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Film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980)

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Werner Herzog once bet Errol Morris that he would eat his own shoe if his then-unknown protégé ever completed his first major film project. Against all odds, Morris eventually finished the dubious pet-cemetery documentary Gates of Heaven (1980) and so began an Oscar-winning career. As promised, Herzog feasted on his footwear — while an enraptured Berkeley lecture hall looked on — in one of the great spectacles of creative endeavour. Les Blank's 20-minute short captures the episode with verve, and sheds real light on Herzog's entire oeuvre (including Christian Bale's maggot and live-snake diet in the German director's film, Rescue Dawn).

– Joe Rudkin

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