Werner Herzog

[NightOfJoy]

A bud lent me Grizzlyman, which took me a long time to pop in the player because I was reluctant to watch some guy lose his status at the top of the food chain.......but after viewing, I became intrigued by the director, Werner Herzog, who has quite a catalog of work behind him. So, next came "White Diamond" then came "Aquirre-The Wrath of God". It appears that Herzog, who I think is mad in his own right, is fascinated by those who are possessed with desire, often to their own detriment.

 

Anyone have any suggestions towards what should be next? The midget flick "Even Dwarfs Start Small" looks interesting but this actor, Klaus Kinski, that Herzog uses has become a topic of conversation with my wife and I...........that guy is equally nuts and fascinating! So maybe "Fitzcarraldo" will be next.

 

Questions? Comments? Insults?

[owl]

Are "White Diamond" and "Aquirre-The Wrath of God" any good?

 

I thought Grizzly Man was pretty good. Tim Treadwell was pretty mentally ill. I don't think he deserved his end (and his girlfriend certainly didn't), but I'd imagine that trying to climb K2 is about as safe as what he did.

[NightOfJoy]

Are "White Diamond" and "Aquirre-The Wrath of God" any good?

 

I thought Grizzly Man was pretty good. Tim Treadwell was pretty mentally ill. I don't think he deserved his end (and his girlfriend certainly didn't), but I'd imagine that trying to climb K2 is about as safe as what he did.

 

I did like all three films. Something that Herzog does that intrigues me......he will dwell on a scene, sometimes for an uncomfortable length of time, in order for a particular point to made or sometimes just because something is just so beautiful to behold. One scene in White Diamond, he focuses on a single drop of water...and the impact is dramatic.

[owl]

I'll have to check those out.

 

Did you ever hear about the one in which he eats his own shoe per a bet with Errol Morris?

[Synthesizer Patel]

I didn't like Grizzly Man much at all, however, I think Werner Herzog is probably the most interesting man alive, so I am very very biased about this. Here's a list of films by him that I think you should see next:

 

01. The Engima Of Kaspar Hauser

Herzog's film is based upon the true and mysterious story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to speak or walk, and bearing a strange note; he later explained that he had been held captive in a dungeon of some sort for his entire life that he could remember, and had only just been released, for reasons unknown. His benefactor attempts to integrate him into society, with intriguing results.

It also stars Bruno S. who, himself, is almost as much of an enigma as Kaspar Hauser.

 

02. Stroszek

Bruno Stroszek is released from prison and warned to stop drinking. He has few skills and fewer expectations: with a glockenspiel and an accordion, he ekes out a living as a street musician. He befriends Eva, a prostitute down on her luck. After they are harried and beaten by the thugs who have been Eva's pimps, they join Bruno's neighbor, Scheitz, an elderly eccentric, when he leaves Germany to live in Wisconsin. In that winter bound, barren prairie, Bruno works as a mechanic, Eva as a waitress. They buy a trailer. Then, bills mount, the bank threatens to repossess the trailer, Eva wants privacy, and inexorably, the promise of a new life deserts Bruno.

Again, staring Bruno S. and containing the strangest ending in film history.

 

03. Fata Morgana

This is Herzog's attempt to film mirages in the desert, amongst other weird imagery. It was supposed to be a science-fiction film, and is set to the Mayan Creationist Myth.

 

04. Woyzeck

Everything in town appears calm, placid, lovely. But Woyzeck, a rifleman assigned as an orderly, hears voices -- the times are out of joint, at least in his cosmos. To his captain, Woyzeck is a comic marvel: ignorant but courageous, full of energy to little purpose. To a local doctor, Woyzeck is a curiosity, the object of cruel study. Woyzeck, 40, has a young wife, Marie, and a small child. He dotes on them, but Marie, even though she has periods of guilt and remorse, carries on affairs and flirtations. When the captain lets drop broad hints of Woyzeck's being a cuckold, his inner demons and the voices of the spheres take over. Will madness bring action? Of what sort?

My second favourite film of his collaborations with Kinski (behind Aguirre)

 

05. Fitzcarraldo

Kinski plays the title role of an obsessed opera lover who wants to build an opera in the jungle. To accomplish this he first has to make a fortune in the rubber business, and his cunning plan involves hauling an enormous river boat across a small mountain with aid from the local indians.

