''Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe'' is a short documentary film directed by

Les Blank Les Blank (November 27, 1935 – April 7, 2013) was an American documentary filmmaker best known for his portraits of American traditional musicians. Life and career Leslie Harrod Blank Jr. was born November 27, 1935 in Tampa, Florida. He atten ...

in 1980 that depicts director

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...

living up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if

Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamar ...

ever completed the film '' Gates of Heaven''. The film includes clips from both ''Gates of Heaven'' and Herzog's 1970 feature '' Even Dwarfs Started Small''. Comic song "Old Whisky Shoes", played by the Walt Solek Band, is the signature tune over the opening and closing credits. Filmed in April 1979, the movie features Herzog cooking his shoes (the ones he claims to have been wearing when he made the bet) at the

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, restaurant

Chez Panisse Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of the style of cooking known as California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has develo ...

, with the help of chef

Alice Waters Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. In 1971 she opened Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering Californi ...

. (The shoes were boiled with garlic, herbs, and stock for 5 hours.) He is later shown eating one of the shoes before an audience at the premiere of ''Gates of Heaven'' at the nearby

UC Theater The UC Theatre is a music venue on University Avenue near Shattuck Avenue in Downtown Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States. From 1976 until 2001, it was a movie theater known for a revival house presentation of films. In 2013, The Berke ...

. He did not eat the sole of the shoe, however, explaining that one does not eat the

bone A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...

s of the chicken. Morris is not shown in the film, and Herzog, Morris, and others have told different stories of the nature of the bet, disagreeing as to whether it was serious, flippant, or an after-the-fact

publicity stunt In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized, or set up by amateurs. Such events are frequently utilize ...

. Blank went on to direct ''

Burden of Dreams ''Burden of Dreams'' is a 1982 " making-of" documentary film directed by Les Blank, shot during and about the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's 1982 film ''Fitzcarraldo'', and filmed on location in the jungles of Peru. Plot summary Cast * ...

'' (1982), a feature-length documentary about Herzog and the making of ''

Fitzcarraldo ''Fitzcarraldo'' () is a 1982 West German epic adventure-drama film written, produced and directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Klaus Kinski as would-be rubber baron, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is ...

''. ''Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe'' is included as an extra on

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...

edition of the ''Burden of Dreams'' DVD. It is also included as an extra in the Criterion Collection edition of the '' Gates of Heaven'' Blu-ray disc. When Chez Panisse celebrated its 40th anniversary, a replica of the shoe was created, boiled, and eaten as part of the public anniversary celebration. The

Academy Film Archive The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...

preserved ''Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe'' in 1999.

References

External links

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Trailer at YouTube
1980 films American short documentary films 1980s short documentary films Films directed by Les Blank Documentary films about film directors and producers Uses of shoes Werner Herzog 1980s English-language films 1980s American films {{short-documentary-film-stub