Fireball with Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer

Clive Oppenheimer. And this was so powerful. That's right. They have a new documentary, Fireball Visitors from Darker Worlds and a debuts November only on Apple TV. Plus it's an Apple original film. You know. In the past few days, I've just been mainlining Hertzog documentaries, all three actually involving Clive Oppenheimer. So the first one was his I think it was two thousand seven film, Encounters at the End

of the World. That's all about people in Antarctica and how they ended up there, what they're doing there, and one of them is this volcano researcher named Clive Oppenheimer who's studying Mount Erebus. And this started a partnership between Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer. So They've worked together on a couple of films since then. One was a fantastic documentary about volcanoes called Into the Inferno, and now this new one called Fireball, which is all about space impacts

and meteorites. That's right, Yeah, this one is directed by Herzog and Oppenheimer, and it's written and narrated by Herzog. These are both tremendous documentaries that I feel like they're very much the sort of documentaries that stuff to blow your mind listeners would enjoy because they are obsessed with with not only science but human culture. And where where the two meet? How how are understanding or interpretations of of of cosmic or geologic events impact the formation and

the continuation of culture. I feel like we shouldn't delay any longer. Should we go right to the interview. Let's do it. Let's jump right in. Werner Herzag and Clive Oppenheimer, welcome to the program. Thank you. We both watched this documentary along with your previous collaboration Into the Inferno, and we love them both both fabulous explorations of science and culture. Where did the idea for Fireball come from? And when did you film it? Well, it came from Clive, but

he has to explain yes. So about a year after the release of Into the Inferno, I had been working through one or two concepts for another film, but it was actually by chance on a trip to South Korea, I visited the Korean Polar Research Institute and they gave me a tour of the facility and I saw their their meteorite collection. They go every every year downtime Tarctica and hunt for meteorites. They've got a thousand already, but

they're hoping I'll find something new. And it was while speaking with the meteorite expert there and and just looking at these wonderful stones that have fallen from from space, that it just seemed that this was another very obvious, ostensibly a gear science topic, but one that immediately touches on human culture, on on our origins, origins of life, um, human origins. Thinking about the large, the massive impact sixty five million years ago that reset the biological clock on Earth,

three quarters of species went to the wall. Um. It speaks to our destiny. And there was something also that the scientific veneration of these stones. Each each was in a cubicle like a microwave oven with a window but in a in a nitrogen atmosphere to preserve them, and they were all in and utmost have been feeling like in a Catholic church relax of saints, yees behind class and preserved somehow and untouchable. That's right, you know. They

were real veneration. And it was an echo for me of the veneration of one of the holiest relics of Islam, that the black Stone, which is also thought probably to be meteoritic. So that that really inspired me and I back home, I put together some ideas of how how these themes might fit together, and I gave vernerical perhaps that was the start of it. Production we we were filming last year. We started filming in Um first of August, I think last year, and through to Christmas Eve, and

we were editing. We finished editing in January. So we were very very fortunate too to do the real um work that involved a lot of travel before all the lockdowns were in place, and so the post production was done in Europe and l A. But this was possible despite the lockdowns. It's funny that you mentioned the idea of comparing the meteorites in their cases to the saints and the relics because of course the nitrogen that they keep them in there, it's basically to make them incorruptible, right,

that's right. And you know, particularly the meteorites, the so called carbonaceous meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites, that have an extraordinary complement of organic molecules, things like ribos of sugar, amino assets,

the building blocks of life. These are completely a biotic and yet um I mean to me this, you know, even as a as a geoscientist, I hadn't really taken on board just the complexity and abundance of organic molecules in certain meteorites, and so I find it very credible the idea that these have delivered the building blocks, the ingredients of life, not only in our Solar system, but elsewhere.

