was on the page. I think she just had an outline and was telling stories.
The man’s such an icon for being himself you forget Blesse- sorry, BLESSED not only trod the boards with some of the greatest thespians of the latter half of the 20th century, but also beat the absolutely piss out of them when he felt they needed it.
I absolutely cannot fucking stand that guy, and I am not surprised at all to discover that he’s a bully.
Okay. People are allowed to not like something.
Saying he described the movie as “sheer hell” is disingenuous clickbait bullshit, and you would know better if you listened carefully. He was clearly describing the world of Barbie and the audience’s ability to experience it, not describing the quality of the film.
Barbie begins like a typical comedy that’s spoofing a brand. This goes on for 40 minutes. He left before the movie subverts your expectations and takes on a more darker serious tone. So Herzog’s opinion on the Barbie movie holds little weight here.
I’ll pay good money for a Herzog audio commentary on that movie.
The parodies never really manage to capture a fraction of his wit and weirdness. At least we’re spared someone totally fucking up the accent here
Ha, and I’m here to complain about the tired “Tom Nook is an evil capitalist” take. The dude builds you a house plus multiple additions (overnight!) and then extends you indefinite, interest-free loans that you can pay back with twigs, rocks, and bugs, if you so choose. I’d like to see people trying to pull the same shit with Chase.
Tom Nook is the fluffer who readies the youth for what Chase will eventually do to them.
And the main character (you) manages to support themselves and own a house without ever even having a job! It’s basically a utopia.
I don’t care how you mis-use his quote; I’m going to happily believe that like me, Herzog was not thrilled about Barbie.
Everytime I think I’ve seen the most Herzogian statement, he breaks his own record. I will never tire of this man Although now all I can think of was his Parks and Recreation cameo talking about the house of doll makers that went insane and his desire to visit Disneyland.
Not just visit Disneyland – live closer to it.
Herzog narrating a documentary about Disneyland sounds amazing.
He’s turned into a German William Shatner by this point. He’s recognized his pop culture role and figures he might as well play it for all he’s worth. William Burroughs could have done it, too, but he wasn’t as good at marketing.
Has Werner Herzog ever been effusive about anything, like a box of kittens or a sunset or something? Or does he just see despair and futility alleviated only by the cold release of death in everything?
Yes.
“I’ve seen it on the set and it is heartbreaking. It is heartbreakingly beautiful… It’s a phenomenal technical achievement.”-Werner Herzog speaking about Baby Yoda. Source:
I seen him parody himself enough to believe he is sincere in his bleakness but also self-aware.
Oh I totally forgot about this one. This video’s great.
Lol. It is not physically possible for me to give less of a shit about what Werner Herzog thinks about absolutely anything. He’s so fucking performative at this point anyway.
You suck.
Speaking of performative and supposedly not caring, you should look up the definition of irony.
It’s as if you were actively trying to sound like as much of a buffoonish dipshit as possible when making this comment. It’s also clear that reading comprehension and understanding nuance aren’t your strong suits
lmao, I love the clowns so defensive over this mediocre movie that they jump to attack Herzog even though he’s not criticizing it.
For years now people in the workforce and academia have had their lives ruined but some entitled little lefties put quotes around cancel culture as if a single minute of researching doesn’t prove it’s existence…
Maybe he was thinking of Klaus Barbie, The Butcher of Lyon.
Wait, that’s not who the movie’s about?
There are subtle undertones, but it really leaves it up to the audience to decide.
Dammit now I’m in the mood to watch Rat Race
Or the Master Butcher of Leigh-on-Sea.
The master ballroom dancer?
They both were spectacular ballroom dancers.
Never a bad time to listen to this old gem again:
I couldn’t tell how was doing the Herzog impersonation, so looked it up and was completely surprised that it was Paul F. Tompkins!
His Herzog is pure hell gold. He does it on a lot of podcasts, but my favorite is when he’s on Doug Loves Movies. “Herzog” doing movie trivia on stage.
Mr. Peanutbutter could get pretty dark despite the superficial cheerfulness.
Now This is Hell. Barbieworld can’t come close to this.
So what? It’s the most predictable thing this guy would say. Morgan got him to give him clickbait and he fell for it.
“The most predictable thing this guy would say.”…wut? Methinks you don’t really know who he is, and clearly didn’t bother to read the actual context.
I want a team-up movie starring Werner Herzog, Jeff Goldbloom, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, and Steve Buscemi, all chewing the scenery. Maybe make it a heist film.
Hopefully we’ll get Greta Gerwig’s take on this soon. The work won’t be done until she’s forced to respond to every on-record slight against her film.