This can virtually be viewed as a documentary. Herzog actually did haul a steamboat over a mountain - this is real!

 

06. My Best Fiend

Documentary about the relationship between Kinski and Herzog.

 

07. Little Dieter Needs To Fly

Documentary about a pilot shot down in Vietnam and his capture and escape. He's just made this into a feature film, with Christian Bale, which looks kind of poor in comparison to this documentary.

 

08. Heart Of Glass

Very hard to watch, as all the cast are hypnotised. But, with the commentary on it is incredibly interesting.

 

09. Cobre Verde

The feared bandit Cobra Verde (Klaus Kinski) is hired by a plantation owner to supervise his slaves. After the owner suspects Cobra Verde of consorting with his young daughters, the owner wishes him gone. Rather than kill him,the owner sends Cobra Verde to Africa. The only white man in the area, Cobra Verde finds himself the victim of torture and humiliation. Later, he trains soldiers in a rebel army. Far from home, Cobra Verde is on the edge of madness.

This is the last film he made with Kinski. Not his best, but still worth seeing.

 

Those are the ones I'd say are essential, but anything by Werner Herzog is worth watching if you can. Most of these are available on two box sets that were released in the uk (not sure if they came out in America) at a very reasonable price, so even if you order them from the UK and pay the post, it'll be well worth it in the end.

 

Hope that is some help (the quotes are all from imdb.com)

 

Oh, and I've never seen Even Dwarfs Started Small, but this you tube clip looks great: dwarf arguing with tree

[Smokestack Joe]

Herzog is great!!

if you find Kinski a rage, check out My Best Fiend, a doc on the relationship between Kinski and Herzog. quite the doc.

Fitzcarraldo is also a captivating film. My Best Fiend has a lot of footage during that film. great stuff.

[NightOfJoy]

Excellent, thanks to all!

[Synthesizer Patel]

I'll have to check those out.

 

Did you ever hear about the one in which he eats his own shoe per a bet with Errol Morris?

 

It's on youtube. He had to eat it because he bet Errol Morris that he'd never make a film in his life because he always talked about it, but never seemed to have the drive to get up and do it; and if Morris did then he'd eat his own shoe. Morris did, so he did.

 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

[anodyne]

i can't think of herzog and not think of kinski. i can't think of kinski and not think of this short film.

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NqoO6VBibps

[poonkorama]

Just saw Grizzly Man and thought it was pretty good.

 

Check out that film Julien Donkey-Boy---Werner Herzog is in it (acting, not directing). Pretty unusual movie, as is the often the case with Harmony Korine's projects. Herzog's character is pretty f'd up and creepy in this one.

[LouieB]

Are "White Diamond" and "Aquirre-The Wrath of God" any good?

I have not seen White Diamond, but Aguirre is one of the best movies ever made. It was at the Music Box this December and I dragged TG to see it.

 

LouieB

[jahilia]

Are "White Diamond" and "Aquirre-The Wrath of God" any good?

 

I'm a huge Herzog fan and I think White Diamond is his best. The last 20 minutes of Aguirre are probably the most powerful 20 minutes ever! See them both.

My Best Fiend and Burden of Dreams are great - Burden of Dreams is about the making of Fitzcarraldo, and knowing how crazy Herzog is made me appreciate his films much more. The man is just as fascinating as his films.

Incident at Loch Ness is fun. It's a mockumentary type film by Zak Penn (X-Men) - not as good as Christopher Guest's stuff, but Herzog is fun to watch.

I'd also recommend Nosferatu - Kinski is very creepy and the film just overflows with beauty and sadness. I really didn't care much for Bruno S. in Kaspar Hauser, but I did enjoy Strozek a lot.

Enjoy!

[Synthesizer Patel]

I'm a huge Herzog fan and I think White Diamond is his best. The last 20 minutes of Aguirre are probably the most powerful 20 minutes ever! See them both.

My Best Fiend and Burden of Dreams are great - Burden of Dreams is about the making of Fitzcarraldo, and knowing how crazy Herzog is made me appreciate his films much more. The man is just as fascinating as his films.

Incident at Loch Ness is fun. It's a mockumentary type film by Zak Penn (X-Men) - not as good as Christopher Guest's stuff, but Herzog is fun to watch.

