Official Trailer

In the summer of 2001 I helped write an early draft of Rescue Dawn for German director Werner Herzog. At first, I was just supposed to help with grammar and sentence structure, since this was his first English screenplay (previously he wrote in German and then had it translated), as well as assist with some of the soldier’s dialogue, but after meeting with him at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley I was given free reign, including the reworking of major scenes. I had three days to work on it; we then spent a week going line-by-line through the changes.

During these sessions we collaborated on several new scenes. He would start off by asking me how I would respond to some hypothetical scenario, say a guy kicking me in the face while I was on the ground, and I would rattle off a series of vulgarities and he would transcribe what I said – all of it just off the top of my head – and the whole time he would be smiling at me in this strange way (he seemed to get a kick out of everything I said).

What struck me, though, was how totally immersed he was in the story. If I had a question about Dieter Dengler, the Naval officer whose story the film was based on, Herzog would go to his desk and pull out a letter, or an old photograph, and he was just so enthused to share.

To see how passionate he was about each detail of the man’s life, and the child-like exuberance while recalling an anecdote he found funny – or a new scene he had written the night before, well, it was pretty cool.

He has this tenacious work ethic and you realize the stories you hear about him are true, how he’ll stop at nothing to tell his story, but he’s also so unpretentious, which was refreshing, especially because I had been warned about his volatility and was prepared for this egomaniac. Instead he was this kind man who lived in a humble apartment. His most prized possession was a new Encyclopedia set (there was no television), and for lunch, we went to the liquor store for turkey sandwiches and Sobes, which he had never tried before.

At the time I was thrilled just to work for him. (When he left his initial voice mail I played the message over in over, although part of that was I just couldn’t understand his accent and wondered who this crazy German guy was mumbling on my machine. ) Later I assumed the project had been scrapped, especially after so much time passed. Then, while researching Grizzly Man late one night on the web I came across the trailer. It looked nothing like I had envisioned. Nonetheless, it was electric to see something I had a hand in make its way to the big screen, and it was a trip to hear Christian Bale saying lines I helped write. When we first met I agreed to waive screenplay credit (it was, of course, his story), but he promised to credit me as a consultant and I never thought otherwise. Five years later it didn’t happen.