And you know, maybe all it takes is for one of them to find the right environment with with the right kind of temperatures or heating and cooling cycles, wetting and drying cycles, in order to start to build very simple living organisms. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is actually when you're sniffing one of these meteorites, and so I was wondering what that smells like. I've actually read in other places that some meteorites smell like

cruciferous vegetables, like rotting cabbage, or like Brussels sprouts. I think in the film you might have compared it to moth balls, Is that right? Yeah, moth balls. It had a very pungent smell. I mean, remember, these are molecules that are four and a half billion years old, and this was something again I had. I had no idea of you know, that you could sniff a meteorite and get such a strong smell of it. Um contents of a vacuum cleaner bag is another another way maybe capturing

what it's like. It's it's quite hard to describe, but unmistakable that that there is an odor to these stones. And they've even used dogs sometimes to help find them because they can sniff them out. If it's funny, because I really wanted to take a sniff of it as well with but I restrained myself because I hate the feeling.

I would breathe on it and and there would be vapor on it, maybe men nose would be dripping on it, and what it could testrophy that would mean to wipe out the center of four thousand, five hundred million years back in time, so I didn't do it. I have to rely on you to record what it was. It would have been an interesting scientific paper and a fairly humiliating retraction later when they realized that it was it's

not that it dribbled out of your nostrils. Well, that reminds me of one of my favorite details leading up to that scene, Verner. I thought it was interesting how when you're going into the lab where some of these meteorites are stored under these tight containment procedures to keep them safe from contamination and degradation, there's a moment where you focus on the sticky matt that everyone has to

walk through, uh to go into the room. And that seemed like a detail that was very characteristic of your eye for documentaries. To me, you noticing these uh, interesting peripheral or process details that often wouldn't become the subject matter of another documentary. Why do you think you noticed things like that so often? Well, you would never see it on in a film by Nest, the Geographic, PBS

or HBO. You don't see that. And I loved it, And not only that it was sticky and this this crazy I think greenish color when you rip it off, the kind of ripping sound it makes, and I love the sound, and I had repeated it a few times because I wanted to have the sound recorded very well. So those are things, of course that point out you're entering a very specific, very special sphere. There's something special. You do not walk in with your with your shoes

that you were out in the street. They have to be cleansed and you enter with a certain preparation. The camera enters prepared and the audience enters prepared, so you always have to anticipate an audience behind you. And of course it means you're never gonna be boring, you never will be didactic. There has to be human that it

has to be awesome. Uh. And of course there's a separate second story within the audience that you have to prepare, the curiosity of the audience, the engagement of the audience, And those are the moments where you where you really capture them, where you really walk with them into into this connection that sort of leads into the next thing I wanted to ask, which is I was wondering about when you're looking at something all inspiring, So you're standing

in a colossal impact crater, or you're looking at the exposed magma and the culdera of a volcano. How do you think your experience is colored by the fact that you are there to document it, whether that's for science Clive or for film Warner, as opposed to just being there and witnessing it with no real documentary mission. Well, for me, there's no distinction. Do my job and I enjoy the moment and somehow. Of course, in some cases there's some danger when you're getting too close to create

a an active creator that is spitting out. Particis in Mark mind slabs large as a truck when they come down, so you better watch out. You do. We so, But it's it's where life and filmmaking there's no distinction. I think for me that I do send some distinction. I mean, particularly in my scientific work on volcanoes, and I think

it's actually true as well of the filmmaking. The when you're making a film or when I'm trying to measure the gas coming out of a volcano, you have to think about an awful lot of things all at the same time. You have to be flexible. If you're trying to make gas measurements on a volcano, you need to worry all the time, which way is the wind blowing, what's the volcano doing, Is it's safe to be here?

