A freak. A brilliant freak. But a freak.

That's how I described Werner Herzog to someone today, who forwarded me a link to a recent interview by The Guardian with the German-born director. An avant garde, fringe director for decades, Herzog broke into the mainstream (again?) a few years ago with his documentary "Grizzly Man," about Timothy Treadwell, an Alaskan misfit who got a little too cozy with the wild Yogi Bears and paid with his life. 

Herzog is himself attracted to the fringes of society, so he was the natural choice to make a documentary about science and society in Antarctica, "Encounters at the End of the World," which was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar. The film is far from fluffy, focusing on the quirky characters who live and work at McMurdo Station, most of whom I know to varying degrees. I was working at the station the summer Herzog filmed his movie, though my colleague Steven Profaizer ended up interviewing him for an article in The Antarctic Sun. 

He even came into our office one day with his cameraman, carrying the sound boom like a scythe. At one point, Herzog turned to me, asking a question. He smiled -- a grim smile like one that must greet the souls seeking passage to the Underworld on Charon's ferry across the River Styx. Smiling does not come naturally to that man, who in the Guardian interview admits that he likes to act a bit, playing psychopathic characters. Though he stresses that he's unlike those characters in real life.

Still, I think Herzog would make a good guide to Hades in a film directed by David Lynch and co-starring Laura Dern. Just because.