So, when we were out in the lobby, I overheard you giving advice to one of our young film students in one of our documentary filmmaking programs and you said, very simply, "Don't listen to film theory." Can you expand on that for us?

Oh, whenever I get in touch with people who are into this vapid babble about post-structuralism in cinema and image-making and post-whatever, I just lower my head and charge. It's just useless. I don't know what drives these people. And whoever is interested in making films, my simple advice is: grab a camera. Today, it's easier than 30, 40 years ago where you only had big celluloid cameras. Grab a camera, there is no excuse anymore, and do it! Learn by suffering defeats, learn by walking in this field and that's what makes you into a filmmaker.

Film theory is just a growing disease. And the worst, the worst actually, you find at Harvard University. They're such losers. It's just unbelievable. Happy new year, losers!

Werner Herzog
from Q&A at the Jacob Burns Film Center (2008)