Why isn't the equipment working? And you know, in some ways this this is so absorbing that actually you know you're not having a transcendental moment about where you are. And it's maybe when when everything is working just great and the data is being collected and you can just set aside and then and then stop and think, well, my goodness, look where I am. I'm on the side of a an active volcano crater in in Antarctica and

it's minus forty degrees celsius. Uh, And then you know, then you're really aware where you are and what it feels like to be there. Is also certain for me is a filmmaking you'll become more fearless because you're doing your job, and that has cost For example, work correspondence

steering the Vietnam War. The amount of casualties and fatalities who had among the war photographers was staggeringly high because they step into the crossfire and they take photos of one side and photos of the other side firing at each other and right in the middle of it, and then they perish, and a camera gives you this kind

of quasi feeling of invulnerability. And having Clive around. For example, in Indonesia, where we were filming a volcano that had come back to life, Clive insisted we have to turn the car round so that we can flee. And you can't turn the car around on a no on a ditch country, ditch road or so, which is not much wider than the car. So we had to go one mile further down and turn it around and then come back.

And Clive made sure the car is to face an exit. Uh. And and all of a sudden we are seeing something in the camera films and an eruption and classes to us, Uh, stop the camera loaded now and we flye and and we actually fled. And seven days later I think eleven peasants who are doing farm work exactly at the same spot perished in a similar eruption. Now this is interesting, you know, in thinking about not only the craft of creating the documentary, but the experience of creating the documentary,

I was curious. You know. Obviously you're going into it with with certain ideas in mind, and then there's the shoot itself, and then I imagine some reflection afterwards. Um, what is the what is the experience? It's just a curious individual like of of going on this journey. Um, do find yourself coming out at the other end with like a different idea or a different consideration of saying near Earth objects or meteorites. No, we are always ready

for surprises. And Clive is wonderful in doing conversations spontaneous conversations. Of course, is extremely well prepared. When we filmed with the lay brother in the Vatican, the Jesuit he Clive had read the doctoral dissertation of that man, which was written in seventy nine, and he quotes from this, So cool, for Heaven's sake, is prepared like like him. That's one side.

But the conversation can go anywhere. And of course, all of a suddenly asks him if green men would come out from a spacecraft, would you baptize said, and the Jesuits said, yes, but go only if they asked for it. So the conversation has to go its own course. And but but you do not walk away having done that film, and you are changed man. You see, that's that's a

postulate of the silly Hollywood screenplays. A person by Paige Sturdy has to know his his task, and by page six sixty he or she has to undergo the crisis, and by the end of the film, he or she has to exit the film as a changed person. Not so for us we we we are we. I always quote the Bavarian proverbial saying we are we and we spell us us and And by the way, I would never allow Clive to have a piece of paper in his hand. I said, we are not journalists. We do

not have a catalog of Christians. Let let the thing roll, let's tumble through it. So there's a moment in Fireball I wanted to talk about where, uh, Clive, where you are looking at micro meteorites under an extremely powerful microscope under magnification, and you notice that the surfaces of the dust grains that come down from space look in some ways like the surfaces of moons or rocky planets. And this is something I've read about in the geological world

as well as in the biological science. Is geometrical patterns and textures that can be found repeating at vastly different levels of resolution. Um, do you have thoughts about this, Clive, Like why does the microscopic so often mirror the astronomical.

It's a good question. I hadn't thought of that, but I mean, so these are cosmic dust micro meteorites that were found by one of Norway's most famous jazz musicians, Get Wonderful guitarist John Larsson, and he spent the last ten years up on the roofs of sports arenas and and in car parks, trawling collecting all the sludge of

of the urban but finding in it. And he's found several thousand meteoritic grains now and these under high magnifica magnification, they look absolutely wonderful, and you know, you would love to have one at a large size sitting in your

living room. That's so beautiful to behold. But to answer your question, I mean, I wonder if one of the reasons why it struck me that this one of these particular grains it it seemed to have fractures and it that looked like almost like icebergs that were very kind of liganal cracks and fishes between them. And then then there was something that looked like it could be a coastline that they've broken off from um. And it may be that some of the processes are the same, just