How is this a slight?Herzog called it “sheer hell”
Gerwig herself called Barbieland at the beginning a dystopia.Perhaps a difference of degree, but not super different.
Holy shit, he looks Paul Rudd there – WE MUST USE THIS INFORMATION WISELY.
Does this mean Paul Rudd is the clone Herzog has been carefully grooming to inhabit when his spirit flees his original body?
Look, there is no evidence that Herzog has some sort of cloning program. He’s just a stern German man who has spent a lot of time in South Americ-Oh.
Come on, now. This is the AV Club, more or less. We would have clicked anyway even without you disingenuously framing his quote as being critical of the film and acting like “What could he have meant by this? Who could possibly know? Not I!”.
I’m so old that my Barbie was the original, striped swimsuit Barbie (now alas, gone with the wind). High fashion, no smile, not smothered in pink. So the Barbieland of the movie was alien to me, too.
i mean its not hard to imagine dour world-weary europeans viewing all that bright pink as hellish
I’m reading all of these comments in Herzogs voice.
What the hell else is a Werner Herzog going to think of Barbie? He’s not exactly the intended audience.
Which is why we did something we wouldn’t normally do, and subjected ourselves to several minutes of Piers Morgan’s YouTube show this week“….you should never listen to this.”
This is the exact quote I expected from a man who made a bunch of people pull a giant steamboat up a mountain for a movie.
If the shoe fits, Carraldo.
It really did pick up after the first 30 mins.
But at this point Sir Herzog was done jerkin’off unfortunately…
Gerwig described Barbieland, as it’s presented in the first act, as a “dystopia.” It’s supposed to be sheer hell. That’s what the movie is about. Herzog understood the movie’s themes and had a visceral reaction — the first act takes place almost entirely within Barbieland, which is an apartheid state where all men are disenfranchised to the point of universal homelessness, and all women are required to conform to narrow gender roles.I don’t think Herzog is saying he actually hated the movie.
I’d pay real money to hear Herzog’s opinion of this article’s bullshit take.
I believe him. Just look at the man’s FACE.
Let’s be clear though – this doesn’t mean he didn’t like it.
And he was a dick to Jack Reacher!
citing allegations of horrific abuse against Herzog’s long-time collaborator/enemy Klaus KinskiKinski tried to outright murder him like a dozen times. Not a hyperbole, it was actual legitimate attempted murder. And that’s not even getting into his psychotically awful treatment of the cast and crew.Whatever “abuse” Herzog threw at Kinski was pure deserved catharsis, no matter how much the AV Club tries to say otherwise.
He should have stayed to the end, where Barbie is torn to pieces and eaten by Teddy Ruxpin.Sorry, spoiler alert.
Nnnnnnoooooooo!!!!!!
I see what you did bear.
Sounds like he enjoyed it.
Don’t you gaslight him!
Did he always look like that or did the 30 minutes of Barbie age him 30 years?
The good news is he can watch Oppenheimer to cheer himself up.
He made it longer than I did. I couldn’t get thru five minutes. I’m all for women fighting misogyny in the workplace, and everywhere. I just think there are much better movies for this topic. Kudos to the marketing team for Barbie. You guys convinced millions of young women that this was a worthwhile use of their time and money.
LMAO cry about it
I know!! Young women at work said they were crying. I thought “because you spent $20 on this crap?”
we’re not allowed to say it yet, but it’s not a good movie.
sure you are.what you mean is… other people shouldn’t be allowed to tell you your opinion is dumb and/or lazy.
You’re allowed to say just about anything if you’re not a little chickenshit
Thought he would have loved this:
Watching the TRAILER was sheer hell, I can’t imagine stomaching a whole 30 minutes of any film Greta Gerwig directs. Absolute trash.
This is such a weird take, because Gerwig is such a bland director. It’s like complaining that original flavor potato chips are too much
Christ we get it. You like WH.
This has “Old man yells at cloud” vibes. I did not expect to enjoy the movie at all, but my step-daughter wanted to watch it and brownie points should be gathered whenever possible so I sat down, phone in hand as a distraction, and was drawn in to a hilariously timely and poignant comedy that punched waaaaaaay above it’s expected weight. This is a film that will be important for generations of women AND men, and delivered it’s message in a way that was hysterical.
He didn’t call the movie “sheer hell”. Gerwig herself called Barbieland a dystopia at the beginning. He’s saying the same thing a little differently.I do love the correlation between people who don’t get this and think Barbie was a deep meditation on feminism, though.
He’s right.It’s hilarious too though.
