Video: Werner Herzog says 'Pokémon'

Emily Yoshida interviews filmmaker Werner Herzog for the Verge. A wonderful and insightful conversation about the future of film, but here’s the part going viral: in the interview, the gloomy auteur is introduced to Pokémon.

“I don’t know what Pokémon Go is and what all these things are,” Herzog saud. “Tell me about Pokémon Go. What is happening on Pokémon Go?”

Snip:

[Herzog:] Does it tell you you’re here at San Vicente, close to Sunset Boulevard?

[The Verge:] Yeah, it’s basically like a Google map.

But what does pokémon do at this corner here?

You might be able to catch some. It’s all completely virtual. It’s very simple, but it’s also an overlay of physically based information that now exists on top of the real world.

When two persons in search of a pokémon clash at the corner of Sunset in San Vicente is there violence? Is there murder?

They do fight, virtually.

Physically, do they fight?

No—

Do they bite each other’s hands? Do they punch each other?

Will Werner Herzog ever understand Pokémon? Unlikely.

“You’d have to give me a cell phone, which I’m not going to use anyway, and I have no clue what’s going on there, but I don’t need to play the game.”