a very different scales. And I'm thinking of things like fluid dynamics. Fluid dynamics, there there are guiding principles, the force of gravity, the fluidity of something, how viscous, how sticky it is when when it's trying to flow, uh, and and these processes. This has operated a vastly different spatial scales. And so maybe that's why there is some

inherent similarity that we sometimes see. If I think you have it in in the very abstract as well, and it's a very deep question about the nature of the universe. You have it in mathematics, uh, in fractals, in things where all of a sudden, certain patterns reappear on a very large scale, and the more miniscule you get keep repeating itself. So there seems to be something inherent in nature that we do not understand fully yet. And it's very beautiful thought to pursue this kind of pattern that

manifests itself all of a sudden. And why is it that on a very large scale you have patterns that you find in a microscopic scale in the almost same optical impression you have And then we have the the exception, the pattern that never repeats itself, the quasi crystal with the forbidden fivefold symmetry, and yet which which can be you know, was was discovered by artisans in in iran Um tiling tiling the shrine of a millennium ago. Yes, yes,

not method maticians like Penrose who describes it mathematically. That that has been one of the most fascinating elements in the film for me at all, because I did not know about quasi crystals at all. And I have to point out what the earliest supporter of the film was the Simon's Foundation, where they have a sentbox film department which supports films that have scientific background. And they are on a new trajectory now to attract new audiences to

non didactic sort of cinema about science. And the man who runs this, Greg Boasted, who is a scientist himself. He sent me a book written by Paul Steinhardt, a cosmologist who actually was in search of quasi crystals for more than thirty years. And he's in the film and and it's a it's a wonderful character, shy and never

been out in wild nature. I say in my commentary, the deepest contact with the wild nature was the lawns at Princeton University, and all of a sudden he goes on a expedition into easternmost Siberia, close to the Bearing Strait, into the underbrush and wild beast arounded clouds of mosquitoes, and he finds remnants of small fragments of a meteorite that carried quasi crystals. And it was proven, yes, they existing nature out there in the universe, and it had

been improvement. It's a wonderful, wonderful story and for me totally fascinating because I'm fascinated by mathematical things like that. How is it possible that a structure in crystal said is unthinkable, should be even forbidden, and it was forbidden almost to think about it can be proven after understanding a certain pattern. Just wonderful these kind of manifestations. And I'm I would be if I didn't make films. I would like to go into mathematics, but you have to

start as a child to really into it. Yes, because I would like to be on the forefront of finding out about three Month's theory, vere Month's hypothesis about prime numbers, distribution of prime numbers, those things really really fascinate me. Well, I had wondered if maybe I was reading faces in

clouds when I saw this connection in your work. But I was thinking even in the earlier movie, in Into the Inferno, I thought I saw verner in your eye for the film, this idea of repeating patterns, because I noticed there's the scene where you're searching for shattered fragments of ancient human bone in the East African Ift in Ethiopia, and then immediately you cut to the exposed magma surface in the caldera of the nearby volcano, and the cooling

surface has cracks and it will look almost exactly like the edges of the bone fragments that that Clive you were just picking out with with I believe it was Tim White of of Berkeley, the paleo anthropologist. Was that on purpose or I was making crazy connections there? No, I've never been aware of that. You are the first one who points it out to look at it again. Of course it was not fast. It was not on purpose to make this connection. But you have the privilege

as an audience to make these connections. It didn't occur to me, and not did I think occurred to Clive No, no, but it's it's a wonderful residence. And I can still watch into the inferno, which I have seen a good few times now, and I will make a connection. We'll see a motif reappearing somewhere that I hadn't I hadn't spotted before, And I think that's for me, the joy of making these kinds of films. For me, they're all like a piece of music that you you would you

love and would listen to again and again. I feel with with these films and with Werner's films that uh, you know, I could watch a gear gear a many many times and never be bored of it. Um. So that's that's part of the joy of this, this kind of cinema, I would say, just you know, on the accidental,

accidental things coming good. One of my favorite bits of film in Fireball UM is when we're up on the Polar Plateau filming the meteorites search with the Koreans and the camera was on for about half an hour without us realizing it. So it's just been carried around and

it's pointing all over the place. But we looked at this footage and then there's there was just one ten five eight seconds worth of just it was just beautiful, um just the shadows um our team cost on on the blue ice, and because there were shadows, it gave a depth into the ice, into this extraordinary glacial ice.

