Calling Peter Jackson: Werner Herzog's Worst Nightmare

Transcription, director's commentary, Signs of Life:

Norman Hill: Why this interest in chickens? They are in several of your films...

Werner Herzog: They are very frightening for me because their stupidity is so flat. When you look into the eyes of a chicken you lose yourself in a completely flat, frightening stupidity. They are a great metaphor...for me..for I don't what it is. They reappear in several of my films. Even Dwarves Started Small. Cannibalistic chicken. One-legged chicken. A rooster being hypnotized and on and on and on.

NH: (Laughs.) And the famous dancing chicken in Stroszek.

WH: (Laughs.) Right. That is some of the best I've ever filmed. So I don't know. I kind of love chicken but they frighten me more than any other animal I know.

(Poster ripped from eightyford.com.)