Philosophizing Heads
Here we have Werner Herzog and Errol Morris talking about what they want to talk about. What they want to talk about turns out to be thought about truth in photography, serial killers and what’s in the human soul. I haven’t parsed through this mess of intellectualization in full yet, but it’s a fun read with some interesting tidbits.
EM: The movie Psycho was based on Ed Gein. Robert Bloch, the writer of the novel Psycho, lived in a small Wisconsin town, Weyauwega, about twenty miles from Plainfield. Ed Gein was notorious. And the farmhouse where he lived alone became the ultimate house of horrors. He had upholstered furniture in his house with human flesh. He was a human taxidermist, cannibal, serial killer, grave robber, necrophile. An all-around good guy.
WH: Errol wanted to know more about the grave robberies, because Ed Gein had not only murdered people. He also excavated freshly buried corpses at the cemetery. And I do remember: he dug up graves in a pretty perfect circle. And in the very center of this circle was the grave of his mother. And Errol kept wondering, did he excavate his mother and use her flesh and skin for some sculptures in things at his home?
This all comes from the new issue of The Believer which includes an essay by Chuck