Just beautiful and completely accidental. So, Werner, you've emphasized the ways that high energy natural phenomena like volcanic eruptions and impacts from space can reveal us to be very tiny and insignificant and powerless. But in this documentary and in Into the Inferno, you show a lot of the ways that people are drawn to exactly the sites of these phenomena when they're trying to build a mythology that gives their life meaning. Is there a counterintuitive logic at work here?

Does evidence of our insignificance and helplessness somehow kind of give courage to the part of us that finds a way to view our lives as part of a sacred story or having a point? Well, that's a very profound question, and I have never thought about it for a long time.

But of course, just looking at the universe, when you look at the stars, when you're outside, outside of a city where you really see the universe, and it of course gives you an understanding of size, and when you're in Antarctica, you get an understanding of you can walk straight for the next five kilometers like walking across the entire continentally United States, and you will not find a

human soul. And at the same time, the fact that the day will last for five months until the sun settles because it's circling in Antarctica during the Austrian summer. So it gives a scale of of size and importance. And of course visa v. The universe, which is monumentle indifferent to us, we have to understand the size. And yet at such moments we can also understand that here and now, in what we are here's a certain importance

and we do the best out of the moment. We create our our own consciousness to some degree, and we are responsible for what we are doing, and we are big in what we are doing here. So it's um it's a strange balance and it sounds like a contradiction, but it is not. I would add, I believe you know that we are very much disconnected now. I mean, more than half of us live in in cities, in

urban environments, and artificial light has colonized our night. Ah, and how many of us can remember the last time we saw the Milky Way, And I think that does disconnect us from that sense of awe, of of the the natural world of if you heard some story about the earthquake in the valley, Yes, the the north Ridge earthquake in in l A. This struck in February, I think, in the middle of the night, and so people ran outside their homes and pretty soon a number of calling

the emergency services because one calls they could see a strange silvery cloud in the sky and they thought maybe this was some noxious fumes given off from the San Andreas fault. But what had happened the earthquake and knocked out the para grid and so for the first time they were seeing the Milky Way. Idea what it was? I mean, it's it's people called emergency. You can completely understand it. I mean, I live in a village outside

Cambridge in England. Um, but there's way too much light pollution here to see more than a dozen stars at night, And um, I think that's I think that's meaningful. Actually,

it has. It has an impact on on human society that we no longer have that sense of wonder, of of the infinite and of the nocturnal, because we've lost it, but so many of us thank every now and then you hear um of of various actors being described as a force of nature, or their performance being a force of nature that must be crafted or honed by and by a director. Werner, what do you make of such comparisons, especially having worked with actual volcanos and and alongside other

legitimate forces of nature in your films. You're not thinking about klaus Kinsky, are you? Um we well, certainly he's he's an actor that that comes to mind. Yeah, you hear occasionally such performers compared to a force of nature. But yeah that in in cheap Hollywood of that reviews, this uh riveeting and maybe you know you know what I mean, So you you should be careful in using this kind of lingo that you're here in advertisements for

for mainstream Hollywood movies being praised by paid of mainstream reviewers. Anyway, But if you mean somebody like Nicholas Cage in Bad Lieutenant klaus Kinsky in Voitzek, sure, yes, there's something extraordinary about performances and in Nasty in the presence on screen which is completely unique and remarkable, and you do not find it very often, but you do find it, and you do find it like Timothy treadwilled grizzly Man. And in a way Clive has a presence on camera which

