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The Director's Chair => The Director's Chair => Topic started by: adolfwolfli on August 06, 2003, 01:05:56 PM

Title: Werner Herzog
Post by: adolfwolfli on August 06, 2003, 01:05:56 PM
I've been going through a Herzog phase lately, and am topping it off by reading the new compilation of interviews "Herzog on Herzog" edited by Paul Cronin.  The man is simply amazing.  I think the rumors and accusations of madness and megalomania are exagerrated and untrue; he comes off in the interviews as intelligent but unpretentious, dedicated, hard-working, humble and filled with amazing acecdotes and crazy stories.  He's fiercely self-sufficent, brave, fearless and driven to make the films he makes, and I think we need more people like that.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about him is that he claims that in no way is he an "artist", and in fact abhors the term.  He describes  himself as a "craftsmen" along with lines of a medieval iron worker or shipbuilder.  He constantly refers to filmmaking as an "athletic" process and that it's physcial exertion and faith that make movies, not money and intellectual brain-power.

I don't know about anyone else, but Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, Even Dwarves Started Small, Lessons of Darkness, Stroyzec, Caspar Hauser, etc. are some of the most amazing films I have ever seen.  Challenging and exhausting, yes, but brilliant nonetheless.

Anyone agree? Disagree
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: (kelvin) on August 06, 2003, 03:00:54 PM
I agree completely. Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo are amazing films. In Herzog's films, you can always find an enormous strength that propulses the characters, that guides, pushes, and eventually destroys them. They portray will power, fanaticism and shortsightedness, concerning as well ideology as pragmaticism.
But you shouldn't forget Klaus Kinski in Herzog's films...Kinski was the archetype of the egocentric and eccentric maniac...both had known each other for a long time and had a very "special" relationship. In his picture "My Best Fiend" (Herzog on Kinski), the director states himself that he a) threatened Kinski to shoot him if he didn't co-operate (e.g. play his part) b) wanted to burn Kinski's house c) regretted that he had not accepted the Indian's offer who wanted to kill Kinski... (during the making of Fitzcarraldo)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Find Your Magali on August 08, 2003, 02:55:49 PM
I just picked up the Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo DVDs this week and will be watching them soon, for the first time. Very excited.

Stroszek is the only Herzog film I have previously seen (in a college film class).
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: adolfwolfli on August 08, 2003, 05:40:12 PM
Stroszek is actually one of my favorites out of all of them.  I love Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo for their grand visions and Kinski's madness, but Stroszek is very moving, and the chicken scene at the end is pure craziness.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MrBurgerKing on August 25, 2003, 01:23:00 PM
I don't want to bump up this thread and have it die with this being the last reply, so let me tell you that my heart skipped when I saw this thread because I got so excited. Mr Herzog doesn't make films, he turns the camera onto life itself, exposing all the nature and details of ourselves. When we watch one of Herzog's grand operas, we're not watching Fitzcarraldo's dream come true, or Aguirre's dream slowly shatter along with his mind, we're watching ourselves. His films are mirrors that we look into, disguised as great epic dreams. The vampyre of Nosferatu lives forever in all of us, spreading plague onto an already plagued world. Yes, Kinski is crazy, but so are we, because that psychotic German is only exposing our own inconsistances through his life and work.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on August 27, 2003, 04:10:42 PM
Amen to that! Hail to the king of German cinema. My favs are Aguirre, Stroszek and the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Its great to know that Herzog still has it after all these years with Invincible.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MrBurgerKing on August 27, 2003, 11:14:06 PM
In Aguirre the wrath of god, there's a point where Herzog stops the film and holds the camera on the water for a minute or so while the scary music plays. At first you say it's just water, but soon the camera goes in closer and closer, frozen on the water, because the water deserves this close-up. It's a character onto itself. After a while it looks more like boiling water than river water. As if the fires of hell are right below it. Satan brought out his ugly head, becoming a part of Aguirre. I've never seen water so engaging and mysterious, and erotic, sensual, constantly moving up and down like some sort of machine. I usually go for Orange Soda, but I'll have to order water next time I go out to lunch.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on September 02, 2003, 01:23:20 AM
And everytime Kinski exclaims that he's the Wrath of God, I really shiver. And the final scene with the monkeys taking over the raft and Aguirre picks it up. Like Herzog says, nobody could toss it like Kinski. That shot is so memorable to me. One thing that I don't feel is touched on enough is all the last words in the film. The last things we hear from people.. Every death we see and every arrow hit has a great line. "That is no arrow" and "ten".. Films nowadays don't do this. The aim for gore and "realism" when the impact hits best in a film like Aguirre. I don't care to see the blood gush or pour out when someones decapitated... Herzog knows what the fuck he's doing. Oh, what else.. the suspense is great. When the raft is heading towards them and one of them exclaims that they're saying the meat is heading this way. He allows the camera to stare at Aguirre and we know they're doomed. But by the end of the film though, we trust he's the wrath of god.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on October 15, 2003, 06:54:04 PM
The Enigma of Loch Ness (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374639/)

Werner Herzog directing a movies about Loch Ness is good.

And it's written by the guy who wrote X2 and PCU!

Movies are crazy. Everytime I start to hate them, they go and do something like this!
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ernie on October 16, 2003, 03:37:01 PM
His Noferatu remake is on its way from netflix...recommended through 4 5 star ratings. I've been wanting to see some of his stuff. Heart Of Glass sounds beautiful.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on October 16, 2003, 04:37:36 PM
Quote from: ebeamanHis Noferatu remake is on its way from netflix...recommended through 4 5 star ratings. I've been wanting to see some of his stuff. Heart Of Glass sounds beautiful.

Which Herzogs have you seen thus far?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ernie on October 17, 2003, 02:35:14 PM
Quote from: CinephileWhich Herzogs have you seen thus far?

None at all yet. Why? Is there a particular one I should start with?

I can only get what is available on Netflix and those two just sounded the most interesting and accessible, which is what I like to start with when getting into a new director. Like, I saw Boogie Nights first with PTA and Pulp Fiction first with Quentin Tarantino. The vampire one is a familiar story...and then it was so heavily recommended, I couldn't pass on it.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on October 18, 2003, 01:03:26 AM
Well I know any of the titles on this thread are worth seeing.. BK can probably go for hours about this..

Personally I'd start with his classic "Aguirre".. then do "Fitzcarraldo" and then "Nosferatu." So once you've nailed the best Kinski films, see "Stroszek" and then "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" for the amazing Bruno S. films.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ghostboy on October 18, 2003, 01:10:36 AM
One of my friends in LA is meeting with Werner Herzog next week...he (Herzog) is going to play a part in his (my friend's) next film. Pretty sweet.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on October 18, 2003, 01:20:40 AM
:shock:
Pretty fuckin' sweet indeed. I loved his little appearance in What Dreams May Come.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MrBurgerKing on October 18, 2003, 07:53:58 PM
I could never put HERZOG in a movie, I wouldn't deserve that man. He's too good for me. Same way I feel about most beautiful women actually.. Yep, I'm single, but I had subway for lunch.

I was watching Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and Bruce S made my face melt off with his portrayal. I love how the first 10 or so minutes of the movie is just him going through his cave-man routine. Then he slowly transforms into a normal man. How could anyone make this movie? That's how I feel when I take a bite into a cheeseburger from burger king. How is it possible? I've done nothing to earn it, but thanks god for it. Remember when the scientist pricks cut the brain up at the end? The scumbags bragging about how they discovered what made Kaspar tick. Really they should have been cutting up their own brains to see what makes them tick. That whole flick was too ahead of its time.  

by the way, nice picture, Cinephile! Now we both have Kinski avatars. Wasn't that man amazing? You can see how versatile an actor he is just by looking at our avatar's back to back. When ebeaman ends up loving Nosferatu, he should use a kinski vampire avatar.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ernie on October 21, 2003, 05:52:10 PM
Just sent the thing back yesterday. After letting it sink in and giving it a night, I really don't think I liked it. There was something in the opening shots that was intriguing and very very creepy but that mood never kept up in my eyes. It became very boring to watch after that, so early in the film. The music was awful. I'll probably wait awhile to give another Herzog film a try. This was a big disappointment.

By the way, glad to know you think I'm so predictable BK, I didn't really know about that. I kinda wish I had liked this movie, it probably looks like I'm just trying to spite you now.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: molly on October 21, 2003, 07:04:55 PM
I've seen a documentary with Herzog, partially like an interview,: it was most about Klaus Kinski - that guy is sick! Herzogtalked about how  they were shooting in some rainforrest, in South America, and a snake bit some worker - he (the worker) in a second grabbed a chain saw and cut off his own leg, because he knew the snake was so poisonous that his heart would stop in few minutes. All the people were shocked, worried about that worker, and Kinski couldn't stand that and had like a minor nervous breakdown. In his theatrical way.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on October 23, 2003, 10:34:42 AM
I wonder which doc that was. It might've been Burden of Dreams or My Best Fiend.. but I don't know really.
Anyway, I'm depressed that ebeaman was very disappointed by Herzog's Nosferatu. Herzog's films are some of the best of European cinema. Maybe you should give Aguirre a try, but since BK made me look forward to you having a Nosferatu av, I've now switched mine. I like this one though, so I guess it's sort of a happy ending.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SoNowThen on November 22, 2003, 10:12:32 PM
So I just watched Nosferatu. I've seen Aguirre, and loved it, so I had huge expectations for this one. I also decided to rent Murnau's original Nosferatu (which I hadn't seen before). So that was okay, like all the silent cinema I've watched, it's more out of obligation than pleasure.

But anyway, I sat down tonight with a nice meal, and the lights off, and put in Herzog's version. At first I was struck by the beauty of the cinematography. Then, as it progressed, it was Kinski's onscreen presence. But as I got to the 3/4 mark of the movie, I started to say to myself that maybe I shouldn't have watched them both in the same day, seeing as how Herzog stuck so close to the Murnau version, and I've already seen Coppola's Dracula, so the story was not surprising me. Slowly I was becoming disappointed.

But then came the shot of Jonathan's wife wandering through the city square, and all the people dancing and dining madly in the open. And from here on, without giving any spoilers, Herzog took it to a new level. And now I'm so very happy that I watched the original this morning. See, I'm used to vampire movies with tons of blood and action, and so while being disappointed with the original, it got me in the right mindset for this version. And as the last couple minutes set in, a wave of emotions hit: first victory, then sadness, then absurdity, then finally, stark and brutal realization of an even greater horror! Those of you who've seen the film will know what I mean. Incredible, incredible ending. Staggering.

More sombre and contemplative and creepy, than frightening. And that's the point. This is a viewing experience that's gonna stick with me for awhile.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ernie on November 23, 2003, 08:21:56 PM
You wanna talk about viewing experiences never to be forgotten?

Alright so get this, despite my disappointment with Nosferatu I just went on a Herzog binge this past weekend for reasons that I can't explain...yea, I went to the library and just went all out - Stroszek, Aguirre, and Kaspar and let me tell you, I just got fucked...three of the best movies I've ever seen...overkill, too much for one weekend. They all completely messed me up in the best way...I'll never forget this I don't think. I wish I could take back my top 30 and put each one of these on there, no joke. This is one of those times when things work out...when you just go on an impulse and it clicks.

Thanks to Mr Burgerking by the way, I don't know for sure but I think you were part of the reason I decided to do this, I may never have seen any of them had I not heard of your passion for Herzog and rented them all at once. Three of the best, Herzog is a genius, plain and simple. I'll be checking Nosferatu out again by the way, the viewing of these three films would make me see any movie I had previously disliked by Herzog, even if it was akin to Pay It Forward, seriously. I know I just rambled more than I ever have but don't think that I'm not telling the truth.

And oh yea - I'll definitely be getting that Kinski avatar sooner or later Mr. Burgerking.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SoNowThen on November 24, 2003, 12:18:41 AM
SWEET!!!

Yeah, Aguirre is beautiful and haunting, hey Ebs?

I can't wait to watch the rest of this box set.

Cinephile and BK, you guys think I'll be okay blind buying Stroszek and Heart Of Glass?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: godardian on November 24, 2003, 12:34:18 AM
What does everyone (or anyone) think of Herzog's performance in julien donkey-boy?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: classical gas on November 24, 2003, 12:44:28 AM
i've never seen it, but i'm interested in who he played...was it a big role?  and is the movie worth it aside from the fact that he's in it?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on November 24, 2003, 09:33:49 AM
Quote from: SoNowThenCinephile and BK, you guys think I'll be okay blind buying Stroszek and Heart Of Glass?
More than okay, SoNowThen. Stroszek is one of my favourite movies. Heart of Glass is another Herzog visual masterpiece as well. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
This reminds me of that thing Ebert said once about envying the person's first time experiences. I wish I could go back to the first time I was introduced to Herzog's films.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MrBurgerKing on November 24, 2003, 06:12:30 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenBut then came the shot of Jonathan's wife wandering through the city square, and all the people dancing and dining madly in the open. And from here on, without giving any spoilers, Herzog took it to a new level. And now I'm so very happy that I watched the original this morning. See, I'm used to vampire movies with tons of blood and action, and so while being disappointed with the original, it got me in the right mindset for this version. And as the last couple minutes set in, a wave of emotions hit: first victory, then sadness, then absurdity, then finally, stark and brutal realization of an even greater horror! Those of you who've seen the film will know what I mean. Incredible, incredible ending. Staggering.

