Emulsion Ep. 19 - Werner Herzog on Ghost Elephants

Welcome back. After a brief hiatus, I am so happy to bring you episode 19 of this podcast project. Few subjects make a better benchmark than Werner Herzog, who quite literally needs no introduction and to whom I will accordingly not grant such. He is presenting his new film, Ghost Elephants, a documentary concerning South African naturalist Steve Boyse and his quest for a near-mythical species of elephant. (Our own appreciative review, from the film's Venice premiere, can be found here.) Those who’ve seen Herzog’s previous documentaries will be familiar with certain of its formal traits, but this is less a work about obsession, or pain, or even failure than many of those. As he brings up in our interview, it poses an interesting question: how does one live with success? On our call we were joined by his producer, Ariel Leon Isacovitch. There is a belief that to win friends and influence people, it can be useful to refer to people by their first name. I forgot to change my Zoom display name from Jordan Raup, this website’s editor in chief, which is why Isacovitch—surely someone who has found success—kindly calls me such. Lest you be distracted amidst a conversation with one of cinema’s truest legends.

You can listen to Emulsion Ep. 19 - Werner Herzog on Ghost Elephants online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Emulsion Ep. 19 - Werner Herzog on Ghost Elephants is an episode from The Film Stage Show by The Film Stage.

This episode is 00:15:50 long.

This episode was published on Feb 27, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Film Stage Show when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.