Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

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Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
Directed by Les Blank
Written by Werner Herzog
Starring Werner Herzog,
Tom Luddy
Michael Goodwin
Alice Waters
Running time 20 min.
Language English
IMDb profile

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is a short documentary film directed by Les Blank in 1980 which depicts director Werner Herzog living up to his promise that he would eat his shoe if Errol Morris ever completed the film Gates of Heaven.

The film features Herzog cooking his shoes (the ones he claims to have been wearing when he made the bet) at the Berkeley, California restaurant, Chez Panisse with the help of chef Alice Waters. (The shoe was boiled with garlic, herbs, and stock for 5 hours.) He is shown eating one of the shoes before an audience at the premier of Gates of Heaven at the nearby UC Theater. He did not eat the sole of the shoe, however, explaining that one does not eat the bones of the chicken.

Blank went on to direct Burden of Dreams (1982), a feature-length documentary about Herzog and the making of Fitzcarraldo. Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe is included as an extra on the Criterion Collection edition of the Burden of Dreams DVD.

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