I agree, SoNowThen! I think those scenes are the best in the film. Everyone in the town faced with their own demise, the rats slowly taking over, Nosferatu spreading his cancer over the lands. It's moving and poetic in my eyes, I haven't really seen a movie before with such a depiction of an apocalypse. It strikes me as very real. One of my favorite scenes ever is the one with the family eating a big meal out on the streets, inviting the pale woman to join them, then it cuts to the same table completely covered in rats, the people all gone.

ebeaman that's awesome! Nosferatu is definately worth another watch now that you know Herzog's style. I never really enjoyed the whopper until I tried other BK foods (actually that's a lie, but it seemed appropriate)Fitzcarraldo is maybe my favorite from Herzog, even though it's the slowest. We need people like Fitzcarraldo in this world, otherwise what's the point?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on January 05, 2004, 03:32:47 PM
Anchor Bay will be re-releasing The Herzog/Kinski Collection which features Aguirre the Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde and the documentary My Best Fiend.


:( Just as I was purchasing the DVDs separately.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: (kelvin) on January 05, 2004, 03:54:58 PM
Quote from: CinephileAnchor Bay will be re-releasing The Herzog/Kinski Collection which features Aguirre the Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde and the documentary My Best Fiend.


:( Just as I was purchasing the DVDs separately.

I own this collection...it really was worth its money. What should be the best Herzog film apart from those?

By the way, the anecdote about Kinski told above can be seen in My best Fiend. Imagine to have to work with Kinski.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Sanjuro on February 11, 2004, 09:17:25 AM
there was a film feast the other week of werner herzog here and i was able to catch 'stozscek"... missed heart of glass, fata morgana, cobra verde and woyzeck

i really liked strozscek (sp)though... thing i didnt like is it kinda reminded me of Dancer in the dark... i dont know why, but it surely irritated me, but i guess this was way better than dancer
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SoNowThen on February 29, 2004, 03:58:09 PM
Finally opened up and watched Stroszek.

Hmmm, took me a few minutes to really get into it, but then just LOVED it. Funny, sad, realistic, bizarre. Ha.

The dancing chicken ending was perfection.

The mood and feeling and look are SO CLOSE to a feature my buddy and I are writing -- with the truck stop diner and the bland looking middle USA countryside. I particularily loved the moment when Bruno took the tow truck and began driving, and Herzog had the medium wide shot from in front, tracking with him, past all those rigs (and the tank!?) and on...

Oh, I gotta blind buy all the rest. Next dvd batch is gonna be Kaspar Hauser, and Heart Of Glass, and those docs that come together, Fata whatever and the one about oil. Anybody seen those?

I think I'll show this to a movie group of highschool kids. BK, Cinephile, Ebs -- think this'll go over with the kids?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ernie on March 03, 2004, 03:25:27 PM
QuoteHmmm, took me a few minutes to really get into it, but then just LOVED it. Funny, sad, realistic, bizarre. Ha.

Oh thank god, lol, I'm so glad you liked it, I was getting kinda worried that you wouldn't. Yea, it definitely has all the emotions, no question. I think you almost forgot disturbing too (the scene with the premature baby crying wildly). It's a very deep film, very full.

QuoteThe mood and feeling and look are SO CLOSE to a feature my buddy and I are writing -- with the truck stop diner and the bland looking middle USA countryside. I particularily loved the moment when Bruno took the tow truck and began driving, and Herzog had the medium wide shot from in front, tracking with him, past all those rigs (and the tank!?) and on...

Holy shit, for the life of me, I cannot recall the part your talking about. I have absolutely no idea. I'm definitely going to rewatch it this weekend and jog my memory. Even with such a detailed description, it's not ringing a bell.

By the way, keep me updated about that movie your making. I almost have the mind to recommend you check out Korine before you make too much more progress on it just because he calls Herzog his biggest influence overall. But do what you want, I don't think I could ever wholeheartedly recommend Korine's stuff to somebody, lol. But I'm just saying, since you do seem to like Herzog plus "Stroszek" is one of Harmony's top 10 films. I don't know, I just think you might not regret it completely even if you do end up getting very little out of "Gummo" or "Julien-Donkey Boy". Anyway, I don't think you wish you had never seen them.

QuoteOh, I gotta blind buy all the rest. Next dvd batch is gonna be Kaspar Hauser, and Heart Of Glass, and those docs that come together, Fata whatever and the one about oil. Anybody seen those?

Nope, not yet but I've always wanted to see Kasper Hauser. I might have already told you this but just so you know, I've heard "Heart of Glass" is supposedly the most unsafe Herzog blind buy there is. But I can definitely recommend you the Herzog/Kinski box set if you don't have that already. That thing is really freaking amazing man.

QuoteI think I'll show this to a movie group of highschool kids. BK, Cinephile, Ebs -- think this'll go over with the kids?

Hmmmmm, it's tough to say. I mean, not to sound like a dick but I'm like the only high school kid I know that likes movies with subtitles, lol. That'll really be your biggest hurdle as far as screening this one goes. I think they actually might take to it pretty well if they can get past that. I don't know if it's any different at the school your considering but it's just a fucking chorus of groans when the teacher slips in a subtitled movie in history, lol. But like I said, if they can get past having to read, it's probably one of the more accessible foreign films you could show to them imo. It's not hard to follow and there's a lot of themes high school students might recognize with Bruno becoming an outcast upon his arrival to America and even in his own country. Which is to say I don't think they'd be polarized by the subject matter either. So I would definitely give it a shot. At least they'll like the dancing chicken and the guy pulling one of his teeth out if nothing else, lol.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SoNowThen on April 12, 2004, 02:57:30 PM
Saw Heart Of Glass this weekend. A blind buy, even though I was recommended that might be iffy. At any rate, definitely not his most accessible film, but upon repeated viewing might just be his best film. Since I haven't had to time to repeat, I can't say yet. But what I can say is that for any of the Herzog fans who haven't seen it, now's the time. It is the mindfuck of your life. Damn, what an eerie, apocalyptic film. There's a prologue and a coda that don't have any literal connection with the film, but they are just amazing!!!

And once again, as in all Herzogs, images and music are beautiful -- in their way.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SoNowThen on May 07, 2004, 11:24:32 AM
Watched Lessons Of Darkness last night. Has Herzog ever made a bad movie?

Good good good. I liked it, but wanna watch it again, as it took me the whole time to fight off the ingrown urge to think "documentary = reality". Only afterwards did I start to take it in as Herzog's bizarre apocalyptic visions, rather than news footage of the middle east (which is the only other time I've ever seen the middle east, so it figures I would have that inital reaction).

I think this is one that could be seen over and over and never get tiring. And it has just about the most beautifully absurd image I've seen yet by WH...
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Chest Rockwell on September 05, 2004, 07:15:12 AM
For anyone that cares, Werner Herzog turned 62 today.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: modage on September 05, 2004, 10:54:22 AM
nope.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on September 05, 2004, 05:06:11 PM
Quote from: themodernage02nope.
That's because you don't watch Herzog films. Sucks to be you.


Thanks for the info, Chest.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: modage on September 05, 2004, 11:40:20 PM
no, its because i dont celebrate birthdays of people i never met.  unless theyre dead presidents or jesus and i get off from work.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: The Perineum Falcon on September 06, 2004, 12:01:35 AM
Quote from: themodernage02no, its because i dont celebrate birthdays of people i never met.  unless theyre dead presidents or jesus and i get off from work.
You work with Jesus?
That must be fun.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cine on September 06, 2004, 12:24:16 AM
Quote from: ranemaka13
Quote from: themodernage02jesus and i get off from work.
You work with Jesus?
That must be fun.
Only Easter time though.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on September 21, 2004, 09:50:59 PM
Herzog Vs. Nessie; Zak Penn & Werner Herzog Talk about "Incident at Loch Ness"
by Wendy Mitchell/indieWIRE

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fus.i1.yimg.com%2Fus.yimg.com%2Fi%2Fmovies%2Fnews%2Fiw%2F20040921%2F109578720000_1.jpg&hash=d97858955aa73530ccf566b9b9bf0cc58c9f2f63)

As a screenwriter, Zak Penn has worked on Hollywood hits from "X-Men 2" to "Last Action Hero" to the forthcoming Jennifer Garner vehicle "Elektra." But his directorial debut is anything but Hollywood -- it's a documentary-style project, shot for just $1.4 million, about film legend Werner Herzog making a film about the Loch Ness monster. But things aren't exactly as they seem -- this isn't really a factual "behind the scenes" documentary. We don't want to spoil the surprises by explaining much more than that. (To explore further, visit www.incidentatlochness.com.) As director Penn explains, "The movie is a more interesting experience if you don't know everything about it going into it. That's part of the experience: when do you start to realize what's up and what's real and what isn't?"

What we can reveal is that Herzog stars as himself, and Penn appears on screen as his producer. The two men are friends in real life -- they met when Penn was hired to help write a feature adaptation of Herzog's 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly." Working with famed cinematographer John Bailey, they shot "Incident at Loch Ness" in Los Angeles and on location in Scotland for 17 days in the summer of 2003. The film has already stirred up a bit of "Blair Witch"-esque buzz, and it captured the New American Cinema award at the 2004 Seattle International Film Festival.

indieWIRE's Wendy Mitchell recently spoke (separately) with Penn and Herzog about the project, trying to skirt around a few questions that might ruin your viewing experience. "Incident at Loch Ness" opened at select Landmark Theaters on September 17 (booked by Richard Abramowitz), and the filmmakers promise that the early 2005 DVD release will reveal all their secrets.

indieWIRE: How did you get this insane idea?

Zak Penn: Werner Herzog is a subject I've always been fascinated by, and I'm friends with him and I wanted desperately to do something with him. Plus I've been interested in these "In search of..." type ideas. I almost thought of it as "Alien vs. Predator" -- Herzog Vs. Nessie

iW: What did you admire about Werner and his films?

Penn: There's a lot to admire. Part of it is that he's almost like someone from another age, he's this incredible adventurer. He's so incredibly committed to his own dreams and his own visions. That's a rare thing to find, someone who is willing to live in the jungle for four years to make a work of art ["Aguirre, The Wrath Of God"], or who is willing to fly to a volcano that's about to explode for a story that needs to be told ["La Soufrière"]. You don't see much of that in filmmakers, because they get paid a lot of money and people kiss their ass.

iW: Why did you want to make yourself the Hollywood asshole villain in this? Was that fun?

Penn: It wasn't so much fun as it was necessary. Werner thinks I enjoyed it. It's easier to play the villain, no question, you get the good lines. But the movie needed it. I was writing everything in my head as I was going, and I realized this is working so I have to do more of it. It's creating conflict, so I have to do more of it. It's making people say funny things, so I have to do more of it. I have to confess that I never really thought that carefully before I started, because I'm playing myself, using my real name. So far it hasn't been so bad but a few people are really gotten angry at me for things that they perceive that I've done. It's pretty fucked up to honest with you. I don't think I'll do it again.

iW: Had you wanted to direct for a while? You've been very successful as a screenwriter, so why direct now?

Penn: All the clichés about people wanting to be director are true. If you have strong feelings about the material that you write, as a writer you are limited in how much you control how that material is presented. I've been rewritten, in my mind atrociously, a number of times. "Last Action Hero" was my first movie, and the second that movie happened, I was like, "Jesus Christ, I'm going to have to direct my own movies eventually if I want my sense of humor to get through." I'd wanted to direct for about five years, I wanted to direct my script of "Suspect Zero," which someone else ended up doing. And I wanted to direct a movie called "John Doe," which almost went into production twice. In frustration with that happening, I thought I would just go do something crazy. When people ask, "What is representative of your work?" I wanted to have something to point to. You know, I wrote the first couple of drafts of "X2" but a lot of other people worked on that. I wr ote a bunch of "Behind Enemy Lines," but that's not my passion project. Most of the movies I've worked on have other people's stamps all over them and I'm just a cog in the wheel. Also I hate sitting in a room by myself.

iW: Did you like working on the indie scale instead of a big Hollywood project?

Penn: I loved it and hated it for all the most obvious reasons. I'm used to working on $100 million movies, where there are huge amounts of money and the PAs probably could direct a movie themselves. I was really spoiled because of that. I'll bet the craft services budget for "Last Action Hero" was more than the entire budget for "Incident at Loch Ness." But I don't think anyone would have let me make this movie if I had to answer to them. That's the most fundamental thing.

iW: Was it hard shooting it for the budget that you had? The film looks like it cost more than $1.4 milion to make.

Penn: It's always a struggle, it's exhausting. To be fair, I waited a long time to make my indie debut... if you look at the people who made this film most of them are experts -- John Bailey has shot 50 films. I had a ridiculously overtalented core staff. We used to joke on the staff that I've worked on about 20 films, Werner has made 50, John has made 50, Russell [Williams] has made 22 and won two Oscars... you had a tremendous amount of experience on a set where we were eating tuna sandwiches. In the technical aspects of the film, we definitely excelled because everyone was willing to work for our budget because it was for Werner.

iW: Was it intimidating as a first-timer director working with people like John Bailey and Werner? Did they give you a lot of advice or did they just let you do your thing?