is unique for a film like that. We only have David Attenborough. But it's prepared texts, well written texts, and but he puts a kind of excitement into it, and and he he deserves being so famous and being so loved by audience. Is a wonderful character. But Claive has something which I really like is a is a strong presence on screen, the sense of awe, the sense of respect, the sense of discovery. And if we have a person like him in a film, and we have not, we

don't pursue this kind of lifeless scientific documentaries. And we find a man like him in front of a camera wonderful. So I've been very lucky that I ran into Clive on top of active volcano in Antarctica, a twelve thousand, five hundred feet altitude, so the degrees below zero or something, and he wore a treat jacket or something. He denies it was a treat jacket. Wasn't a tweet jacket, but the Harris tweet clan will be will be tracking you down.

But I mean it was. It looked like a tweet check it or like the early Himalaya claimber, some early Mount Everest claimbers would would tackle the mountain in tweet jackets. Well, this was a Himalayan jacket. It was. It was from Kuluminali in India. So I've I've never been a huge fan for synthetic fibers. I like, I like to wear wool and cotton and all sorts of things you're not supposed to wear anymore. In Antarctica, I don't wear I don't use Finnisco and you know what the real old

timers did. But I guess my tweet jacket is pretty close to what Mallory wore. You know, we use it as a metaphor now, but we struck your appearance was striking in the way you're talking to What you had to say was just wonderful. So that's where where we started to uh notice each other. And Clive actually I think on the same one the following day said I have a camera myself, can I speak to you? But I would like to record it on make camera so

claim force into filmmaking already. Well, it was really the first filmmaking I've done. I was working collaborating with an Italian photographer and an artist on on a video installation, so I had in Venice, was it correct? Ah, well that's yeah, that's an interesting way. So when we were putting this thing together, so our artom in Linker is the name of the artist, and he thought we might have a showing at the Biennale where you can imagine coming out of the Ivory Tower in Cambridge. How excited

that I was at that prospect. It didn't go to Venice. It went to the Vestivali Internazionale read Alba in La which which I'm sure you know is is the it's the big global event in toilet furnishings. If you're into toilet furnishers, you're in bolog your foot for the church I um uh convention um. The installation I mean commissioned by what a very large ceramics company they were. They've made a new product called volcanic stone. Uh. And so anyway,

this is why I had a cowpoint Verner. But the that trip to admission to Antarctica, it was I'd say very much a turning point for me because I had this camera and I was feeling creative to be behind the camera and not only thinking about measuring volcanic gases. But of course it was also my encounter with Werner, and I've been interested in in the idea of making a volcano documentary for a number of years. My motivated that was distaste for most volcano documentaries. I mean, coming

from knowing something about the topic. I knew watching a lot of these documentaries. They were all identical. They all had the line of it's it's not not not a matter of if she blows, it's when, and then cuttingto the commercial breaks. So I I already had a longing to to do more than that because so much of the documentary there are some good ones, but most they go for the low hanging fruit. It's doom and gloom, and it's not not the interesting stories, it's not the nuance,

it's not the entanglements of of nature and culture. So I think, my lucky stars that I ran into Verna up in this twelve half twelve and a half thousand foot high volcano in Antarctica, in both the fireball and into the inferno, you speak with people about their beliefs and their traditions and the things that have that have impacted those cultures and traditions to steer the direction of

their their worldviews. Uh. And an inferno you speak with individuals whose faith is and is sometimes classified as as a cargo cult belief system born out of contact between Melanesian cultures in the Western military machine of the Second World War. Um. What what was that experience like to to actually, you know, to be there and speak with them and and and and see them in person. Well, I'd say I think there are a couple of elders that we spoke within Vanuatu into the inferno. One, as

you say, that was the car occulted John from cult. Uh. And I mean this this was it was very interesting conversation. Um. In that particular case. I think this this cargo cult actually, if you look at its roots, it starts very much as a protest against the colonial authorities. Um. And this is sort of back in the I guess it's starting around around the time of the Second World War. And people on the island of tanna Ah, they they've been in in mission schools. They were just taught what the

