Werner Herzog, the celebrated director of Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man, and Aguirre, the Wrath of God, has hailed The Mandalorian as “cinema back at its best” whilst heaping praise on its creator, Jon Favreau.
“When you invited me, I knew in less than 60 seconds that this was going to be big,” Herzog said during an onstage panel after Favreau asked him to share some reflections about his experience on the project. “I saw the universe. I saw costumes. I saw the round horizon. I saw the spacecraft. I saw an entire universe. And I knew this was really big.”
Herzog finished that thought with a playful observation that might have resonated better with Guinness, the legendary British actor who was far less charmed by his payday-driven foray into the Jedi storytelling: “Secondly, when Jon described a little bit about the character — yes, it’s a dark, dark sort of figure that shouldn’t be trusted at all — I knew it was going to be easy.”
“I enjoyed every single moment of it,” Herzog said. “And I think it’s beyond what we are seeing on the screen. It’s cinema back at its best. On the big fantasy films, actors were acting almost like robots in front of green screens, you didn’t see the world that you were inhabiting. Now [with The Mandalorian]the actors see the entire universe in which they are operating and the camera does the same. The camera sees it as well so cinema is back to its very life, where it had been. And it becomes very, very Iivey it’s not robotic. It’s got very, very intense life in it.”