Penn: It was kind of intimidating, particularly the first couple of days. John particularly is a very intimidating presence because he has so much experience. So is Werner. But the thing about Werner, because he was my friend, it was kind of like playing pickup basketball with Michael Jordon on your team, any time you made a mistake, anytime anyone gave you shit, Michael would say, "Shut up," and they'd say, "OK, nevermind!" Werner never questioned any shot. And if he ever did have any issue, he would be the last one to question me in front of the crew. Merely by his presence, people were almost embarrassed -- "Wait, this guy almost got killed making a movie in the jungle, and who am I to complain that craft service wasn't any good?" Also he was this incredible force to have around.

iW: How collaborative was this film with Werner? How willing was to he to make fun of his own image?

Penn: Werner's sense of humor about himself is pretty apparent when you see the film. In terms of collaboration, it couldn't have been more collaborative. There was no screenplay, so he's coming up with his dialogue.

iW: It's interesting that you come from a screenwriting background yet your directorial debut doesn't really have a screenplay. Was that conscious to get away from being stuck to words on paper?

Penn: It wasn't conscious but you're probably right, I think that probably had something to do with it. Since I've written a lot of screenplays, I felt comfortable internalizing the lessons of story. Also, the kind of dialogue that gets people excited about scripts often is dialogue that doesn't translate as well to the screen as it should. My favorite dialogue in movies is when it seems real. But the stylized stuff that reads well in a screenplay, that's not really my tastes. But you can't do that in Hollywood -- you can't say "Wolverine and Storm have an offhand conversation" -- that doesn't fly. I understand why. But I long for the dialogue to seem real, and there's no better way to do that than to improvise.

indieWIRE: This film is a little bit crazy. Did Zak have to convince you to do this or did you immediately think it was a good idea?

Herzog: No, no. I thought it was a good idea, the whole phenomena of these collective monsters, alien abductions. It's a very fascinating subject because the borderlines of fact and truth and illusions and fabrications -- all this has become indistinguishable.

iW: Is this something that's always interested you with your own films, the hybrid of fact and fiction?

Herzog: Yeah, not really hybrid. But because of much experience with movie making, I've always asked myself, "Where's the borderline of fact and where does truth begin?" Truth is something much deeper then fact. And how do you get there, how do find a deeper stratum of truth? So I think that the idea that Zak had played very intelligently with these things.

iW: Why were you willing to make fun of your own image, playing around with the idea of how people might perceive you?

Herzog: I think Woody Allen does the same thing. I've acted in at least a dozen other films. You may have seen "Julien Donkey Boy" by Harmony Korine. I do that because I love everything about filmmaking -- producing films, directing, writing, editing, acting. I just love everything about it.

iW: Is it surreal playing a version of yourself on film?

Herzog: Well, of course it is stylized. Zak organized the film in a way that each character has somewhat his own identity. I mean, not completely -- he looks like a real bad guy in the film. I can confirm he is not that guy.

iW: When he started telling you about the premise of the film, how much of it was a collaboration between the two of you to decide exactly what path the film was going to take? Did you take his lead or did you offer a lot of suggestions?

Herzog: No, I took his lead. There's was something in the man, who was a writer so far -- he has this quality of leadership that you need as a director. And I always felt confident in him. Of course, many of the dialogues were spontaneously somehow invented, and much of what I say about Loch Ness monsters or alien abductions is my text in this case. Some of it was very precisely scripted, but most of it was organized around the real characters.

iW: Zak was saying that you were such a help to him on the set because you supported him, and wouldn't question him.

Penn: Sure, sure. Just imagine how awful it would've been if I would have somehow every day told him how to do it. You have to give him the possibility. He very often was right in choosing moments that were very hilarious. And I didn't see what was so hilarious about it, but he had the right instinct and I trusted him. One little example was that he saw me fiddling around with this razor and this particular razor blade would never fit, and I thought it was very banal to film that, and he said, "No, this is very funny." Now seeing the film with an audience, I see that every single male in the United States has had the same problem of razor blades that do not fit the razor. He saw much more of the hilarious side of things, and he was right, because people are laughing so hard throughout the film more than in an Eddie Murphy film. And, strangely enough, we kept saying to each another, this has to be a film where we "out Eddie" Eddie Murphy. Or "out Woody" Woody Allen.

iW: What did you think about Zak's directing style, as a director yourself?

Herzog: Well the style has to be established. You cannot speak of a directing style when somebody does his first feature film. But I can say a few things. Number one, you have to be a conceptualist. That's very important. You have to be good at casting. And both of those things he's done very, very well. And he has leadership. So what else do you need? I wouldn't know.

iW: Has the Loch Ness monster been an interest of yours? Or the idea, the need people have to create this monster?

Herzog: Well, I always said to everyone, I'm not out there to search physically for the monster. You just don't find it. It's just not there. Find it somewhere else in our collective paranoia. Find it in our collective dreams and nightmares. Why do we need the monster? That was the important question.

iW: How do you think audience members should go into this film?


Herzog: The real fun, the real joy of the audience is not knowing everything -- exactly what is fact, what is truth, what is invention. If you don't know, the great joy of the film is trying to figure out constantly throughout the film. So it's good if you don't give everything away. Yes, I invented elements. Yes, there are factually correct things. But where the crossovers occur --that is very puzzling and very hilarious. You would take too much of the joy of exploring the film if you give away everything.

iW: Do you think you'll pursue more acting in the future?

Herzog: It really depends on the project. There were quite a few projects that were offered to me and I didn't do them. It has to be something that I would also enjoy, where I had the feeling that would be a good film at the end.

iW: Going back to the idea you were talking about before of a larger truth, obviously this film isn't factual in certain parts, but do you think it's a truthful film?

Herzog: Well, we shouldn't start to get into philosophy. But at least it is searching for something. It is searching for an inner truth. It is searching our souls. Where is the monster and why do we need it?

iW: And what about truthfulness in its portrayal of you and your character?

Herzog: It somehow plays a little bit around that. Quite often I'm not how you see me in the film, but that's the joy of acting. And very much of the dialogue, when I speak about "ecstatic truth" and about facts and about why do we have so many people in the United States who have encounters with aliens and why do we have so many women abducted and gang raped, most of them over 350 pounds and why now -- the real question is -- why haven't we heard of a case like that in Ethiopia? So those are all my dialogue, my own thinking. And Zak plays with that. That's the nature of filmmaking and I love everything about it.

iW: Do you think you'll work with Zak again?

Herzog: At the moment, you may not believe it, but he's plotting to do a straightforward comedy, and I will probably be included. Nobody had discovered the Woody Allen in me.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on July 21, 2005, 01:12:39 AM
Bale, Zahn capture roles in 'Dawn'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Christian Bale and Steve Zahn will star in "Rescue Dawn," an action drama by Werner Herzog and based on the director's acclaimed 1997 documentary, "Little Dieter Needs to Fly."

The project, which has been coming together in fits and starts during the past year, begins shooting in Thailand in mid-August.
 
The film recounts the true story of German-born Dieter Dengler, who dreamed of being a pilot and eventually made his way to the United States, where he joined the military during the Vietnam War era. He was shot down over Vietnam and captured. Eventually he organized an escape with a small band of captives.

Bale will play Dengler, and Zahn will play an ill-looking and bent POW.

Producing are Gibraltar Entertainment's Elton Brand and Steve Marlton, Cameo FJ Entertainment's Freddy Braidy, Franceso Julliard and Elie Samaha.

Co-financing are Spice Factory and Werner Herzog Prods.

Gibraltar International is the sales agent.

The film has no domestic distributor.

Herzog's latest film, "Grizzly Man," is a documentary on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October 2003 while living among grizzlies in Alaska.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: life_boy on October 05, 2005, 10:50:22 AM
Has anyone seen Herzog's 1980 documentary (short) God's Angry Man?  It is a 45 minute long documentary about Gene Scott, an American televangelist.  It looks interesting as hell but also seems to be hard to come by (no DVD or VHS release).

Is it worthwhile?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: analogzombie on October 05, 2005, 04:53:26 PM
Quote from: SoNowThen
Stroszek

The dancing chicken ending was perfection.

Isn't this the film that Joy Division's Ian Curtis was watching when he hung himself?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: mogwai on October 05, 2005, 11:09:08 PM
yes, he probably wasn't a fan of herzog's movies.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: analogzombie on October 07, 2005, 07:03:07 AM
Quote from: mogwaiyes, he probably wasn't a fan of herzog's movies.

all fun aside, he had told his friends that he was going to stay in and watch it. he was actually a big herzog fan. There is a scene of this in 24 hour party people that's quite nice. It is a shot of the tv with the wild dancing chicken doing his jig and curtis' feet are dangling from the top left of frame.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Gamblour. on November 27, 2005, 04:19:43 PM
i think Herzog fanatics need to get together or else his vote'll be split and none of you will win. i'm being serious, i haven't seen any of his films (sadly) and i can't go and watch four or five films in time to vote. it seems he's great, but for the sake of the list! pick one.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: w/o horse on November 27, 2005, 04:44:49 PM
I voted for Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, The.  So my vote is for that movie. . .
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on November 27, 2005, 04:46:58 PM
ill be fine just as long as herzog is acknowledged.  id prefer it that fitzcarraldo was not the film to win however, not that it's not great, but because it's the most widely regarded, it seems.  its like naming "like a rolling stone" as the greatest dylan song.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: picolas on November 27, 2005, 05:05:05 PM
Quote from: eward on November 27, 2005, 04:46:58 PM
ill be fine just as long as herzog is acknowledged.  id prefer it that fitzcarraldo was not the film to win however, not that it's not great, but because it's the most widely regarded, it seems.  its like naming "like a rolling stone" as the greatest dylan song.
i think Aguirre is the most widely regarded.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SoNowThen on November 28, 2005, 02:12:57 AM
I say let's go with Stroszeck. Herzog fans unite!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Also, Land Of Silence And Darkness, I dunno how many of you have seen this, but I caught it at a really small venue in London this year, with a friend, and it has probably the funniest thing I've ever seen in a movie, I almost pissed my pants laughing, but everyone turned to frown at me, and the only way I could get through it was to walk to the back corner and face the wall for the rest of the movie...
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: w/o horse on November 28, 2005, 04:37:46 AM
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, The.  I think it's Herzog as the Grizzly Man, I think it's Herzog telling us that the world should be looked at different.  Stroszek, a movie that seems to be being championed in the campaign thread, I mean I love it but it's not nearly as out there as Enigma, I feel, you know.  It's composition is much smaller:  America isn't a dreamland.  It fits into a larger sect, a general 70s cinema statement.  Hell, ambiguous ending and all.  Great cinema, sure.  Great Herzog, would disagree, and say Enigma.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: meatwad on November 28, 2005, 10:26:45 AM
Quote from: SoNowThen on November 28, 2005, 02:12:57 AM
I say let's go with Stroszeck

second that
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on November 28, 2005, 01:05:32 PM
of his features, stroszek is my favorite.  so yeah, i have no problem going with it.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on November 28, 2005, 06:56:27 PM
ah man, my heart, so much of my heart belongs to kaspar hauser.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: planet_jake on December 16, 2005, 12:51:45 AM
For anyone interested, The White Diamond is defiantly my favorite film of the year, if not the decade.  I suggest everyone on this site go see it ASAP! It ha recently been released on DVD by Wellspring (Decent Transfer) and features some of the most stunning images Herzog has ever captured.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on December 16, 2005, 01:43:01 AM
check out I think october's issue of Filmmaker magazine, in which he talked about that film, it was a good interview.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: planet_jake on December 16, 2005, 02:26:23 AM
Groove. Thanks alot, I'll look for that!
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Garam on December 16, 2005, 02:27:32 AM
I just ordered the Herzog/Kinski boxset since you guys vouch for him so much. Pretty damn cheap, too. Only £20 for the five films and 'My best friend.'

I was slightly put off by Herzog, because some guy I know can't stand him. "Completely portentous...", He says.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SoNowThen on December 16, 2005, 04:09:16 AM
That's the best £20 you've ever spent.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: planet_jake on December 16, 2005, 10:03:05 AM
Groove.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pubrick on December 16, 2005, 10:12:24 AM
Quote from: planet_jake on December 16, 2005, 10:03:05 AM
Groove.
what the hell? :saywhat:
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: modage on December 16, 2005, 10:19:17 AM
Groove.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Gold Trumpet on December 16, 2005, 01:27:56 PM
I appreciate Herzog like the next guy. Hell, when I started a blog with a friend it was named after one of his films, but am I the only finding this sudden rush of Herzog euphoria odd?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on December 16, 2005, 02:30:32 PM
I think it's because he hasn't made a film like he used to since My Best Fiend (COUGH Invinclbe out of my lung they swallow it back like a phlegm with a tumor that I don't want little children to witness) so we're all happy that he's still the same and he's still got it. 
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: modage on December 16, 2005, 02:31:54 PM
i noticed it too and i was going to say something about it.  all these closet herzog fans are coming out recently.  my only impression so far was nosferatu and it was not a good one.  perhaps early next year i'll try to see a few more.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on December 16, 2005, 07:04:02 PM
yeah you should do that, nosferatu is definitly at the bottom of my list, tho its still worth seeing
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: mutinyco on December 16, 2005, 09:22:35 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcrossoverfollowing.com%2Fpresspicherzog.jpg&hash=a9925f6ad52c61b092a11e8d6c5ea4d341ada3b8)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: planet_jake on December 19, 2005, 02:31:32 AM
I still quite like Invincible and Nosferatu. But still, The White Diamond will ranks as one of his greatest films... Mark my words.