British wanted them to know. And they said, well, you know, we we want to go back to our traditions, we want to drink again, we want to have our ceremonies. And so one of the first things they did was to stop buying goods from the from the England shops and that really upset the colonial authorities, so they they threw these guys in prison for fifteen years. And so that that's sort of what the cargo cults born born

from the other chap we spoke with. For me, one of the most compelling conversations we've ever had on cameras with Um the chief of Endu Village on Ambrim Island in the north of the Bato Archipelago. And he he lives just a few miles from a very active volcano. At night he'll see the glow from the crater and so it's it's literally a looming presence and an ever present on on the landscape, and every now and then

ash will all out across their plots of land. Uh. And he described his his feelings on one visit he made to the crater and and he said, I I looked in and I saw this. I saw this stuff moving like the sea, you know, so I thought it was water, but it was red, so it can't be water. What what is it? And the way he describes this makes complete sense. Ah, okay, I've I've trained in the geoscience,

so I have a different perspective on it. But I find it very, very compelling how people formulate cosmologies when they're faced by these awesome phenomena. And I mean that in the sense of inspiring reverential fear as well as inspiring or of of just the wonder of scene seeing magma at night. I would like to eat two themes, because for me it sounds too theoretical when you explain

the colonial origins of current cults. Yes, sure we can drag it back to that, but still it remains very compelling and mysterious that we speak with people, or you speak with people who believe that an American g. I. John from lives in volcano and he, uh, the man who with whom you speak has spent a whole night inside of the cauldron of the volcano. What were you

talking about? So the presence and defication the creation of a god out of a g I an average G. I. John from is fantastic for me, and it had to be in the film. The second, which I remember was very important. We discussed how do you talk to them the attitude, and you said, I know how to do it, and I trusted because it shouldn't be condescending, it shouldn't be patronizing, it shouldn't be funny, it shouldn't be you see in in your quiet curiosity and respect is something

which which makes the scene unforgetful. So you have to have when you do something like this, you have to have somebody of your caliber to do it right. And and this was on our mind throughout all the conversations we had, and it was on our mind when we did conversations with let's say female artists in Western Australia, an Aboriginal woman h and the way you talk to her and you the way you are interested to understand her painting and how she explains. It's a wonderful tone

to it. And you do not see that in movies. You don't see it, but we were able to create it. And there's a lot of thinking behind it, and in a lot of natural decency that's in you is behind it. Vernon, I would say in a lot of your movies. It seems one thing you enjoy capturing is a palpable sense of unpredictability about what's on camera, and that comes through

even in the conversations. I would say a lot of the conversations that you capture in these films feel less scripted and less predictable and less worked out in advance than most conversations and documentaries do. Yes, of course, because we trust in our ability to follow the moment, and we trust in our ability to go to the essence very quickly. So you see, we we do not shoot endless hours and hours and hours. We go to Castel Gandorf when we speak to the Jesuit uh lay brother.

Neither Clive has met him in personally on the phone, nor have I ever met him. We go in and into in an hour flat to us. So we have done filming, and it's wonderful and and we know we we captured, we captured the essence of what we wanted to do. So we bring skills, We bring certain skills to the set that come to fruition in a very condensed,

in a very condensed way. And thanks God we have these capabilities, because otherwise we would have made a boring didactic film and we must acknowledge to that that we're part of a team with with you know, wonderful cinematographer Peter Zeidlinger who was the OP for both of these films, and a sound engineer recordist Paul Paragon, both you know, extraordinary professionals. The way Peter works with the camera it's

it's very he's extraordinary. I mean again as well as says we're we turn up, we meet people for the first time, and we've maybe had a few conversations on the phone, um, and we have a very clear sense of purpose of oh, what what we're after and what what themes we want to dig into? Um. But then the way Peter works with the cameras is is a

marvel to behold. Paul our sound record is you know, he'll be up at five o'clock in the morning before the birds are up to it to record a wonderful ambience that that might then be woven into our soundtrack. So it's it's a collective effort with you know, all of us knowing knowing what we're doing and how how this is going to work work out and fit together.