I'd also recommend Nosferatu - Kinski is very creepy and the film just overflows with beauty and sadness. I really didn't care much for Bruno S. in Kaspar Hauser, but I did enjoy Strozek a lot.

Enjoy!

 

Nosferatu is my least favourite of the Herzog/Kinski films - I think something jarred with me about the fact that it was filmed in the style of a silent movie, yet had sound; and something about that just didn't seem to work with me.

Why didn't you like Kaspar Hauser? That is one of my favourite films of all time.

[jahilia]

Why didn't you like Kaspar Hauser? That is one of my favourite films of all time.

 

Well, to be honest I didn't give it a fair chance. Before watching the film, I had read about Bruno S., and it seemed almost cruel to cast him as Kaspar Hauser. Also, I had a really hard time getting into the story because of the age difference between Bruno S and the real Kaspar Hauser. He was what, 40 years old and playing a 14 or 16 year old? It was mainly those things combined that prompted me to turn the movie off before I was halfway through it. I'm sure it deserves another attempted viewing, as I've loved everything else I've seen by Herzog.

I think that silent film style is what I liked most about Nosferatu. Kind of reminiscent of Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Murnau and German Expressionism. And the pacing - you have this story that you think of as intense and action packed, yet it just simmers most of the time.

I haven't seen Fata Morgana, but it sounds like it could be great. I'll have to find that on Netflix.

[Beltmann]

I have not seen White Diamond, but Aguirre is one of the best movies ever made. It was at the Music Box this December and I dragged TG to see it.

You just may be the coolest dad alive.

[Synthesizer Patel]

Well, to be honest I didn't give it a fair chance. Before watching the film, I had read about Bruno S., and it seemed almost cruel to cast him as Kaspar Hauser. Also, I had a really hard time getting into the story because of the age difference between Bruno S and the real Kaspar Hauser. He was what, 40 years old and playing a 14 or 16 year old? It was mainly those things combined that prompted me to turn the movie off before I was halfway through it. I'm sure it deserves another attempted viewing, as I've loved everything else I've seen by Herzog.

I think that silent film style is what I liked most about Nosferatu. Kind of reminiscent of Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Murnau and German Expressionism. And the pacing - you have this story that you think of as intense and action packed, yet it just simmers most of the time.

I haven't seen Fata Morgana, but it sounds like it could be great. I'll have to find that on Netflix.

 

I never even thought about the age difference myself. I guess it's one of those things where Bruno S was perfect for the role apart from his age, so that was over-looked. I kind of get fed up when you watch all these 'making-of' hollywood films where they get these historians in and say how accurate it is from the point of view of the sets/costumes/key events etc... yet, for want of a better word, the films suck. The hollywood way of making that film would have been to choose a child of comparible age and then make it into a mystery film about where Kaspar came from and who ultimately killed him - that isn't what Herzog is interested in, he's interested in how society shapes us - so he had to take a non-actor like Bruno S, with all his problems, to put a character on screen that can portray that best.

 

Fata Morgana is very interesting. It actually works better with the commentary on, because of the amazing stories Herzog comes out with - like walking from Munich to Paris to visit Lotte Eisner who was dvery ill at the time (he told himself that she would not dare to die until he arrived and that he had to do it on foot for this to be the case).

[jahilia]

Fata Morgana is very interesting. It actually works better with the commentary on, because of the amazing stories Herzog comes out with - like walking from Munich to Paris to visit Lotte Eisner who was dvery ill at the time (he told himself that she would not dare to die until he arrived and that he had to do it on foot for this to be the case).

 

Have you read his book, Walking in Ice? It's probably out of print - I found it in the Univerrsity library. It's his diaries from that trip. Interesting read.

I'll have to watch Fata Morgana - I could listen to him talk for hours!

[LouieB]

You just may be the coolest dad alive.

Well aside from the fact that it is one of my favorite movies ever (it came out when I was in my 20s I think), I figure my daughter the film student really needed to see it.

 

After seeing it and checking out some info on the IMDB, we discovered that Aguirre was NOT storyboarded and was filmed with an unbelievably small crew. That makes the entire movie even more amazing. Between the footage coming off the Andes, the crazy shit that goes on while on the river and then the final gut wrenching disintegration of the entire enterprise complete with cute monkeys and all; no matter whether or not the near fatal feud between Kinski and Herzog was actually true, few movies are as compelling as this one, period.

