Director Werner Herzog (80) has a special relationship with Los Angeles. The filmmaker was born in Munich but has lived in the USA for a long time.

In an interview with the "Tagesspiegel" he denied the thesis that he had fled Germany after bad reviews. "I didn't flee. Hostilities and bad reviews are part of the profession. You have to deal with that, and I can do that," said Herzog.

"Do you know why I live in America? I met a wonderful woman who I've lived with for 28 years now," said Herzog, who is married to photographer Lena Herzog. "I was incredibly lucky, I rarely experience that. When I'm with friends and I look around, there's nobody who's doing as well as I am."

To the interviewer's afterthought, saying that from all places in the world he ended up in Los Angeles, Herzog said: "I'm not in Los Angeles because of Hollywood, but because all important things are created there. The Internet, for example."

"Today, the reusable Space X rockets are made in the city. The great painters are here, the mathematicians, the writers, the video games. And then there are stupid things like insane cults or yoga classes for five-year-olds." Is that the downside of an excess of wealth? "Today they don't live in Venice or Florence like they did in the Renaissance. L.A. is the most substantial city in the US, possibly in the world. Except maybe Shanghai."

Herzog has directed films such as "Fitzcarraldo" with Klaus Kinski and "Queen of the Desert" with Nicole Kidman, and documentaries such as "Encounters at the End of the World" about Antarctica. The Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin is currently showing an exhibition about him.