I actually enjoyed it when it came to Max, but certainly was nowhere near the ‘unmissable’ movie it was made out to be.And to think the Oscars deemed this worthy of a best pic nomination, but out of bias never nominated any of the quality comic book movies from the past two decades (except Black Panther). And yes, while the levels have slipped a bit since Endgame – Dark Knight, Avengers1, Iron Man1, Civil War, Winter Soldier, Infinity War are all levels above Barbie.I could understand if they felt obligated to nom the year’s biggest money-maker, except most of those I mentioned were their year’s biggest money-maker
“And yes, while the levels have slipped a bit since Endgame – Dark Knight, Avengers1, Iron Man1, Civil War, Winter Soldier, Infinity War are all levels above Barbie.”Lol, no.Popular doesn’t mean good. See also: Would you argue a Big Mac is the best burger in the world.Your list is all Marvel stuff that is the Chipotle of movies and a movie that came out before there were 10 Best Picture nominees (Barbie wouldn’t have been top 5 this year, either).
The reason there are now 10 pics nominated is exactly because of Dark Knight, as the critical backlash the academy got for that “oversight”.Barbie was popular, and I liked it myself, but if you don’t like comic book movies, that’s great for you, but all the movies I listed have much higher critical acclaim from objective sites, so I dunno what your point is?
Has anybody said, “Get off of my lawn” yet?? Surely, somebody here is clever enough to say, “Get off of my lawn.”
I think most people understood what he said, and ‘get off my lawn” wouldn’t make sense in response to what his comment is actually saying.Hint: He’s not saying the movie was “sheer hell”.
I’m starting to think the last person I want to get a movie review from is another movie maker. I don’t think they are capable of an impartial viewpoint.
This site loves to post stories of “great” film makers crapping on other folks’ movies and always comes off as just petty.
Except it’s utterly clear he’s describing the in-film world accurately, not his hatred of it. Gerwig herself described the first 30 minutes as a dystopia, does that mean she also hated her own film, or was just describing it?
— and he also sounds like he intends to finish it. He hasn’t even started Oppenheimer yet.
big difference between dystopia and hell, but i’ll blame the way the story was presented rather than Herzog’s intent.
Having said that, hot takes from directors about other directors’ work always seem to have a “I’d have done it differently” vibe to them
What I love about Herzog is that, whatever his opinion, he’s clearly got no interest in pleasing anyone. Nor shocking people. Nor scoring cultural points. He’s just a matter of fact dude, the complete opposite of an edgelord, while simultaneously being one of the edgiest thinkers and creators. The coolest of cool customers.
Barbie just completely disintegrates if you think about it as having any hard rules. So how you play with Barbie governs how her body works in Barbie World, but how Barbie land works governs the toys for sale in our world? But by that logic, if you deface Barbie in some way, wouldn’t the factories automatically begin manufacturing defaced Barbies? If Midge and Allan were discontinued, why are they still alive in Barbie Land, and if they are still alive there, why don’t they still sell them in our world? If humans visit Barbie World, do toys of those humans start appearing in our world? If you play with or modify your own Barbie, does it transform your own body? If you take another company’s toys into Barbie World, do those toys become Mattel IPs? Did Ruth Handler create Barbie World, or did it manifest from the psychic Gestalt of humanity, like the Warp in Warhammer 40,000? If she did, did she do it before or after she died? Since Ruth Handler did not in fact create Barbie but just adapted her from a German fashion doll that was created as a souvenir, does that mean there’s a Bild Lilli Welt too, that’s still lodged in the terse horrors of the dying days of the Weimar Republic? Do the American Barbies know about Bild Lilli Welt, and if so do they consider it some kind of divine precursor civilization like how the Navajo thought about the Anasazi? Did Barbie World and Bild Lilli Welt have a world war 2, and if so what doll franchises made up the remainder of their respective alliances? Where are all the Barbie veterans? Where are all the Barbies based on real people, and is there any metaphysical interaction between real human women and their Barbie counterparts? If the Ida B. Wells Barbie comes from Barbie World to our world, would she be the literal reincarnation of Ida B. Wells, or would she be ANOTHER Ida B. Wells? Would she have the memories of the original? Would she be a good reporter, or would she have another personality and skill set? If Ida B. Wells Barbie literally BECOMES Ida B. Wells in our world, like someone mantling a god in The Elder Scrolls, would the bones of Ida B. Wells still be in her grave, or would her earthly remains vanish in some sort of Barbie transubstantiation? I realize none of this is the point of the film, but since Barbie is just 2 hours of incoherent third-wave feminist whining at the director’s second-wave predecessors for not making her life easier, punctuated by one adequate musical number, it’s probably still the most substantial thing to consider.
LMAO