 

Herzog has a new movie in production that promises to be really good. There was an article about it in the New Yorker a few months back. Fitzcaraldo and Noseratu are also good movies, but for my money, Aguirre is still the best. (Well needless to say there are several of his more recent movies (last 20 years) that I have not seen.)

 

LouieB

[Beltmann]

but for my money, Aguirre is still the best.

I'm passionate about Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man, but I agree that Aguirre is his best--it's a mad vision about madness. And I love how Kinski is such a limping, tilting snake.

 

The discussions above are very good, but I'd like to add that I think Invincible is quite underrated. I felt like I was watching a modern-day silent film, with all the melodramatic glory and visual grandeur that implies. The settings, which are often elaborate palaces of trickery, are marvelous, and so is Tim Roth's performance as a bogus, power-hungry hypnotist.

[LouieB]

I'm passionate about Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man, but I agree that Aguirre is his best--it's a mad vision about madness. And I love how Kinski is such a limping, tilting snake.

I have not kept up on my Herzog and have not rented Grizzly Man. Fitzcarraldo is a great movie too, but somehow taken in order it seems like a sequel to Aguirre with the crazy trip and jungle and all. As mentioned the documentary about the making of the movie is a must see as well.

 

I wish I could find the article that was in the New Yorker about his new movie about a prisoner of war and his travails. If someone has info on that, it is worth sharing.

 

LouieB

[Synthesizer Patel]

I wish I could find the article that was in the New Yorker about his new movie about a prisoner of war and his travails. If someone has info on that, it is worth sharing.

 

LouieB

 

I mentioned it in my first post. He made the documentary called Little Dieter Needs To Fly (which is a great doc, by the way), and it's that same story as a movie - starring Christian Bale as Deiter. It's about a german who saw a fighter pilot fly past his window when his village was bombed in the second world war, and that event made him realize that the one thing he needed to do in life was fly. He then moved to the USA and joined the airforce, ultimately getting to fly in the vietnam war. He was shot down and then captured, and then escaped again. That's the jist of the story, but what I've seen of the trailer for Rescue Dawn (that's what the film is called), it looks far too Hollywood for Herzog - then again maybe that's just the trailer, to try and attract a larger audience.

[LouieB]

I mentioned it in my first post. He made the documentary called Little Dieter Needs To Fly (which is a great doc, by the way), and it's that same story as a movie - starring Christian Bale as Deiter. It's about a german who saw a fighter pilot fly past his window when his village was bombed in the second world war, and that event made him realize that the one thing he needed to do in life was fly. He then moved to the USA and joined the airforce, ultimately getting to fly in the vietnam war. He was shot down and then captured, and then escaped again. That's the jist of the story, but what I've seen of the trailer for Rescue Dawn (that's what the film is called), it looks far too Hollywood for Herzog - then again maybe that's just the trailer, to try and attract a larger audience.

thanks for going back to this. Hollywood or not, it fits Herzog's theme of man against the world. Herzog isn't getting any younger, so any new movie will be a treat.

 

LouieB

[Synthesizer Patel]

thanks for going back to this. Hollywood or not, it fits Herzog's theme of man against the world. Herzog isn't getting any younger, so any new movie will be a treat.

 

LouieB

 

That's true. I did hear that he had problems with the producers over the film, that's the only thing that puts me off a bit (especially after seeing the trailer - which you can see here) It just doesn't look like one of his films. It's funny actually, cos he openly admits that his documentaries kind of cross the boundaries of documentary film making because he often rehearses what people will say or manipulates them like actors, and the documentary was good enough to not need to make this film. But, then he's not a man who is motivated by money or fame, so he must have his reasons for it I guess.

[LouieB]

The trailer looks like crap, but the film actually looks pretty good.

 

LouieB

[Beltmann]

Did anybody else see Incident at Loch Ness? It's a fake documentary about Herzog traveling to Scotland to shoot a documentary about, well, you know. Although the movie swiftly dispenses with credibility--to amusing effect, I think--Herzog, who plays himself, remains its believably aggrieved center. The man behind such gravely ambitious films as Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo exhibits the lightest, most amusing touch of his career. By the end you might be convinced that Herzog's rep as a humorless tyrant is the real hoax.

 

Most of the buzz surrounding Rescue Dawn has been, as far as I can tell, rather iffy. But I'm excited nevertheless.