Art & Creativity Quote by Werner Herzog

Herzog’s bluntness here isn’t nostalgia; it’s triage. “Let’s put it this way” is the filmmaker’s version of clearing his throat before delivering bad news, and the bad news is structural: the ecology that once sustained adventurous cinema is collapsing in plain sight. By choosing “vanishing” and “almost disappeared completely,” he frames art-house theaters not as struggling businesses but as an endangered habitat. That word choice matters because it shifts responsibility away from individual taste and toward systems: distribution, real estate, streaming convenience, and the slow conversion of public moviegoing into private content consumption.

The subtext is a warning aimed as much at filmmakers and institutions as at audiences. “There’s a shift in what audiences want to see” sounds democratic, even neutral, but Herzog loads it with skepticism. He’s pointing to a marketplace that trains desire as much as it answers it. When he says “they have to be aware of that,” the “they” is slippery: exhibitors, studios, funders, maybe even directors who still imagine their work belongs on a big screen shared with strangers. He’s demanding realism, not surrender: accept the new terrain or your cinema becomes a museum piece that no one visits.

“It’s as simple as that” is the final provocation. The line pretends the situation is straightforward while daring you to argue with the uglier implication: culture can be reshaped quietly, one closed theater at a time, until “choice” is just what’s left on the menu.