Has anyone here seen The Wild Blue Yonder? NoTrailer. Just stills. They all look incredible.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on December 19, 2005, 09:51:24 AM
I just thought invincible was ruined by probably the worst dubbing/ voice acting I'd ever heard.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cron on December 19, 2005, 01:17:21 PM
yeah, that movie definetely suffers from terrible production values. i remember a scene where tim roth slaps the lady and you can hear the slap before he even raises his hand.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on January 22, 2006, 09:06:22 PM
I just came back from Herzog's latest, "Wild Blue Yonder", his "sci-fi fantasy" that weaved the narration of an alien with fascinating images inside a NASA shuttle and some underwater seascapes.  The images were as exotic as anything in a Herzog film, but this one wasn't so mesmerizing--it was only hypnotic, maybe it was due to the fact that Herzog really wasn't there for any of the shooting, so it didn't feel as intimate as his other films?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on January 22, 2006, 09:19:27 PM
is it basically a lessons of darkness type thing?  doesn't fucking matter really, i'll see it no matter what, but is it?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on January 22, 2006, 10:02:49 PM
yeah, pretty much lessons of the darkness, but a little bit dryer.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Just Withnail on January 23, 2006, 08:43:39 AM
Now it's been a couple of months since I was it, so I may be slightly fuzzy on the details. Using underwater footage as an alien planet was an interesting choice, and Brad Dourif was good as the alien, doing Herzog's usual routine (though the philosopical discussions on nature are this time told trough a sci-fi narrative of a NASA mission trying to find mankind's next home). It suffers slightly from a lack of an appearance of Herzog to personally show us nature as he sees it, but Dourif is an able substitute. It used the sci-fi aspect to tell a us in that in the future, we've fucked our planet over, and we need a new place to stay, as well as a satirical plot on aliens landing on Earth. All as told by Dourif the alien. The biggest reward I felt this gave, was the opportunity to show us a beautiful alien planet - our last hope - and guess what, it's ours.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on February 02, 2006, 03:38:10 PM
Werner Herzog to Joaquin's Rescue!

We have a pretty good idea who Joaquin Phoenix's favorite director is these days.

In an only-in-La-La Land bit of serendipity, Phoenix tells the Los Angeles Times that none other than famed German director Werner Herzog came to his rescue after Phoenix accidentally flipped his car last week on a winding canyon road.

The 31-year-old actor, who scored an Oscar nomination earlier this week for his performance as Johnny Cash in the biopic Walk the Line, walked away from the mishap escaping serious injury.

According to the police report, the actor was driving along Lookout Mountain Avenue near Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills at about 3 p.m., when his brakes suddenly gave out. Trying to avoid a collision with another vehicle, Phoenix veered his car into an embankment, where it overturned, causing the driver's side airbag to deploy. The other driver was uninjured.

After the vehicle rolled over on its roof, Phoenix, who was wearing his seatbelt was flung into the passenger side. He told the Times he felt "a bit confused."

Enter Herzog.

"I remember this knocking on the passenger window," Phoenix said. "There was this German voice saying, 'Just relax.' There's the air bag. I can't see, and I'm saying, 'I'm fine. I am relaxed.' "

"Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, 'No, you're not.' And suddenly I said to myself, 'That's Werner Herzog!' " There's something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog's voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out."

An icon of German cinema, Herzog has been known for his sometimes reckless, hot-tempered and even dangerous approach to filmmaking--particularly in his ability to coax masterful performances from his onscreen foil, eccentric German acting legend Klaus Kinski. The two collaborated on such '70s classics as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Woyzeck and Nosferatu.

In the Criterion documentary Burden of Dreams, chronicling the making of the epic Fitzcarraldo, Herzog is shown deftly handling the seemingly half-crazed Kinski and commanding his crew to haul a steamboat over a mountain at a 40-degree angle.

In 1980, the volatile director famously ate his shoe--no, we're not kidding--after losing a bet with a filmmaker Errol Morris. Herzog scarfed down the boiled footwear with a bit of garlic and Tabasco sauce as he held forth on art, literature and life, all captured in the documentary Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

The 63-year-old's latest production is his most acclaimed in years. The documentary Grizzly Man details the heartwrenching story of naturalist Timothy Treadwell who became famous--and controversial--for his up-close-and-personal encounters with bears in the wilds of Alaska before meeting an untimely end. The film earned Herzog the award for Best Documentary Director from the Directors Guild of America last weekend. (The film was deemed not eligible for the Oscars.)

Herzog could not be reached for comment, but a rep for Lions Gate, the studio that released Grizzly Man, confirmed the director had indeed helped Phoenix out of the wreckage. And the actor is grateful.

"I got out of the car and I said, 'Thank you,' " Phoenix recounted. "And he was gone."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: matt35mm on February 02, 2006, 05:17:09 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on February 02, 2006, 03:38:10 PM
Werner Herzog to Joaquin's Rescue!

We have a pretty good idea who Joaquin Phoenix's favorite director is these days.

In an only-in-La-La Land bit of serendipity, Phoenix tells the Los Angeles Times that none other than famed German director Werner Herzog came to his rescue after Phoenix accidentally flipped his car last week on a winding canyon road.

The 31-year-old actor, who scored an Oscar nomination earlier this week for his performance as Johnny Cash in the biopic Walk the Line, walked away from the mishap escaping serious injury.

According to the police report, the actor was driving along Lookout Mountain Avenue near Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills at about 3 p.m., when his brakes suddenly gave out. Trying to avoid a collision with another vehicle, Phoenix veered his car into an embankment, where it overturned, causing the driver's side airbag to deploy. The other driver was uninjured.

After the vehicle rolled over on its roof, Phoenix, who was wearing his seatbelt was flung into the passenger side. He told the Times he felt "a bit confused."

Enter Herzog.

"I remember this knocking on the passenger window," Phoenix said. "There was this German voice saying, 'Just relax.' There's the air bag. I can't see, and I'm saying, 'I'm fine. I am relaxed.' "

"Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, 'No, you're not.' And suddenly I said to myself, 'That's Werner Herzog!' " There's something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog's voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out."

An icon of German cinema, Herzog has been known for his sometimes reckless, hot-tempered and even dangerous approach to filmmaking--particularly in his ability to coax masterful performances from his onscreen foil, eccentric German acting legend Klaus Kinski. The two collaborated on such '70s classics as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Woyzeck and Nosferatu.

In the Criterion documentary Burden of Dreams, chronicling the making of the epic Fitzcarraldo, Herzog is shown deftly handling the seemingly half-crazed Kinski and commanding his crew to haul a steamboat over a mountain at a 40-degree angle.

In 1980, the volatile director famously ate his shoe--no, we're not kidding--after losing a bet with a filmmaker Errol Morris. Herzog scarfed down the boiled footwear with a bit of garlic and Tabasco sauce as he held forth on art, literature and life, all captured in the documentary Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

The 63-year-old's latest production is his most acclaimed in years. The documentary Grizzly Man details the heartwrenching story of naturalist Timothy Treadwell who became famous--and controversial--for his up-close-and-personal encounters with bears in the wilds of Alaska before meeting an untimely end. The film earned Herzog the award for Best Documentary Director from the Directors Guild of America last weekend. (The film was deemed not eligible for the Oscars.)

Herzog could not be reached for comment, but a rep for Lions Gate, the studio that released Grizzly Man, confirmed the director had indeed helped Phoenix out of the wreckage. And the actor is grateful.

"I got out of the car and I said, 'Thank you,' " Phoenix recounted. "And he was gone."
... wow.  That's unreal.  And so so cool.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: modage on February 02, 2006, 06:43:49 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on February 02, 2006, 03:38:10 PM
"And he was gone."
werner herzog

keyser soze

think about it.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: The Perineum Falcon on February 03, 2006, 05:33:55 PM
I just found out, and perhaps it's a bit too late, but The Grizzly Man is said to play on the Discovery Channel, tonight, at 8pm EST.
I'm sure it'll rerun sometime soon, hopefully.

Thought that was interesting and so I'd share.

EDIT: :doh: Poop, Shangai beat me to it a few days ago in the actual thread for Grizzly, sooo... a friendly reminder?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on February 03, 2006, 06:06:24 PM
I just saw my best fiend again last night...on the big screen.  It was awesome on the big screen.  All herzog films should be viewed on the big screen!  Man, that ending in my best fiend always gets me, but when it's like huge it just made me weep. 
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: I Don't Believe in Beatles on February 05, 2006, 11:30:49 AM
Herzog Shot During Interview

By WENN|Friday, February 03, 2006

HOLLYWOOD - German director Werner Herzog was shot by a crazed fan during a recent interview with the BBC.
The 63-year-old was chatting with movie journalist Mark Kermode about his documentary Grizzly Man, when a sniper opened fire with an air rifle.

Kermode explains, "I thought a firecracker had gone off.

"Herzog, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, said, 'Oh, someone is shooting at us. We must go.'

"He had a bruise the size of a snooker ball, with a hole in. He just carried on with the interview while bleeding quietly in his boxer shorts."

An unrepentant Herzog insisted, "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid."

http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/id/3478770
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: modage on February 05, 2006, 01:47:54 PM
hah!  that's awesome.  if that's true somebody needs to make a movie of his life. between this and the car accident rescue, he is truly an amazing creature.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: matt35mm on February 05, 2006, 01:59:12 PM
I am beginning to think that Herzog may be God...

How do they know that the shooter was a "fan?"  If he or she was, then maybe that shooter was trying to prove that Herzog is God.  If so, mission accomplished.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: squints on February 05, 2006, 03:16:42 PM
Holy fucking shit thats amazing!

Why would anyone wanna shot Werner? I'll bet it was Kinski...
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Reinhold on February 05, 2006, 04:38:35 PM
i'd love to be herzog's publicist.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: 72teeth on February 06, 2006, 02:58:25 AM
video (http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/bb_rm_fs.stm?nbram=1&news=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1&nol_storyid=4681050)

Quote from: modage on February 02, 2006, 06:43:49 PM
werner herzog

keyser soze

think about it.

:ponder:
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: matt35mm on February 06, 2006, 03:33:33 AM
Herzog wears boxers.  Good to know.

I'm going to catch up on this guy's work... it's just too clear that I have to.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on February 06, 2006, 09:08:50 AM
well, he's been shot at by leftist guerillas in both South America and Africa, he's been threatened by Kinski, as well as the neighboring Indian tribes with arrows, he's been left alone almost frozen to death on the top of a mountain, escaped a volcano about to erupt...etc. I don't think being shot at by bb guns is a big deal for him.
you don't really need a movie on him when he's already got a book out called Herzog on Herzog.  Everyone should read it.  Even if you don't like his films it's just one great adventure after another.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on February 12, 2006, 07:26:20 PM
just saw little dieter needs to fly again.  WHAT AN AMAZING MOVIE!!!!
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on February 15, 2006, 01:47:00 PM
WERNER HERZOG IS COMING TO MASSACHUSETTES WITH FREDERICK WISEMAN

http://www.massmoca.org/performing_arts/perf_arts_apr06.html


just in time for my birthday which is the day before, and you best believe i've already called and put myself on the list...
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on February 15, 2006, 07:32:23 PM
whoa, where is north adams?  who cares, I'm going.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: colbent on February 24, 2006, 07:32:41 PM
http://www.travisandjonathan.com/GrizzlyBearMan.html
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ravi on March 07, 2006, 02:13:10 AM
I just finished Aguirre, Wrath of God.  Amazing film.  A gritty yet surreal film about the greed and perseverence of its subjects.  It takes to the extreme the traits that these European explorers had to have to be in such a place.  The film is more about absorbing everything sensually and not cerebrally and yet the film clearly has a particular vision and style.  This is the first Herzog film I've seen but from what I've heard about him, his films seem like they'd be the perfect combination of artistry and unpretentiousness.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: JG on March 25, 2006, 02:33:46 PM
From IMDB:
QuoteGerman director Werner Herzog has hailed Christian Bale one of the greatest actors of his time. The pair worked together on prisoner-of-war thriller Rescue Dawn, but the 63-year-old film-maker insists he spotted Bale's prodigious talent long before they met on set. Herzog says, "I find him one of the greatest talents of his generation. We made up our own minds long before he did Batman." In the film, based on true events, Bale's character gets shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War and must hatch an escape plan when he is captured and tortured.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on March 27, 2006, 09:45:18 PM
Hey boys and girls! HEY MOTHERFUCKING BOYS AND GIRLS!

Are you ready for some fucking Herzog?



