It’s not secret that Werner Herzog, the director of the upcoming POW film, “Rescue Dawn,” is batshit crazy.
Avuncularly, endearingly batshit crazy, but crazy nonetheless. Based on a documentary he made almost a decade ago, we’ve been following the minutia of all the onset hazards that endangered the lives of cast and crew on the set of the shoe-stringed, near-disastered, ‘Dawn.’
Shot in the remote and perilous jungles of Thailand, there were no trailers; the cast slept in grass huts; leading actor Christian Bale (who’s accustomed to the creature comforts of the Batman set) ate maggots, saw wild elephants randomly walking through the set and was in daily contact with spiders that could kill with one bite.
The Hollywood Reporter writes:
Despite the systematic disorder, the film’s cast kept complete faith in their captain during the three-month shoot in the unfriendly Thai jungle. He’s very comfortable with chaos,” says Jeremy Davies, who plays a fellow American POW. “He has the capacity to remove himself, detach himself from any fear. To be a great filmmaker, you need that because so many things can derail a film.”
According to Steve Zahn Werner would start rumors onset and fuck with the cast to keep that pleasant, comforting sense of disorder front and center.
“He loves chaos; that’s how he works. He would set things up so that people would get crazy, start a rumor. Werner would send an e-mail and say, ‘The film is falling apart tomorrow.’ The script supervisor would be going out of her mind. He pays no attention to continuity whatsoever. But it really kept you on your toes.”
