Herzog_aronofsky-224x134In a conversation with Errol Morris at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, Werner Herzog stated that you can't be a filmmaker without reading books. More recently, Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky shared a list of his own favorite books. Taking their suggested reading lists in tandem, we now have a list of ten "must read" books from a pair of auteurs; the first five are Aronofsky's selections and are on the topic of movies, and the second five are Herzog's and aren't limited to a particular topic. I've only read three of the ten; how about you?

  1. Making Movies by Sidney Lumet
  2. The Writers Journey by Christopher Vogler
  3. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind
  4. The Ragman's Son by Kirk Douglas
  5. Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut
  6. Georgics by Virgil
  7. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway
  8. The Warren Commission Report
  9. Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
  10. The Poetic Edda translated by Lee M. Hollander
  11. True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz del Castillo

The hawk-eyed among you will note there are actually eleven books in the above list; I never was very good at math. For more on the Aronofsky selections -- or to check out Herzog's "Rogue Film School," where his selections were culled from -- see the links below.


Links:

[via Filmmaker Magazine]

Herzog photo by erinc salor; Aronofsky photo by Niko Tavernise