How about 6 FUCKING DISCS OF HERZOG DOCS!? (http://www.wernerherzog.com/main/index.htm)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: I Don't Believe in Beatles on March 27, 2006, 10:30:19 PM
Yeah, but the price...   :yabbse-undecided: 
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on March 27, 2006, 10:34:10 PM
YEAH BUT YOUR MOM!   :evil:

Also, it's in Euros, so it's actually a good deal MORE than the advertised prices! Shit yeah!
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: I Don't Believe in Beatles on March 27, 2006, 10:37:24 PM
Quote from: ShanghaiOrange on March 27, 2006, 10:34:10 PM
YEAH BUT YOUR MOM!   :evil:

:shock:  I'm speechless.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on March 27, 2006, 10:40:38 PM
Quote from: Ginger on March 27, 2006, 10:37:24 PM
...but I, alone. am responsible for my spiritual existence.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Just Withnail on March 28, 2006, 02:53:55 AM
Shit. Seriously, shit! I can't afford that.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on March 28, 2006, 04:49:15 PM
I bought it, and in doing so, exceeded my credit limit. And I'd do it again. You all are pussies. THE MAN TOOK A BULLET AND RESCUED JOAQUIN PHEONIX FOR YOU! HELP HIM OUT!
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on March 28, 2006, 11:41:35 PM
yeah i heard about this a few months ago, ive been wanting to buy it but i cant now....soon tho, very soon, this needs to be owned....
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: grand theft sparrow on March 29, 2006, 08:34:18 AM
Quote from: ShanghaiOrange on March 28, 2006, 04:49:15 PM
THE MAN TOOK A BULLET

It was not a significant bullet.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: cron on April 05, 2006, 10:18:13 PM
shanghaiorange, you make me laugh like no other member, monkeyman.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on April 07, 2006, 07:31:57 PM
so i wasnt planning on meeting herzog til tomorrow but while watching High School before the Q and A with Fred Wiseman i looked to my right after hearing a familiar voice say "excuse me" to someone, and it was werner himself, two seats away.....i didnt approach him, i will tomorrow with my copy of land of silence and darkness...but i was at the reception afterwards so was he (wiseman unfortunately skipped it) and he ate alot of these crabcakes they were handing out, acting surprisingly friendly with everyone, even a few iffy lookin characters...anyways, ill come back tomorrow with what he says at the cnference and whatnot, but yeah I had a fun day - and it's my birthday!  worked out well

EDIT

saw herzog again tonight, this time i approached him, copy of LOSAD ready...he shook my hand and seemed rather pleased when he saw what dvd he was to sign for me, he said "this is a great film.  truly my favorite of them all.  i have a very deep love for this film." and i told him what i thought of it and he said "thank you so much for buying it, it means i get paid!".  the conference was cool too, some woman from nyu was there along with the guy who made tarnation, jonathan caouette, who was very friendly and approachable.  herzog talked about his excitement over cell phone video devices and how he believes a new aesthetic will emerge because of it, and he is eagerly waiting to see the first movies arise.  and frederick wiseman sat a row behind me.  terrific night.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on April 09, 2006, 03:36:36 PM
I was there too.  I had a cane because I had vertigo.  We drove 3 hours to the talk.  He shook my hand and for the first time in my life, I was speechless and I was almost like floored.  I just mumbled something unintelligeble and he smiled.  then earlier today I was at a record store in amherst when my friend Alissa spotted him going to lunch at some place and she tried her darndest to stall him while my buddy Ray ran to get me at the record store, but it was to no avail, he smiled at me from a distance and went to chow his meat.  so I was a little heartbroken.  my entire weekend consisted of partying and jamming and dancing and that talk, and not having a meaningful encounter with Herzog at that moment was just a cold shower.  I guess I'll have to work really hard now, to make a solid movie of some sort so I could meet him some day as somebody.
jonathan couette was just not on the same level as the other two filmmakers, and the moderator was a poop.
SO HEARTBROKEN.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: JG on April 09, 2006, 03:59:42 PM
if i had friends who know who herzog was i might have hit this up.  i've never see a whole wiseman film, but he's on the queue and the guy interests me.   someone was just telling me about caoutte, any good? 
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: hedwig on April 09, 2006, 04:19:08 PM
Quote from: JimmyGator on April 09, 2006, 03:59:42 PM
if i had friends who know who herzog was i might have hit this up.

you shouldn't have let that stop you..:yabbse-undecided:
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alethia on April 09, 2006, 05:44:32 PM
i wasnt big on tarnation, but caouette seemed like a very nice thoughtful intelligent guy, he stayed after for a while and chilled out and talked with everyone
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pubrick on April 10, 2006, 09:47:41 AM
Quote from: Hedwig on April 09, 2006, 04:19:08 PM
Quote from: JimmyGator on April 09, 2006, 03:59:42 PM
if i had friends who know who herzog was i might have hit this up.

you shouldn't have let that stop you..:yabbse-undecided:

yeah, most ppl who go don't have friends period.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: elpablo on April 10, 2006, 11:31:46 PM
lucid (or anyone else in the bay area), do you know anything about this:

http://fest06.sffs.org/events/live_onstage.php
http://upcoming.org/event/68679/

$25 for the general public

The upcoming.org link says "A tribute to Herzog, with an onstage interview, and program of clips, and a screening of his 2005 feature, "The Wild Blue Yonder," will take place at 7:30 p.m. April 26 at the Castro Theatre."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: I Don't Believe in Beatles on April 10, 2006, 11:54:59 PM
He's also getting an award (the 2006 Film Society Directing Award) the day after at the Westin St. Francis Hotel.  It's really expensive to get in to that though.  "Individuals $500/$1, 000/$1, 500".  Ed Harris and Jean-Claude Carriere will also be there.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on April 29, 2006, 01:35:00 PM
Herzog nourishes rural Bavarian roots

Werner Herzog, the German film director whose subjects include a man eaten by a grizzly bear, is fascinated by the interaction between humans and animals.

"I can tell those apart who can milk a cow, I mean with their bare hands," Herzog said in an interview this week. "Sometimes people can tell by looking at someone, 'Aha, this must be a drug dealer or this must a lawyer."'

That intuition helped Herzog, 63, break the ice while meeting a group of astronauts as he prepared for his latest film, "The Wild Blue Yonder," released in September and shown this week at the 49th annual San Francisco International Film Festival.

Herzog was in town to receive the 2006 San Francisco Film Society Directing Award on Thursday. The two-week festival runs through May 4.

Turning to one of the astronauts, Herzog recalled, he said, "'Sir, I grew up in the mountains, and I do know how to milk a cow.' I pointed at him and I said, 'I'm sure you can milk cows.' And he bursts into laughter and says, 'Yes, yes, as a kid in Tennessee, I milked cows."

Such encounters run through much of Herzog's work, which includes classics like the 1972 masterpiece "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" and "Nosferatu the Vampire," his 1979 remake of the silent film by F.W. Murnau.

Last year, Herzog made "Grizzly Man" -- a documentary-style film based on the story of Timothy Treadwell, who spent 13 summers in the Alaskan wilderness befriending bears and filming his adventures. In 2003 a bear killed Treadwell and his companion Amie Huguenard and ate their remains.

Herzog says he has never abandoned his rural Bavarian background, even if he has little time these days to visit Germany or the Alpine village of Sachrang where he grew up and learned to milk cows. When he is not in Thailand or Antarctica filming, Herzog lives "somewhere in the hills" in Los Angeles.

In "The Wild Blue Yonder," Herzog takes his interest in cultural and linguistic boundaries to outer space. An extraterrestrial played by Brad Dourif lands on Earth, made inhospitable by humans, who send astronauts to seek out an alternative planet.

Herzog in the film blends archival footage shot by astronauts on a space voyage in 1989 with underwater scenery from Antarctica. While the setting is a long way from Bavaria, the sense of an outsider confronting new realities can be traced to Herzog's cow-milking roots.

"I have never left my culture," Herzog said. "It doesn't matter whether I film with Australian aborigines or in Antarctica."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: elpablo on April 29, 2006, 11:01:58 PM
Quote from: Lucid on April 27, 2006, 04:16:32 PM
Okay, I missed the Q&A.  I have basically quarantined myself until I finish my ridiculous thesis.  Would anyone who went be kind enough to give a recap?

i'm in the same boat, unfortunately. i have a ton of work piling up for the end of the semester so i couldn't let myself leave my room without feeling guilty. even though now i feel guilty for not going. but i don't think i had enough money too anyways.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: I Don't Believe in Beatles on April 30, 2006, 07:05:09 PM
I stole this from Herzog's IMDB board.  It's very, very long but also very interesting.  From the New Yorker:



"The Ecstatic Truth"
By Daniel Zalewski

Werner Herzog's quest.

Werner Herzog hastily cordoned off swath of jungle with wooden sticks and yellow tape, like a cop marking a crime scene. "Nobody will cross this line!" he announced. It was late August, and the German director had travelled to northwest Thailand, a few miles from the border of Burma, to shoot "Rescue Dawn" amid virgin rain forest. It was his first Hollywood-funded feature, and he was determined to stop what he called the Apparatus --a squadron of makeup artists, special-effects engineers, and walkie-talkie-carrying professionals who had been deployed to work with him--from trampling on yet another pristine thicket. Herzog, who typically, works with a small crew and a minuscule budget, was pleased to have millions of dollars at his disposal, but he was not so pleased to have been saddled with more than a hundred collaborators. "I do not need all these assistants, " he complained. "I have to work around them." The enclave he had sequestered was filled with overgrown vines and rotting, semi-collapsed palm trees, and was partially hidden by a moss-slicked boulder. Herzog, having spent his childhood clambering across the Alpine slopes of southern Bavaria, says that he has an uncanny talent for "reading a landscape, " and he could immediately spot the danger: his primeval nook was an ideal place for a bathroom break.

A dozen Thai crew members began setting up equipment at the base of a sharply sloped mountain that appeared much taller than it was, owing to the ancient, absurdly distended trees that covered it. The mountain was garlanded with picturesque wisps of mist, but Herzog, who has filmed three documentaries and three features in deep jungle, did not want the terrain in his film to have the groomed, glistening-dewdrop look of so many movies set in frond-filled places. "The moment anything on this film becomes purely aesthetic, I will stop it, " he had promised.

Herzog, now sixty-three, no longer has the virile brown mustache of his youth, but his face has compensated by acquiring a patina of menace. Gravity has given his mouth a permanent frown. His blue eyes are partially obscured by thick, drooping brows, and they are perpetually rheumy, as if he were harboring a deadly tropical disease. "I am always being stopped at airports by drug-interdiction officials, " he said, with satisfaction. "There is something about my face that is sinister." The aura is heightened by his sonorous voice, which, in his heavily accented English, suggests a Teutonic Vincent Price. Herzog likes to say that he is "clinically sane and completely professional, " but he is keenly aware that his reputation is otherwise--"One of the most persistent rumors plaguing me is that I'm a crazy director doing crazy things"-and he is fascinated by the myriad ways that people form this impression.

Herzog has spent his career rushing headlong into new projects--in 2005, he released three documentaries, including the heralded "Grizzly Man, " and each was filmed on a different continent--but in "Rescue Dawn" he is revisiting familiar ground. The movie, his fifty-second, will be his first twice-told tale: a feature-film version of "Little Dieter Needs to Fly, " his 1997 documentary about Dieter Dengler, a German-American pilot who was shot down during a bombing mission over Laos, in the early days of the Vietnam War. After being tortured for six months in a Pathet Lao prison camp--his head was repeatedly covered with an ants' nest during interrogations--Dengler escaped, taking with him another P.O.W., Duane Martin. Dengler helped Martin, who was sick with dysentery, trek across the monsoon-swamped jungle. He built a makeshift raft for Martin, camouflaged him with branches, and guided him westward along muddy tributaries, toward the Mekong River. One afternoon, they encountered some Lao villagers and were attacked. Martin was beheaded. Dengler evaded capture and survived for weeks in the forest, on a diet of beetles and snakes, before being rescued by a U.S. Army helicopter. Herzog became close friends with Dengler, who died in 2001. He said of him, "All that I like about America was somehow embodied in Dieter: self-reliance and courage and loyalty and optimism, a strange kind of directness and joy in life."

In the documentary, Dengler recounts his escape in a transfixing monologue, vividly conjuring the horror of being lost in the jungle: sudden mud slides sent him and Martin careering down jagged mountains, and he woke up each morning covered with leeches. For him, wild Nature was even more brutal and confining than the Pathet Lao prison. "Rescue Dawn" aimed to convert Dengler's monologue into visceral cinema.

To convey the feeling that Dengler's liberation from prison was no liberation at all, Herzog wanted the new film's star, Christian Bale, to spend time forcing his way through forest so tangled that it appeared "almost unmanageable for human beings." The camera, Herzog explained, would trail Bale closely, heightening the oppressive mood. "We are really with him the whole time, trapped in this forest prison, " he said. "There is no width of perspective."

A fast-moving cloud unleashed a short burst of rain, and Thai production assistants collected beneath the gnarled boughs of an old pomelo tree. Herzog, who was still drying off from an earlier rain, allowed his T-shirt and khakis to be re-soaked as he set up that afternoon's scene, which depicted the frenzied moment of Martin's decapitation. Speaking in German, the director discussed how to choreograph the sequence with his longtime cinematographer, Peter Zeitlinger, a burly Czech who appeared on location each day wearing a flowing white linen ensemble. As they talked, Herzog stood in front of Zeitlinger's camera and mimed a series of rapid actions: kneeling, twisting around, raising an imaginary blade, then running to the area hidden by the boulder.

