Les Blank

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)



An episode in Herzog's history of mock-heroic self-sacrifice [jumping into a cactus bush, walking from Munich to Paris in a blizzard], "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe" is a documentary short in which the German director fullfils his promise to Errol Morris that he would eat his shoe if Morris ever completed his first film (Gates of Heaven.)

The film features Herzog boiling his shoes (the ones he claims to have worn when he made the bet) in garlic and herbs for 5 hours. He eventually eats one of them before an audience at the premier of the film.

Blank went on to direct Burden of Dreams (1982), a feature-length documentary about the making of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo.