WEBVTT - Fireball with Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.200 My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:14.240 of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.400 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.560 And wow, do we have a treasure to share with 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.160 you today. Today we are bringing you an interview that 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:27.360 we just conducted just just minutes before recording this with 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:32.400 with film director Werner Hertzog and his collaborator, the volcanologist 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:37.400 Clive Oppenheimer. And this was so powerful. That's right. They 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.640 have a new documentary, Fireball Visitors from Darker Worlds and 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:47.960 a debuts November only on Apple TV. Plus it's an 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.680 Apple original film. You know. In the past few days, 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:55.800 I've just been mainlining Hertzog documentaries, all three actually involving 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.279 Clive Oppenheimer. So the first one was his I think 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:01.600 it was two thousand seven film, Encounters at the End 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.200 of the World. That's all about people in Antarctica and 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.480 how they ended up there, what they're doing there, and 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.400 one of them is this volcano researcher named Clive Oppenheimer 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.760 who's studying Mount Erebus. And this started a partnership between 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.560 Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer. So They've worked together on 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.160 a couple of films since then. One was a fantastic 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.640 documentary about volcanoes called Into the Inferno, and now this 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:29.319 new one called Fireball, which is all about space impacts 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:33.119 and meteorites. That's right, Yeah, this one is directed by 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.760 Herzog and Oppenheimer, and it's written and narrated by Herzog. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.000 These are both tremendous documentaries that I feel like they're 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.959 very much the sort of documentaries that stuff to blow 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.920 your mind listeners would enjoy because they are obsessed with 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:51.320 with not only science but human culture. And where where 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:56.440 the two meet? How how are understanding or interpretations of 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:01.360 of of cosmic or geologic events impact the formation and 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.120 the continuation of culture. I feel like we shouldn't delay 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.320 any longer. Should we go right to the interview. Let's 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:11.880 do it. Let's jump right in. Werner Herzag and Clive Oppenheimer, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.360 welcome to the program. Thank you. We both watched this 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.560 documentary along with your previous collaboration Into the Inferno, and 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:23.359 we love them both both fabulous explorations of science and culture. 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.000 Where did the idea for Fireball come from? And when 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.919 did you film it? Well, it came from Clive, but 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.280 he has to explain yes. So about a year after 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:37.359 the release of Into the Inferno, I had been working 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.920 through one or two concepts for another film, but it 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.200 was actually by chance on a trip to South Korea, 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:48.520 I visited the Korean Polar Research Institute and they gave 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.160 me a tour of the facility and I saw their 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:56.160 their meteorite collection. They go every every year downtime Tarctica 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.679 and hunt for meteorites. They've got a thousand already, but 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.440 they're hoping I'll find something new. And it was while 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.800 speaking with the meteorite expert there and and just looking 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:12.880 at these wonderful stones that have fallen from from space, 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.120 that it just seemed that this was another very obvious, 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:24.239 ostensibly a gear science topic, but one that immediately touches 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:31.480 on human culture, on on our origins, origins of life, um, 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:37.960 human origins. Thinking about the large, the massive impact sixty 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.600 five million years ago that reset the biological clock on Earth, 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.720 three quarters of species went to the wall. Um. It 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.960 speaks to our destiny. And there was something also that 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.720 the scientific veneration of these stones. Each each was in 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.480 a cubicle like a microwave oven with a window but 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.160 in a in a nitrogen atmosphere to preserve them, and 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.800 they were all in and utmost have been feeling like 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:10.080 in a Catholic church relax of saints, yees behind class 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.280 and preserved somehow and untouchable. That's right, you know. They 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.960 were real veneration. And it was an echo for me 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.880 of the veneration of one of the holiest relics of Islam, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.440 that the black Stone, which is also thought probably to 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:30.400 be meteoritic. So that that really inspired me and I 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:35.920 back home, I put together some ideas of how how 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.280 these themes might fit together, and I gave vernerical perhaps 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.920 that was the start of it. Production we we were 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:49.200 filming last year. We started filming in Um first of August, 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:54.880 I think last year, and through to Christmas Eve, and 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:59.360 we were editing. We finished editing in January. So we 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:04.920 were very very fortunate too to do the real um 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.520 work that involved a lot of travel before all the 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:12.120 lockdowns were in place, and so the post production was 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.799 done in Europe and l A. But this was possible 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.799 despite the lockdowns. It's funny that you mentioned the idea 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.320 of comparing the meteorites in their cases to the saints 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.599 and the relics because of course the nitrogen that they 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.360 keep them in there, it's basically to make them incorruptible, right, 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.680 that's right. And you know, particularly the meteorites, the so 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:40.120 called carbonaceous meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites, that have an extraordinary complement 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:45.960 of organic molecules, things like ribos of sugar, amino assets, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.480 the building blocks of life. These are completely a biotic 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.680 and yet um I mean to me this, you know, 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.279 even as a as a geoscientist, I hadn't really taken 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:02.240 on board just the complexity and abundance of organic molecules 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.520 in certain meteorites, and so I find it very credible 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:10.479 the idea that these have delivered the building blocks, the 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:15.919 ingredients of life, not only in our Solar system, but elsewhere. 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.479 And you know, maybe all it takes is for one 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.919 of them to find the right environment with with the 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:27.920 right kind of temperatures or heating and cooling cycles, wetting 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.280 and drying cycles, in order to start to build very 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.240 simple living organisms. One of my favorite scenes in the 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.120 movie is actually when you're sniffing one of these meteorites, 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:41.480 and so I was wondering what that smells like. I've 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.520 actually read in other places that some meteorites smell like 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.760 cruciferous vegetables, like rotting cabbage, or like Brussels sprouts. I 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:50.479 think in the film you might have compared it to 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.719 moth balls, Is that right? Yeah, moth balls. It had 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.200 a very pungent smell. I mean, remember, these are molecules 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.080 that are four and a half billion years old, and 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.160 this was something again I had. I had no idea 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.360 of you know, that you could sniff a meteorite and 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.040 get such a strong smell of it. Um contents of 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:15.880 a vacuum cleaner bag is another another way maybe capturing 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.560 what it's like. It's it's quite hard to describe, but 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.720 unmistakable that that there is an odor to these stones. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.280 And they've even used dogs sometimes to help find them 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.840 because they can sniff them out. If it's funny, because 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.320 I really wanted to take a sniff of it as 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:41.440 well with but I restrained myself because I hate the feeling. 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.000 I would breathe on it and and there would be 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.440 vapor on it, maybe men nose would be dripping on it, 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.559 and what it could testrophy that would mean to wipe 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:57.920 out the center of four thousand, five hundred million years 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.280 back in time, so I didn't do it. I have 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.400 to rely on you to record what it was. It 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.600 would have been an interesting scientific paper and a fairly 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.160 humiliating retraction later when they realized that it was it's 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:17.920 not that it dribbled out of your nostrils. Well, that 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.800 reminds me of one of my favorite details leading up 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.080 to that scene, Verner. I thought it was interesting how 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:26.880 when you're going into the lab where some of these 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.200 meteorites are stored under these tight containment procedures to keep 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:34.160 them safe from contamination and degradation, there's a moment where 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.720 you focus on the sticky matt that everyone has to 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.480 walk through, uh to go into the room. And that 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.320 seemed like a detail that was very characteristic of your 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:46.679 eye for documentaries. To me, you noticing these uh, interesting 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.079 peripheral or process details that often wouldn't become the subject 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.080 matter of another documentary. Why do you think you noticed 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.720 things like that so often? Well, you would never see 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:02.480 it on in a film by Nest, the Geographic, PBS 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.000 or HBO. You don't see that. And I loved it, 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.439 And not only that it was sticky and this this 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.679 crazy I think greenish color when you rip it off, 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.720 the kind of ripping sound it makes, and I love 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.640 the sound, and I had repeated it a few times 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.200 because I wanted to have the sound recorded very well. 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:29.160 So those are things, of course that point out you're 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:34.640 entering a very specific, very special sphere. There's something special. 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.200 You do not walk in with your with your shoes 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.760 that you were out in the street. They have to 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:48.080 be cleansed and you enter with a certain preparation. The 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:54.560 camera enters prepared and the audience enters prepared, so you 0:09:54.640 --> 0:10:00.080 always have to anticipate an audience behind you. And of 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.320 course it means you're never gonna be boring, you never 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.840 will be didactic. There has to be human that it 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:12.360 has to be awesome. Uh. And of course there's a 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.079 separate second story within the audience that you have to prepare, 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:22.439 the curiosity of the audience, the engagement of the audience, 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.680 And those are the moments where you where you really 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:30.240 capture them, where you really walk with them into into 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:32.880 this connection that sort of leads into the next thing 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.240 I wanted to ask, which is I was wondering about 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.720 when you're looking at something all inspiring, So you're standing 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.560 in a colossal impact crater, or you're looking at the 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.040 exposed magma and the culdera of a volcano. How do 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.000 you think your experience is colored by the fact that 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.920 you are there to document it, whether that's for science 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.440 Clive or for film Warner, as opposed to just being 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:58.360 there and witnessing it with no real documentary mission. Well, 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.199 for me, there's no distinction. Do my job and I 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:08.800 enjoy the moment and somehow. Of course, in some cases 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:14.079 there's some danger when you're getting too close to create 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:20.959 a an active creator that is spitting out. Particis in 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:26.040 Mark mind slabs large as a truck when they come down, 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.439 so you better watch out. You do. We so, But 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:35.800 it's it's where life and filmmaking there's no distinction. I 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.640 think for me that I do send some distinction. I mean, 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:43.600 particularly in my scientific work on volcanoes, and I think 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.320 it's actually true as well of the filmmaking. The when 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.520 you're making a film or when I'm trying to measure 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.720 the gas coming out of a volcano, you have to 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:55.520 think about an awful lot of things all at the 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.080 same time. You have to be flexible. If you're trying 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.360 to make gas measurements on a volcano, you need to 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.480 worry all the time, which way is the wind blowing, 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.800 what's the volcano doing, Is it's safe to be here? 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.839 Why isn't the equipment working? And you know, in some 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.920 ways this this is so absorbing that actually you know 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.200 you're not having a transcendental moment about where you are. 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.600 And it's maybe when when everything is working just great 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.440 and the data is being collected and you can just 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.840 set aside and then and then stop and think, well, 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.720 my goodness, look where I am. I'm on the side 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:34.240 of a an active volcano crater in in Antarctica and 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:39.000 it's minus forty degrees celsius. Uh, And then you know, 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:41.360 then you're really aware where you are and what it 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:45.360 feels like to be there. Is also certain for me 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.680 is a filmmaking you'll become more fearless because you're doing 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:56.640 your job, and that has cost For example, work correspondence 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:02.160 steering the Vietnam War. The amount of casualties and fatalities 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:08.440 who had among the war photographers was staggeringly high because 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.560 they step into the crossfire and they take photos of 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.079 one side and photos of the other side firing at 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.480 each other and right in the middle of it, and 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.960 then they perish, and a camera gives you this kind 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:31.400 of quasi feeling of invulnerability. And having Clive around. For example, 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.920 in Indonesia, where we were filming a volcano that had 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.920 come back to life, Clive insisted we have to turn 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.320 the car round so that we can flee. And you 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.319 can't turn the car around on a no on a 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.400 ditch country, ditch road or so, which is not much 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:53.760 wider than the car. So we had to go one 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.600 mile further down and turn it around and then come back. 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:04.040 And Clive made sure the car is to face an exit. Uh. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.880 And and all of a sudden we are seeing something 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:14.679 in the camera films and an eruption and classes to us, Uh, 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:20.760 stop the camera loaded now and we flye and and 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:25.440 we actually fled. And seven days later I think eleven 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.440 peasants who are doing farm work exactly at the same 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.560 spot perished in a similar eruption. Now this is interesting, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.320 you know, in thinking about not only the craft of 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.480 creating the documentary, but the experience of creating the documentary, 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.080 I was curious. You know. Obviously you're going into it 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.400 with with certain ideas in mind, and then there's the 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:52.240 shoot itself, and then I imagine some reflection afterwards. Um, 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.400 what is the what is the experience? It's just a 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.240 curious individual like of of going on this journey. Um, 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:02.360 do find yourself coming out at the other end with 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.880 like a different idea or a different consideration of saying 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.800 near Earth objects or meteorites. No, we are always ready 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:17.640 for surprises. And Clive is wonderful in doing conversations spontaneous conversations. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.400 Of course, is extremely well prepared. When we filmed with 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:27.320 the lay brother in the Vatican, the Jesuit he Clive 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:33.000 had read the doctoral dissertation of that man, which was 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:38.840 written in seventy nine, and he quotes from this, So cool, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.040 for Heaven's sake, is prepared like like him. That's one side. 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:47.920 But the conversation can go anywhere. And of course, all 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.120 of a suddenly asks him if green men would come 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:59.360 out from a spacecraft, would you baptize said, and the 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.880 Jesuits said, yes, but go only if they asked for it. 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.640 So the conversation has to go its own course. And 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.840 but but you do not walk away having done that film, 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:17.680 and you are changed man. You see, that's that's a 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:23.640 postulate of the silly Hollywood screenplays. A person by Paige 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.960 Sturdy has to know his his task, and by page 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:32.040 six sixty he or she has to undergo the crisis, 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:34.480 and by the end of the film, he or she 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.040 has to exit the film as a changed person. Not 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.800 so for us we we we are we. I always 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.640 quote the Bavarian proverbial saying we are we and we 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:52.080 spell us us and And by the way, I would 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.560 never allow Clive to have a piece of paper in 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.520 his hand. I said, we are not journalists. We do 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.680 not have a catalog of Christians. Let let the thing roll, 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:15.480 let's tumble through it. So there's a moment in Fireball 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.000 I wanted to talk about where, uh, Clive, where you 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:23.280 are looking at micro meteorites under an extremely powerful microscope 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.439 under magnification, and you notice that the surfaces of the 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.040 dust grains that come down from space look in some 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.600 ways like the surfaces of moons or rocky planets. And 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.679 this is something I've read about in the geological world 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.840 as well as in the biological science. Is geometrical patterns 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.640 and textures that can be found repeating at vastly different 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.359 levels of resolution. Um, do you have thoughts about this, Clive, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.159 Like why does the microscopic so often mirror the astronomical. 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.080 It's a good question. I hadn't thought of that, but 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:01.200 I mean, so these are cosmic dust micro meteorites that 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:06.520 were found by one of Norway's most famous jazz musicians, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.240 Get Wonderful guitarist John Larsson, and he spent the last 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.919 ten years up on the roofs of sports arenas and 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:19.080 and in car parks, trawling collecting all the sludge of 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:23.520 of the urban but finding in it. And he's found 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:30.400 several thousand meteoritic grains now and these under high magnifica magnification, 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.480 they look absolutely wonderful, and you know, you would love 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.359 to have one at a large size sitting in your 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:42.320 living room. That's so beautiful to behold. But to answer 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.960 your question, I mean, I wonder if one of the 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.880 reasons why it struck me that this one of these 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:53.919 particular grains it it seemed to have fractures and it 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:59.720 that looked like almost like icebergs that were very kind 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.439 of liganal cracks and fishes between them. And then then 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.000 there was something that looked like it could be a 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.720 coastline that they've broken off from um. And it may 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.639 be that some of the processes are the same, just 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.080 a very different scales. And I'm thinking of things like 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:22.320 fluid dynamics. Fluid dynamics, there there are guiding principles, the 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.920 force of gravity, the fluidity of something, how viscous, how 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.959 sticky it is when when it's trying to flow, uh, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.560 and and these processes. This has operated a vastly different 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.399 spatial scales. And so maybe that's why there is some 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:42.600 inherent similarity that we sometimes see. If I think you 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.560 have it in in the very abstract as well, and 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.640 it's a very deep question about the nature of the universe. 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:55.520 You have it in mathematics, uh, in fractals, in things 0:19:55.520 --> 0:20:00.399 where all of a sudden, certain patterns reappear on a 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:05.040 very large scale, and the more miniscule you get keep 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:09.199 repeating itself. So there seems to be something inherent in 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:14.320 nature that we do not understand fully yet. And it's 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.359 very beautiful thought to pursue this kind of pattern that 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.600 manifests itself all of a sudden. And why is it 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.080 that on a very large scale you have patterns that 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:32.960 you find in a microscopic scale in the almost same 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:37.520 optical impression you have And then we have the the exception, 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.880 the pattern that never repeats itself, the quasi crystal with 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.560 the forbidden fivefold symmetry, and yet which which can be 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.720 you know, was was discovered by artisans in in iran 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:59.120 Um tiling tiling the shrine of a millennium ago. Yes, yes, 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:05.359 not method maticians like Penrose who describes it mathematically. That 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.480 that has been one of the most fascinating elements in 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.159 the film for me at all, because I did not 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.359 know about quasi crystals at all. And I have to 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:18.040 point out what the earliest supporter of the film was 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.320 the Simon's Foundation, where they have a sentbox film department 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:29.640 which supports films that have scientific background. And they are 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:34.600 on a new trajectory now to attract new audiences to 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:40.000 non didactic sort of cinema about science. And the man 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:44.040 who runs this, Greg Boasted, who is a scientist himself. 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.760 He sent me a book written by Paul Steinhardt, a 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.879 cosmologist who actually was in search of quasi crystals for 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.280 more than thirty years. And he's in the film and 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:01.120 and it's a it's a wonderful character, shy and never 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.320 been out in wild nature. I say in my commentary, 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:08.760 the deepest contact with the wild nature was the lawns 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:12.560 at Princeton University, and all of a sudden he goes 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:18.240 on a expedition into easternmost Siberia, close to the Bearing Strait, 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:23.600 into the underbrush and wild beast arounded clouds of mosquitoes, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:31.840 and he finds remnants of small fragments of a meteorite 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:37.840 that carried quasi crystals. And it was proven, yes, they 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:42.600 existing nature out there in the universe, and it had 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.760 been improvement. It's a wonderful, wonderful story and for me 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:51.960 totally fascinating because I'm fascinated by mathematical things like that. 