"Don't you want a stand-in?" Julian White, the chief lighting designer, asked. Like most of the crew, White, a commonsensical Englishman, had not worked with the director before.

"No, no, no, " Herzog said. "I'm always the best stand-in."

These days, film directors typically cocoon themselves, setting up shots by watching a monitor that displays a live feed from the cinematographer's lens; this tells them exactly how a scene will appear onscreen. But Herzog refuses to separate himself from the action: he wants to feel what he's filming. His participatory method struck many crew members as bizarre. "How can you see the way a shot looks if you're the stand-in?" White later muttered to himself.

"You can't see yourself."

Herzog was being barraged by such complaints. At every turn, crew members let him know that they considered his directing habits strange, impulsive, even amateurish. They couldn't comprehend why Herzog insisted on grabbing the machete himself when the sound crew wanted to capture the sound of dashed reeds. They were baffled by his ignorance of his own screenplay; Herzog told me that he hadn't reread it once since writing it, three years earlier, because he wanted to "respond to the situation in the jungle" and "keep things completely fresh." They were annoyed by continuity errors that Herzog considered "of no great consequence." ("Werner, isn't Christian supposed to have a rucksack in this scene?") They were irritated when Herzog declared that someone's unfinished makeup looked "good enough, " and that he couldn't wait for it to be perfect, because he liked the way the tropical light was filtering through the treetops. They objected to his reliance on hastily improvised handheld shots. ("How about using a dolly just this once?") And they questioned his reluctance to film scenes with more than one camera. ("The audience will never see Christian's reaction unless you add a closeup.") Herzog's stated belief that his approach would create "an event-based dynamic, a feeling of being an observer dragged into the scene, " struck many of his colleagues as a cover for a lack of technique. As they saw it, Herzog was ruining a potentially lush adventure movie by shooting it like a quickie documentary.

The fact that Herzog has been making films for more than forty years, many of them acclaimed as works of unnerving originality, didn't shake the collective judgment that he was doing it all wrong. The mood on the set was toxic. Josef Lieck, the first assistant director, who has worked with Wim Wenders, said, "For a man of his age, it's a veryraw talent. It's more like an eighteen-year-old running into the forest." A costume designer complained, "He doesn't know basic things about filmmaking, things that simply make it easier to tell a story. He thinks that these things will undermine his vision, but they won't." Harry Knapp, an assistant director, said, "There is a silent war on the set. We're all in a state of shock." Herzog, for his part, politely ignored the crew's complaints. Zeitlinger explained, "When making a film, Werner tries to pretend as if nobody is around but him and the actors."

Bale and Steve Zahn, who plays Martin, arrived at the mountainside--doing so required crossing a rushing river on a bridge consisting of a few wobbly bamboo poles--along with several actors from the local hill tribes. Herzog gave them succinct instructions; whenever he speaks, his hands make fluid, precise gestures, like those of a maestro. First, he said, Zahn's leg would be slashed by a Lao assailant. The beheading would occur off-screen. "I do not want to show any gory detail, " Herzog said. Zahn would then be replaced by a headless dummy, which would collapse at Bale's feet.

Herzog had exercised a similar kind of restraint in "Grizzly Man, " which tells of an environmental activist, Timothy Treadwell, who became so enchanted by Alaskan bears that he attempted a trans-species version of going native--living in the animals' habitat for months, and getting close to them, often with a video camera in hand. The sweetly deluded Treadwell could not see the dark truth of Nature, Herzog explains in a typically doomy voice-over ("I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony but hostility, chaos, and murder"), and Treadwell's experiment ended in dismemberment. The killing was caught on tape--Treadwell's lens cap was on, so the recording is audio only. Any other director would have shared at least a snippet. But in "Grizzly Man" the viewer sees only the back of Herzog's head as he listens through headphones; facing Herzog, and the camera, is Treadwell's former girlfriend, Jewel Palovak. As she silently gauges his horrified response, her face becomes a cracked mirror of the director's, telling viewers all that they need to know.

Zeitlinger suggested a way to combine the dummy's fall with an image of Bale rising up in the background, in order to give the scene a more "balletic" feel.

No, Herzog said. "If it's too perfect, then I'll hate it, " he explained. The sequence had to be blunt and brutal.

He turned to Bale, and said, "First you're kneeling, then scream, then look behind you, see the Lao guys, and scream--this way, then this way. An intimidating scream, Christian." Bale asked various questions as Herzog showed him how to position his body, but he was deferential. The actor, who had just starred in the summer blockbuster "Batman Begins, " had long wanted to work with Herzog, and he was willing to submit to onerous demands; in about four months, he had lost fifty-five pounds for the role, becoming cadaverous.

A comfort with discomfort is widely seen as a prerequisite for making a Werner Herzog film. Perhaps unfairly, he is less renowned for his oddly brilliant movies than for the arduous, and sometimes savage, circumstances under which they were made. On the set of his 1972 masterpiece, "Aguirre, The Wrath of God, " a vertiginous portrait of a Spanish conquistador who unravels during a search for El Dorado, Herzog struggled to control his gifted but satanically mercurial star, Klaus Kinski; at one point, when Kinski abruptly announced that he was quitting the production and leaving by canoe, Herzog threatened to shoot him. ("I said, 'You may reach the next river bend, but you'll do so with all the bullets in this gun in your head--except the one for me, '" he recalled. "He did not get in the boat. I believe that it was the right thing to do. Otherwise, there would be no 'Aguirre.'") "Fitzcarraldo, " released in 1982, is a beguiling folly about an eccentric music lover in turn-of-the-century Peru, who is determined to raise money for a tropical opera house. Herzog's hero decides to become rich by harvesting rubber trees, and, one day, when looking at a map of the Amazon, he impulsively concludes that the fastest way to transport his cargo is to push his steamboat over a mountain, allowing it to jump from one river system to another. Fitzcarraldo's quixotic fantasy comes to fruition in one of the most lyrical sequences ever put on film. The episode, unfortunately, is now widely recalled not as a coup de cinéma but as a leaden metaphor for the megalomania of film directors--because Herzog insisted on shooting the scene without special effects, a decision that nearly capsized the production. "Burden of Dreams, " a 1982 documentary about the making of "Fitzcarraldo, " presents Herzog as a real-life Kurtz--a deranged European presiding over a disintegrating fiefdom. Herzog contributed to this caricature with campy pronouncements: standing in a sun-dappled, twittering Peruvian glade, he declares, "The trees are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in painTaking a close look at what's around us, there is some sort of harmony: it's the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder."

Bale, whose diet had left him severely enervated, looked wearily at the curtain of foliage into which he would soon run. To buoy his star, Herzog spoke to him about some footage that they had shot a few days earlier, which had already been processed. In that scene, Dengler and Martin become hopelessly ensnared in reeds along a river's edge. Herzog told Bale, "You have never seen anything like this on film before, Christian. I am so happy. The wrangling with the vines, it's all physical. It's physical what you are doing and what the camera is doing. So you don't sense the camera. It's like another escapee. It really feels like the jungle is swallowing everything, even the camera.

The river sequence, as filmed, was awkwardly long, but it would likely appear uncut in Herzog's edit. He believes in the occasional squirm-inducing shot. As he told me, "Sometimes the beauty or the horror of an image only settles in the mind when it is shown for an extended period." His previous feature, "The Wild Blue Yonder, " a wily experiment with science fiction, is anchored by twenty-one minutes of unyieldingly slow underwater footage, in which a scuba diver floats beneath the Antarctic ice shelf. (The hauntingly alien landscape--in which even coral is spined with ice--is meant to represent the interior of a distant planet.) And "Aguirre" achieves its potency by instilling the claustrophobic experience of the Spanish explorers: static shots of Amazonian river bends, in which the vegetation at the water's edge blurs into a solid green wall, become highly agitating through repetition.

The rain stopped, and the equipment was ready. "O.K., O.K., let's do it now, " Herzog said. Preparing the scene had taken, at most, ten minutes. "Action, " he said.

Now it was Zahn's turn to release a terrible, valley-shaking scream. Herzog yelled "Cut!" and immediately began preparing the shot of the falling dummy. On the ground, there was a drip-covered cannister marked "SUGAR-FREE FAKE BLOOD." "We won't use too much, " he said. (The sight of blood, Herzog confessed, makes him faint: "It is my Achilles' heel.") He walked over to the container, but restrained himself from grabbing it; instead, he seized an opportunity to jab back at the crew. Staring into the crowd that was hunched along the boulder, he asked, "O.K., may I have some blood from the Blood Department?"

One morning that week, Herzog stood amid the charred ruins of a small straw-hut settlement. It was only eight o'clock, but the sun was already bullying; in an adjoining rice paddy, black butterflies hugged the shade. At dusk on the previous day, Herzog had filmed a scene in which Dengler, after making a bed of banana leaves for the delirious Martin, sets a thatched dwelling ablaze, in a failed effort to attract attention from American rescue pilots. Herzog had been planning to film a few additional moments at the abandoned village--a genuine ruin, which he had discovered earlier in the summer--and he was not happy to learn that it had been aggressively incinerated by his crew, after he had left. The effects team had apparently deemed Herzog's rendition of the scene insufficiently pyrotechnic and had unleashed their full firepower, filming the village from the point of view of a helicopter, even though Herzog had made clear that he did not want aerial shots in the film. "The site looks like what you'd see after Gaiseric laid siege to Rome, " Herzog joked bitterly. He is a connoisseur of ancient battles; whenever he makes a film, he takes along Livy's history of the Second Punic War. "I read it for consolation when times get dire, " he said.

This was one of those times. Though shooting had just begun, the conflagration was the latest in a rapid series of mishaps. During the dusk scene, a reconnaissance helicopter had flown over the burning village, as planned, but a crucial plot detail was missing. In Herzog's screenplay, flares attached to parachutes float down from the aircraft. The parachutes had played a central role in Dengler's real-life rescue--he used their shimmery white cloth to make an SOS sign--but Thai authorities had forbidden the "Rescue Dawn" team from importing flares. It wasn't clear how to fill the plot hole. A few days earlier, Chris Carnel, a stuntman, had been carried from the set in an ambulance after performing in a mudslide sequence. Crew members felt that Herzog's version of the scene, filmed with Bale and Zahn, lacked a proper log-flume exuberance, and had not been shot from enough angles; against the director's wishes, the second unit had sent Camel and a companion zooming down the hill several more times, propelled by water that was dumped out of a huge tank. By the fourth or fifth take, enough mud had washed away to expose a tree stump at the dope's bottom--and Carnel smashed his rib cage. (Herzog, meanwhile, vowed that he would never use the extra footage; he was confident that his shot was better, because the actors had participated in it. "An audience always feels it when it's fake, " he said.)

Herzog was having other battles with the production company, Gibraltar Entertainment. Bale's involvement had helped Herzog secure financing, but, compared with the average Hollywood movie, "Rescue Dawn" had a modest budget--around ten million dollars-and Gibraltar had struggled to raise even this amount. Two weeks into the shoot, many crew members were grumbling that they had not been paid; the producers, they said, had shrugged off their complaints. Worse, Gibraltar had fired Walter Saxer, Herzog's longtime production manager and close friend. In protest, a dozen Thai crew members quit the production. The producers then dismissed Ulrich Bergfelder, a set designer who has worked with Herzog for thirty years, after a dispute over where to build the Pathet Lao prison. One of Gibraltar's principals, Steve Marlton, who was supervising the "Rescue Dawn" shoot, wanted the set constructed in southern Thailand, near the velvety beaches of Krabi. Bergfelder had argued that it would be cheaper and more authentic to build the prison nearby, in the hill country. But Marlton, a heavy man in his late thirties, was uncomfortable in the heat; crew members said that he had visited the set rarely, remaining in an air-conditioned hotel, and they speculated that he was desperate to leave the rain forest. Marlton, who made his fortune in the trucking industry, is new to the movie business. He is best known in Los Angeles for a popular night club that he co-owns, Pearl, which features erotic dancers performing inside translucent "shadowboxes." Marlton's other film projects include "Bottom's Up, " a comedy starring Paris Hilton.

"This change of location was done without consulting me, " Herzog had fumed at breakfast that morning. "It will be a costly mistake." The firing of Bergfelder, Herzog said, was "a way of demoting the man who pulled the ship up the mountain, by getting rid of the set designer who worked with him on 'Fitzcarraldo.'"

Herzog saw the prison-set dispute as part of a larger power struggle with Marlton, who, he said, had been frustrated when Herzog rejected his artistic suggestions. Marlton had asked Herzog to watch a DVD of a movie that had impressed him, "The Rundown"--a wildly kinetic 2003 feature, starring Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson, the former wrestler, about a bounty hunter who scours the Amazon for buried treasure--in the hope that Herzog would agree to hire the film's cinematographer. Herzog had insisted on using Zeitlinger, who is particularly skilled with a handheld camera.

