This conversation with Werner Herzog and Paul Holdengräber took place during the 2023 Thomas Mann House annual conference on "Arts in Times of Crises - The Role of Artists in Weakened Democracies" on November 18 & 19 at REDCAT Los Angeles.
Co-presented by Zócalo Public Square, REDCAT & Los Angeles Review of Books.
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Participants: Werner Herzog, Paul Holdengräber
Paul Holdengräber is an interviewer, curator of public curiosity, and the Founding Executive Director of Onassis Los Angeles (OLA). Prior he was Founder and Director of The New York Public Library’s Live where he interviewed and hosted over 600 events, including interviews with Patti Smith, Wes Anderson, Werner Herzog and many more. Before his tenure at the library, he was the Founder and Director of “The Institute for Art & Cultures” at the LACMA. Holdengräber holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University where he has also taught. In 2010 the Austrian president has awarded him with the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.
Werner Herzog is an internationally renowned German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. Herzog studied history and German literature in Munich and Pittsburgh and lives between Los Angeles and Munich. He has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature- and documentary films, such as AGUIRRE DER ZORN GOTTES (1972), NOSFERATU PHANTOM DER NACHT (1978), FITZCARRALDO (1982) as well as more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas. Throughout his films his characters are dreamers, conquerors, often facing loneliness and deep longings.