This clip comes from 2007, but I hadn’t seen it before today and probably you hadn’t either, unless you’re like, super-duper cool. It comes from a documentary called On the Ecstasy of Ski-Flying: Werner Herzog in Conversation with Karen Beckman, and the clip in question features Werner Herzog, one of the few filmmakers as legendary for his documentaries as for his fiction features, explaining how his incredible powers of perception finally led him to the conclusion that John Waters might be gay after knowing him for 30 years.
“For me a chair is a chair — and I do not reference to other possibilities … For me, a man is a man. I cannot distinguish a gay man from a straight man. I just cannot distinguish … ” he said.
“After 35 years of knowing John Waters I turn to my wife and I said to her, ‘I have the feeling that this man is gay.'”
Quote of the decade.
“…which is in a way wonderful, because I took him as John Waters,” Herzog shared. “And I love the man, I love him dearly, he’s a wonderful … he’s the boldest of the bold filmmakers. I wish I had the guts of this man, and he’s very, very dear to my heart — but for me this is a man. Yes, a man is a man.” [Movies.com]
Herzog went on to add, “How vaz I to know zat ziss man, who directed Hairspray, vas a gay? I had no clue. Now, if it vas za Hairspray remake, anyone could see zat ziss ist gayer zan Elton John blowing za unicorn. Not zat it matter, uff course, a man eez a man, gay or straight. As long as he ist not a cheekan, a filthy, idiotic animal I murder mit mein bare hands vissout remorse. Eez poetry.”