"Rescue Dawn" is a canonical Herzogian tale, in that it portrays a man immersed in a situation of almost surreal extremity. Of course, that description could also apply to "Die Hard." The Gibraltar Web site characterizes "Rescue Dawn" as an "action thriller, starring Christian Bale." Since shooting began, it had become clear that taro rival visions had fatefully intersected in the Thai rain forest. One group of people had come to make a Werner Herzog film; another group wanted to make an inexpensive war flick starring Batman.

Herzog's inspection of the burned village had left the soles of his bare feet black. He raised his hands and told the crew that he had an announcement. After a meeting with Marlton at the hotel, Josef Lieck, the first assistant director, and Edward McGurn, the second assistant director, had emerged convinced that they would never be properly paid. "This is a very bitter moment for me, " Herzog began. He wore a frayed rugby shirt and mirrored sunglasses; his sunburned face had developed a magenta tinge. "Josef and Edward do not have a contract, and they have hung in out of pure loyalty to the film and, to some degree, maybe to me. Today, they have decided that they leave the production." His voice broke off for a moment. "O.K., back to work, " he said, adding a Lutherian vow: "Here I stand. I have no choice. So help me God."

The crew dispersed silently. Standing next to Herzog, and squeezing his hands with her own, was Lena, his wife of seven years. (His first marriage, to Martje Grohmann, a homeopath, ended in divorce.) Lena, a photographer, wore a celadon safari suit and had a heavy Leica camera around her neck; her lustrous blond hair was tied in a ponytail. She has published several coffee-table books--one documents the culture of Spanish bullfighting--and she regularly takes stills for Herzog's productions. "It's not an exciting assignment for me, but if I didn't do it I'd never see the man, " she told me. Lena, who is thirty- six, grew up in Siberia, and, in 1990, went to Stanford to do research in archeology; with her husband, she has travelled to places even more in hospitable than the Russian tundra. "I remember the time we visited this tribal area, five days by boat from Guayaramerín, Bolivia, which we were told was cannibalistic, " she recalled. "We spent the night outside, in two hammocks. That night, when I heard a noise near us, I woke up, gasping, 'Werner, it's them!" He sleepily replied, 'When they come, we won't hear them.' He went straight back to sleep. I didn't."

As Herzog discussed the parachute dilemma with Susanna Lenton, his script supervisor--they decided that Bale would spell "SOS" with banana leaves--Lena told me that her husband had gone to Thailand knowing that the producers had failed to raise the requisite funds. "Werner thought that by proceeding ahead he'd put wind in the sails of the project, " she said. "But now he's very distressed. Me, too." Unlike Herzog, who felt that he was "not allowed to have emotions" at such an imperilled moment, Lena expressed her anger. The producers were hardly penniless, she said: upon arriving in Thailand, she said, Marlton and other Gibraltar executives had "set up shop at the Oriental"--an expensive hotel in Bangkok. "They're treating everyone like slaves! And they have no respect for Werner." She concluded, "The movie will still be made in spite of them, and if it's destroyed it will be because of them. They're abusive and incompetent. They're not even Hollywood--they're would-be Hollywood!" She paused. "Peter Jackson can fart and get a hundred million dollars. Werner is not so lucky."

Herzog came over and put his arm around Lena. "I am trying to stop an avalanche from going down, " he explained to me. He has a penchant for jaws-of-death metaphors. "You may be a witness to the beginning of the end. Today, we are once again on the brink--and I must prevent us from falling off."

Herzog was in his element. As he had told me, he knew how to handle "the daily grind of catastrophe" that can beset a film set (or, at least, his film sets). On "Fitzcarraldo, " he had been forced to start over after his original star, Jason Robards, fell ill. Robards's replacement, Kinski, was incandescent as Fitzcarraldo, but he threw daily fits, frequently refusing to perform. This time, Herzog did not threaten Kinski with a gun, though a local Indian, appalled by the actor's vile manners, offered to murder him. It is impossible to say which was harder: getting Kinski to finish his scenes, or hauling the three-hundred-and-forty-ton steamboat over the mountain, via a creaky system of pulleys. No crew members were killed in the process, Herzog often points out, though the production sustained collateral damage. While the cinematographer was filming on board the steamboat as it bounced over fierce rapids, his hand was smashed open and had to be sewn up without anesthesia. A crew member was bitten by a snake whose venom can quickly induce cardiac arrest; to save himself, he cut off his foot with a chain saw. Another was paralyzed after his plane crashed en route to the isolated location, in northeast Peru. Yet the film betrays no sign of its agonized gestation: the prevailing tone is deliciously languid and dreamy, and Fitzcarraldo's labors evoke the Little Engine as much as Sisyphus.

Herzog told me that he did not expect to be paid for his work on "Rescue Dawn, " but he didn't mind. He had suffered worse, he said. And although he was indignant about how his colleagues were being treated, he felt that he had to keep shooting. "I must finish this film, " he said.

"You will, " Lena said.

Herzog, whose demeanor away from a camera is gentle and warm, thanked her with a flurry of short kisses, calling her "sweetie." Lena, for her part, calls Herzog her "churl"; she is amused by his coarse grooming habits. "Do you know how Werner has been washing his muddy pants here?" she asked me later, in a lighter mood. "At the hotel, he just walks into the shower fully clothed!"

Herzog got ready to film a short scene that takes place the morning after the helicopter sequence. A special-effects crew had hidden a smoke bomb inside one of the burned huts and ignited it. The emerging cloud was feeble.

"I don't see enough smoldering, " Herzog said. Before anyone could stop him, he walked inside the hut, grabbed the smoke bomb, and tossed it into a more open spot, where the breeze could nurture the flame.

Herzog turned his attention to the actors. Zahn was told to emerge from the hut in a state of confusion--his character is so worn out that the helicopters did not rouse him. On the first take, Zahn, an adroit performer, limped in too pronounced a manner.

"He looks over-quavery, " Herzog said. "Cut. Let's redo it."

In the foreground, Bale sat crumpled on the jungle floor. Zahn walked outside again, more naturally this time, and Bale torpidly said, "We've gotta get out of here, Duane." After a long pause, he added, "This will've attracted the attention of the Vietcong. They could be here any minute."

"Christian, get into the action quicker!" Herzog said. ''You had a whole night to think about what happened to you. And what I don't like is your mouth hanging open like this. It's too much. Keep it closed and think." He turned to me and explained, "We have this very, very slow emerging of Duane, and there is nothing happening, and the dialogue has the exact same kind of retardation. The scene doesn't yet have a rhythm."

Bale took his notes, and on the third take both performances were substantially improved. "Much better, " Herzog said. "Much more resolve, less melodramatic." But Herzog didn't like the way the actors had run off into the underbrush after saying their lines. They were too slow; he wanted to show them vanishing into the leaves, and the sequence had to be precisely timed, for there would be no cuts. They shot the scene again.

"What I'm doing here is very much like music, " he told me later. "The rhythm of a movie is never established during editing. It's established in the shots you make on location, which need to have their own proper meter." Herzog is contemptuous of movies that achieve surface vitality through manic cross-cutting. In "Herzog on Herzog" (2002), a book of interviews, edited by Paul Cronin, he says, "Poor filmmakers will often move the camera about unnecessarily and use flashy tricks and an excess of cuts because they know their material is not strong enough to sustain a passive camera.

The crew, meanwhile, speculated that there was another reason that Herzog was filming so much of "Rescue Dawn" with long shots and a single camera. Sometimes a producer who is unhappy with a director's cut of a film will seize all his footage and splice together a new version. By shooting scenes in one take, and from one angle, Herzog was protecting his work from editing-room tampering.

Herzog worked particularly quickly that day, filming scenes at three locations. In the evening, he filmed Bale alone in the jungle, huddled beneath a rocky overhang on which a faded gold Buddha was painted. A seven-foot-long banana leaf dangled over the shrine; it was weighed down, on its underside, by a giant gray slug. The trees thrummed with bats. To replace the moon, a small white balloon, embedded with electric bulbs, was inflated with helium. It slowly climbed upward, through the netted palms; when it was hovering above the treetops, the device was turned on. There was an implosive sound as moths and beetles hurtled into the glowing orb, which was soon speckled with the black outlines of ten thousand bugs. Herzog paused to admire the surreal beauty of his Hollywood moon, but only for a moment. On the jungle floor, the light was hardly perceptible, offering only shadowy intimations of the surrounding forest. He walked over to Bale, whose feet were bare and covered with cuts. Pointing to a forbidding knot of foliage, he said, "Next, I want you to run through that."

Spending time with Werner Herzog can make you feel as if you were trapped inside one of those postmodern novels of paranoia, in which a series of ominous-seeming events appear to be linked by more than chance. Why has Herzog's career been so consistently plagued by intrigue, peril, and disaster? Is there no overarching explanation for the pattern of catastrophe? "My character has nothing to do with it--it's just statistics, abnormal statistics, even though nobody will believe me, " he said during a visit to his home in Los Angeles, a comfortable bungalow in Laurel Canyon. It was hidden from the street by bushes so overgrown that they had knocked over the front fence. "People who do not know me think that I like filmmaking to be difficult, " he continued. "I do not. And I do not take unnecessary risks."

He added, "I have avoided the undoable things." In the nineteen-nineties, he decided not to pursue a project in Sudan, after enough people told him that he'd get killed in the midst of the ongoing civil war. He also abandoned plans to make a feature film on K2, the Himalayan mountain. The German mountaineer Reinhold Messner--the subject of a 1984 Herzog documentary--assured him that such a shoot would result in numerous fatalities. "There are just too many avalanches, " Herzog explained, with a wistful shrug.

"Now, I admit, I do not have a perfectly clean record, " he said. "I did climb La Soufriére when it was in danger of erupting." In 1977, he shot documentary footage from the lip of the volcano, which is on Guadeloupe, while it was regularly spewing toxic fumes. He emphasized, however, that he wasn't driven by a desire to tempt fate: "What I had heard was that there was one man who had refused to evacuate. That is what fascinated me--to explore a human being whose view of death is so different, who does something inexplicable." In the end, La Soufriére never blew up, baffling geologists. "I loved that, " he recalled, laughing. "It made my whole project wonderfully embarrassing." The documentary ends in wry voice-over: he pronounces his film "pathetic, " a "report on an inevitable catastrophe that did not take place." (For all his moments of self-seriousness, Herzog enjoys poking fun at his manly escapades; a memoir about the making of "Fitzcarraldo, " which was recently published in German, is titled "Conquest of the Useless.")

Herzog was sitting in his living room, a skylit space lined with books. On one shelf, near a copy of Martin Luther's Bible, is a framed photograph of his youngest child, Simon, standing next to a very large boa constrictor in the Amazon. (Simon, then nine, is now sixteen; Herzog's older son, Rudolph, a magician and filmmaker, is thirty-four; his daughter, Hanna, an art student in Amsterdam, is twenty-five.) Herzog took the picture himself, during the filming of a 2000 documentary, "Wings of Hope, " about Juliane Koepcke, a female counterpart to Dieter Dengler; in 1971, as a teen-ager, she survived a jetliner crash in Peru and made it out of the jungle alone. Simon was his "co-combatant" in the jungle, Herzog recalled fondly. "He found some airplane parts that had been completely covered up by the forest." At one point, he said, Simon got very sick-"from food poisoning or something, it was never clear"--but he "had a great time."

In the center of Herzog's living room is a vintage Deardorff camera, set up on a tripod. He stole his first movie camera, he told me, when he was a student at the University of Munich, in the early sixties. Herzog's directorial career was tumultuous from the start. His first full-length feature, "Signs of Life"--a satirical precursor of "Aguirre, " in which a German paratrooper becomes unhinged while stationed in the Aegean--was nearly upended because of what Herzog calls "a confrontation with the Greek military." He said, "It was 1967. Three weeks after we started shooting in Greece, on Kos, there was a coup d'état in Athens, and the new regime didn't like the tone of my script." His shooting permits were revoked. Herzog told a local Army officer that he would continue filming illegally, issuing a threat worthy of Pushkin. "I will not be unarmed tomorrow, " he said, and the first officer who touched him, he promised, would be shot dead. It was a ruse, and it worked: soldiers hovered but did not interfere. "After all this, my lead actor fell six feet or so and fractured his heel bone, " he continued. "The production was shut down for six months. Six feet, six months! It was as if I somehow attracted bad luck." Herzog can always point to some external force to explain his calamities. "When I was shooting 'Fitzcarraldo, ' did I cause the drought that left the boat stuck on the mountaintop for months?" he asked me. "Did I invent that coup d'état in Greece?" Perhaps not, but in 1970, while making "Fata Morgana, " a fantasia on scorched African landscapes, Herzog went to Cameroon a few weeks after a coup attempt took place. The police arrested him, Herzog says, after misidentifying a crew member as a wanted criminal. He and several crew members were beaten and thrown into a cell with "sixty other men." Herzog contracted bilharzia, a blood parasite.