I would say one of my favorite examples in in your recent films that that I've heard of that sound gathering is in Encounters at the End of the World. You have a wonderful selection and of sort of the commerce of the ice, all the inhuman sounds, of the chucking made by the seals, and the cracking of the ice behind you. It does give you a sense that there is a world taking place there that's utterly inhuman, and yet it's very active. I think this fakes back

very to my very very first films. We were a group of young people and we teenagers actually eighteen eteineers old, and we all helped each other, eight of us or nine of us. Only two finished their films. One was a friend of mine and the other one was me, and the others failed because of sound problems. And it gave me and all of a sudden I became alert how important sound was, and it was of essence and it can make a film fail. And out of nine films,

seven failed because of sound problems. But it was it was young filmmakers, eighteen nine twenty years old, with without any formal training. One of us didn't go to film school. Now you've you've both mentioned already. Um, what other documentaries do differently or have have have gotten wrong? Perhaps? Can you both think to two examples of documentaries you're exposed to early on that inspired you that where you watched them and said this, this is this is what I

want to do. This is the sort of documentary I could see myself making question fundamentally aims beyond me, doesn't hit me? I always said the feeling. I am the inventor of cinema, and I see documentaries where everything is done wrong, didactic, stupid, sensationalistic understanding documentaries as part of journalist, and I said, get away from that. I only have negative definitions, only the sins I can name, not the virtues. So in in viewing these documentaries that I couldn't help

but think of the divine comedy. You know, we began obviously in the Inferno and in Fireballs in some ways about a bridge between Earth and sky. You know, the amount of purgatory. Uh So, I mean that just leads me to the obvious question, what's next? If you were to do another documentary project together, what do you think you might consider? I think I will come up with

something fiendish back to hell. Yeah, I will and we we have at least a trilogy in as I I feel that and I've always got a few ideas that are half baked, and and when I get to get time, I'll sit down and really have a thing. Um. Ultimately, I would like to move m beyond scientific topics in in my filmmaking. I'm very interested in in other aspects

of human culture. But I think for me it's it's always about the complexities and and I think one of the things, of course, that I've learned so much about through working with Werner is is storytelling is narrative, and I find it's even informing now my scientific writing. Oddly enough, I think more in terms of how do I tell this this story of this finding that I've I've got to from some of my own research. But whatever it is, you shall not be speeding towards the imperiod at incalculable speed.

I think, you're I mean, you're, you're, You're right to you recognize these these resonances between Fireball and into the inferno. I mean these these are geophysical, geological celestial phenomena, volcanoes, asteroid collisions, meteorites, ah, but they have so much more significance for humans in terms of um, what we think of our origins, what we think of the afterlife, are our ideas of of of heaven, of the nether world, of the underworld. These are very intimately bound with these

these terrestrial, earthly, subterranean, and celestial imperium phenomena. All right, well, there you have it. We hope you enjoyed this chat. We certainly enjoyed this particular interview. I feel like it was unlike any interview we've done before. Yeah, it was like having an audience with a couple of wise and stern kings of the cosmos. Yes, so yeah, hopefully we didn't come off to starstruck in this one once again.

If you want to check out the film, it is Fireball Visitors from Darker Worlds, a film by Werner Herzag and Clive Oppenheimer. It is an Apple original film. It debuts November only on Apple TV Plus. In the meantime, if you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. We just asked that you rate, review, and subscribe if

you want to get to us rather quickly. You can always go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and that will shoot you over to the I heart page for our show. You can find all the episodes there as well, and there's also a button you can push for our store and that I'll take you to a place where you can buy some T shirts, some stickers, et cetera with our logo on them, or perhaps a monster or two huge things. As always to our excellent

audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot company. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.