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.480 How is it possible that a structure in crystal said 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:00.520 is unthinkable, should be even forbidden, and it was forbidden 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:07.080 almost to think about it can be proven after understanding 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:13.000 a certain pattern. Just wonderful these kind of manifestations. And 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.240 I'm I would be if I didn't make films. I 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:18.879 would like to go into mathematics, but you have to 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:23.560 start as a child to really into it. Yes, because 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:28.400 I would like to be on the forefront of finding 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:33.840 out about three Month's theory, vere Month's hypothesis about prime numbers, 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:39.760 distribution of prime numbers, those things really really fascinate me. Well, 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:41.960 I had wondered if maybe I was reading faces in 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.600 clouds when I saw this connection in your work. But 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.000 I was thinking even in the earlier movie, in Into 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:51.520 the Inferno, I thought I saw verner in your eye 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:54.280 for the film, this idea of repeating patterns, because I 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.840 noticed there's the scene where you're searching for shattered fragments 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:01.440 of ancient human bone in the East African Ift in Ethiopia, 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:04.760 and then immediately you cut to the exposed magma surface 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:07.800 in the caldera of the nearby volcano, and the cooling 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:10.879 surface has cracks and it will look almost exactly like 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:14.399 the edges of the bone fragments that that Clive you 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:16.439 were just picking out with with I believe it was 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:20.199 Tim White of of Berkeley, the paleo anthropologist. Was that 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.600 on purpose or I was making crazy connections there? No, 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:26.040 I've never been aware of that. You are the first 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:29.399 one who points it out to look at it again. 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:33.320 Of course it was not fast. It was not on 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:37.960 purpose to make this connection. But you have the privilege 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:41.639 as an audience to make these connections. It didn't occur 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:46.320 to me, and not did I think occurred to Clive No, no, 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:48.440 but it's it's a wonderful residence. And I can still 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:51.640 watch into the inferno, which I have seen a good 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:55.920 few times now, and I will make a connection. We'll 0:24:55.960 --> 0:25:00.560 see a motif reappearing somewhere that I hadn't I hadn't 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:03.720 spotted before, And I think that's for me, the joy 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:05.520 of making these kinds of films. For me, they're all 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:07.280 like a piece of music that you you would you 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:09.800 love and would listen to again and again. I feel 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:14.520 with with these films and with Werner's films that uh, 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:16.560 you know, I could watch a gear gear a many 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:22.320 many times and never be bored of it. Um. So 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:25.359 that's that's part of the joy of this, this kind 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:30.720 of cinema, I would say, just you know, on the accidental, 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:34.639 accidental things coming good. One of my favorite bits of 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:38.720 film in Fireball UM is when we're up on the 0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:44.480 Polar Plateau filming the meteorites search with the Koreans and 0:25:45.320 --> 0:25:48.520 the camera was on for about half an hour without 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:52.399 us realizing it. So it's just been carried around and 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:54.600 it's pointing all over the place. But we looked at 0:25:54.640 --> 0:25:57.720 this footage and then there's there was just one ten 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:01.440 five eight seconds worth of just it was just beautiful, 0:26:01.760 --> 0:26:08.800 um just the shadows um our team cost on on 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:11.360 the blue ice, and because there were shadows, it gave 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:16.720 a depth into the ice, into this extraordinary glacial ice. 0:26:17.600 --> 0:26:23.840 Just beautiful and completely accidental. So, Werner, you've emphasized the 0:26:23.880 --> 0:26:27.359 ways that high energy natural phenomena like volcanic eruptions and 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:31.760 impacts from space can reveal us to be very tiny 0:26:31.840 --> 0:26:36.360 and insignificant and powerless. But in this documentary and in 0:26:36.359 --> 0:26:38.080 Into the Inferno, you show a lot of the ways 0:26:38.119 --> 0:26:41.160 that people are drawn to exactly the sites of these 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:44.320 phenomena when they're trying to build a mythology that gives 0:26:44.359 --> 0:26:48.160 their life meaning. Is there a counterintuitive logic at work here? 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:53.280 Does evidence of our insignificance and helplessness somehow kind of 0:26:53.320 --> 0:26:55.320 give courage to the part of us that finds a 0:26:55.320 --> 0:26:57.639 way to view our lives as part of a sacred 0:26:57.680 --> 0:27:02.560 story or having a point? Well, that's a very profound question, 0:27:02.720 --> 0:27:07.080 and I have never thought about it for a long time. 0:27:07.160 --> 0:27:11.080 But of course, just looking at the universe, when you 0:27:11.200 --> 0:27:14.480 look at the stars, when you're outside, outside of a 0:27:14.560 --> 0:27:20.399 city where you really see the universe, and it of 0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:25.280 course gives you an understanding of size, and when you're 0:27:25.280 --> 0:27:29.680 in Antarctica, you get an understanding of you can walk 0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:33.399 straight for the next five kilometers like walking across the 0:27:33.560 --> 0:27:37.080 entire continentally United States, and you will not find a 0:27:37.200 --> 0:27:41.359