Herzog does push his luck: he worked with Kinski five times, until, Herzog said, the actor went "bonkers" while filming "Cobra Verde, " the story of a Brazilian bandit; one day, Kinski placed a rock in his fist and attacked him. Kinski's crazed state is distractingly palpable in the film, which was released in 1987. (Kinski died in 1991; Herzog's double-edged documentary about their relationship, "My Best Fiend, " appeared in 1999.) Herzog's recklessness may also explain his decision to jump off a ramp and into a bed of cacti in the Canary Islands, while on the set of his second full-length film, "Even Dwarfs Started Small" (1970)--a memorably perverse spoof of Marxism, starring insurrectionary little people and defecating camels. (The film had a big influence on David Lynch.) Herzog insists that the jump was merely a goof--a way of bonding with his actors, some of whom had injured themselves while filming. The consequences were severe, though: spikes remained embedded in the sinews of Herzog's knee for more than a year, he said. In a similarly larksome spirit, Herzog swore to his friend Errol Morris--then a young man, now a preeminent creator of documentaries, including "The Fog of War"--that he'd offer a singular tribute if Morris, a habitual procrastinator, ever finished his first film. In 1979, Morris did so, and a short documentary by Les Blank, "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, " immortalizes the stunt: the boot was leather, the chef was Alice Waters, and the key ingredient was duck fat. A true Bavarian, Herzog told me, can't resist a spirited wager.

Herzog was born in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in 1942. The disaster of Nazism, he said, informs his brooding world view. "I try to understand the ocean beneath the thin laver of ice that is civilization, " he said. "There's miles and miles of deep ocean, of darkness and barbarism. And I know the ice can break easily." When he was a few days old, he says, he was nearly killed after Allied bombs caused a skylight in his nursery to shatter; the shards fell around his bassinet but somehow did not injure him. (The image seems suspiciously apt-Chapter 1 in a life story defined by near-misses--but he insists that his mother, Elisabeth, "talked about this many times.") Elisabeth, a biologist, feared more bombs, and she moved the family to Sachrang, a remote village near the Austrian border. His father, Dietrich, also a biologist, was conscripted into the German Army, and eventually abandoned the family. Herzog does not like to speak of him.

Herzog adored his mother, who died in the nineteen-eighties. Elisabeth was "very courageous, " he said. "She raised three boys on her own, in desperate circumstances." They had no money for mattresses, so she made pallets by stuffing linen sacks with dried ferns. When Herzog developed a fascination with guns after discovering an old cache of Nazi weapons in the forest, she demonstrated how to shoot a pistol. She understood his impatience with traditional schoolwork--as a teen-ager, Herzog, an enthusiast for American matinée fare such as "Dr. Fu Manchu" and "Zorro, " had already begun writing screenplays--and secured him an apprenticeship at a photographer's lab, in Munich. Later, she gave a German newspaper a quote that Herzog considers the most precise summation of his talent. "Everything goes into him, " she said. "If it comes out, it comes out transformed." Herzog remains close to his siblings: Tilbert, his older brother, an international-finance executive, who now spends much of his time on a yacht off Spain; Lucki, his younger brother, who lives in Germany, and has produced many of Herzog's films; and Sigrid, his sister, an acting teacher, who also lives in Germany.

Herzog recalls his childhood with a curiously anthropological cast, as if he were the Alpine equivalent of a Trobriand Islander. He loves to say that he never made a phone call until he was seventeen, did not see a banana until he was twelve, and did not watch a movie until he was eleven. The film was a documentary about Eskimos, shown at school; Herzog was appalled by their inept igloo-construction technique. Like many children in Sachrang, he played winter sports and wanted to be a champion ski jumper. He gave up the sport, however, when his best friend fractured his skull while they were practicing alone on an isolated ramp. "I thought that if I moved him an inch, his brain would spill out, he was so badly injured, " he recalled. In 1973, Herzog made a documentary about the sport, "The Great Ecstasy of the Wood-Carver Steiner": in it, he clips off the landings from his slow-motion footage, creating an uncanny sensation of human flight.

Growing up in Sachrang, Herzog developed a passion for wandering; as he grew older, he sometimes roamed so far that he had to spend the night in an empty chalet. (He says he's great at picking locks.) In the "Minnesota Declaration, " a whimsical manifesto that he presented at a Minneapolis film festival seven years ago, he says, "Tourism is sin, walking on foot virtue." Herzog believes that modern life has disconnected humans from their most elemental pleasures. His films, accordingly, attempt to connect modern cinemagoers to their prelapsarian selves: the emotions are always primal, and landscape is integral to the drama. "You will never see people talking on the phone, driving in a car, or exchanging ironic jokes in my films, " he said. "It is always bigger, deeper." He avows that his films expose "the ecstatic truth" of mankind.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: I Don't Believe in Beatles on April 30, 2006, 07:05:22 PM
He is gently messianic in his anachronistic habits. In 1974, upon hearing that the film critic Lotte Eisner, a friend, had fallen gravely ill in France, he walked from Munich to Paris to visit her. (She survived the three weeks that it took him to get there--and lived nine more years besides.) Four years later, he published "Of Walking in Ice, " a celebration of his travail. As always, he is an astute observer--crossing a field, his feet "immediately collect pounds of heavy sticky clods of earth"--yet the book feels overwrought and musty. ("A cornfield in winter, " he intones, "is a field called Death.") Tilbert has said that his brother "will openly declare that he writes the best prose since Kleist, " but cinema serves Herzog better: it forces his Romantic sensibilities into a modern frame.

Things rarely turn out well when the swashbuckling side of Herzog takes over. Several years ago, he returned to the Alps to ski with some old friends. One day, he sped down a notoriously treacherous run; when he boasted about it that night, nobody believed him. The next day, he insisted on doing it again--and, predictably, he wiped out. "I nearly died, " he told me, and he still has difficulty turning his neck.

Why does he do such things? Herzog does not want to know the answer. "I think that psychoanalysis is one of the great evils of civilization, even worse than the Spanish Inquisition, " he told me. "At least the Inquisition was about keeping something together. Analysis is only about taking a person apart. I would rather die than see an analyst."

Herzog's accidents and misfortunes have been widely catalogued, yet a complete concordance seems impossible: that afternoon in Los Angeles, he revealed that he once jumped out of a third-floor window in Pittsburgh--no fire, just fooling around!--and recalled that, during a recent visit to Spain, Tilbert had, on a lark, set his shirt on fire with a cigar. (He was saved "by a pitcher of lemonade, " he added triumphantly.) Not surprisingly, Herzog has been accused of being a serial fabulist. He hasn't helped matters by admitting that he "intensifies" his documentaries. "Lessons of Darkness, " his spectral 1992 film about the apocalyptic fires that raged after the Gulf War, begins with a bogus epigraph, allegedly by Pascal: "The collapse of the stellar universe will occur--like creation--in grandiose splendor." (The "pseudo-quote, " he has said, elevates the film from "mere reportage" to "the realm of poetry.") He frequently supplies his subjects with dialogue. In "The White Diamond, " which came out last year, a Guyanese villager, interviewed on the edge of a clamorous waterfall, establishes his mystical temperament when he says to the camera, "I cannot hear what you say for the thunder that you are." Herzog swiped the line from "Cobra Verde."

Herzog says that he "stylizes" his documentaries only when the subject agrees that an invention aptly illuminates his character. "Grizzly Man, " which was made after the death of Timothy Treadwell, contains no fictions, he said, for "there was no possibility of collaboration." Yet Herzog's insistence that there is no meaningful difference between his features and his documentaries--"In both cases, I am a storyteller, " he likes to say--offends advocates of cinéma vérité and probably explains why "Grizzly Man, " despite receiving terrific reviews, was snubbed by the Academy Awards. Herzog, of course, relishes tweaking the traditionalists. "There is just a very shallow truth in facts, " he told me. "Otherwise, the phone directory would be the Book of Books."

Such proclamations notwithstanding, Herzog's personal stories usually check out, allowing for some measure of exaggeration. (Tilbert confirmed the lemonade incident.) As if by design, Herzog's life is overstuffed with drama. Weird things happen to him even when he's at home in California. One day this February, he left a voice message. "I have something amusing to tell you, " he said, teasingly. When I called him back, he announced, "I was shot today!"

He tore into his latest tale: "A BBC television crew came to see me in Laurel Canyon. They wanted to interview me for the British premiére of 'Grizzly Man.' I didn't want them to film right outside my house, so we went up to Skyline Drive. In the middle of the interview, I was shot with a rifle by someone standing on his balcony. I seem to attract the clinically insane." A rifle? "Well, it must have been an air rifle or something. I was very slightly injured; it was a very small-calibre thing, I suppose. Also, I had a catalogue in my jacket pocket, which protected me. The bullet hit my abdomen, right next to the belt, but it did not penetrate into my intestines. I thought the camera had cracked and burned me. I flinched for less than a second and continued my thoughts, and the BBC people started to duck and run away. I was bleeding into my underwear! Quite often, I have the feeling that when I tell about some strange incident, people don't believe me. But here it is, documented on camera. Proof!"

Two days later, an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times. The actor Joaquin Phoenix had flipped his car on a drive down the serpentine roads of Laurel Canyon. "I remember this knocking on the passenger window, " Phoenix told the Times. "There was this German voice saying, 'Just relax.'I said to myself, That's Werner Herzog!'" Phoenix, who was unharmed, went on, "I got out of the car and I said, 'Thank you.' And he was gone."

One afternoon in Thailand, Herzog sat with his wife on a slab of granite that jutted into a swift, rock-crowded river. "Sweetie, I have to do some wading, " Herzog said, patting Lena's knee in farewell. Mercifully, it was a cloud-filled day: Herzog and Peter Zeitlinger, his cinematographer, had taken to calling the Thai sun die gelbe Sau--"the yellow swine." Bale and Zahn stood on the other shore, sixty feet away, poised to film a sequence with Dengler's homemade raft: the two escapees discover, nearly too late, that they're headed for a waterfall. Herzog didn't like the pretty way that the production assistants had laurelled Zahn with vines, as if he were the Athlete Dying Young.

Lena joked, "I wonder sometimes if it's strange that I've gotten used to it: 'Oh, there's Werner standing in the middle of the river. Just another day at the office!'" She was concerned, however, about an infection that had developed in Herzog's left toe. He had refused her repeated offers of a bandage. A week or so later, the toenail fell off, and Herzog began covering it--with yellow duct tape.

Herzog looked a bit unsteady in the water, which reached the belt on his khakis. As he stretched his arms out for balance, Lena informed me that her husband was unusually low on energy that day. In what Herzog called a "signal of solidarity, " he was dieting with Bale and Zahn. (By the end of the shoot, in October, he had lost almost thirty pounds.) It was an ethic for Herzog: anything he asked the actors to do, he volunteered to do as well, including eating maggots and handling snakes. If he established a raw, physical mood on the set, Herzog believed, Bale and Zahn wouldn't feel self-conscious. The crew members, by and large, saw this credo less generously. Herzog, they felt, was unwilling to accept the fundamental paradox of filmmaking: creating a gripping movie often requires weeks of boredom. In their view, Herzog was intent on undergoing his own survivalist drama. A half-dozen crew members shared a jest that Zeitlinger had made: "Werner's not really a filmmaker. He's a little boy."

Zeitlinger was kneeling by the river's edge, his linen trousers still improbably white. He chuckled when he was asked about the remark, but added that he was just being silly; he has worked on eight Herzog films, and he said that a consistent aesthetic guided the director's method. "When I was just a viewer of Werner's feature films, I was always wondering why they are so imperfect, why so often things do not mesh together, and you see things that you usually try to avoid, " he said. "Now I understand; he doesn't want to have it this way--perfect. He wouldn't care it, in a single scene, there was sun and then not sun! This is the only thing I try to maintain, for this would disturb even this documentary reality. Any other mistake, I don't care. He wants to have it imperfect so that it gets a kick of feeling like a documentary--that you somehow couldn't manage to film it better. It makes everything onscreen seem real." He did sometimes find Herzog's approach perplexing. Though Herzog had spent his life making movies, he said, "he cannot accept the illusion of filmmaking."

Zeitlinger peered into an Austrian tripod camera that he had set up on the shore. It was connected to a digital monitor. "It's hard to know how everything really looks when you're focussed on keeping a moving raft in frame, " he said.

A crew member glanced at the monitor and shook his head. "Werner doesn't want to use it, " he reported.

"Oh, just cover it with a banana leaf, " Susanna Lenton, the script supervisor, suggested. "Werner will never notice it." Within seconds, the monitor was camouflaged--a trick that would be repeated often during the shoot. Harry Knapp, who replaced Josef Lieck as first assistant director, developed various ruses to distract Herzog, in order to take footage that he deemed unnecessary. ("Look at these wild mimosa plants, Wemer") Knapp, an athletic-looking man who wore baseball caps and frequently called himself the "film-school guy" and Herzog "the famous guy, " said that, before long, even the actors were in on the game. More than once, Herzog figured out what was going on and stood directly in front of the second unit's camera, to ruin a shot. "You're blocking the audience, " Knapp would say. Later, Knapp told me that ten per cent of the footage that Herzog would view in the editing room--closeups, backup takes, establishing shots--had been filmed on the sly.

Herzog arrived at the other side of the river and grabbed a few vines from a production assistant, tossing them pell-mell over Zahn's prone body; he then stuck his dripping fingers in his mouth, emitting a startlingly loud whistle. "I need some more vines, he bellowed.

A few minutes later, he was helping the stunt crew guide the raft to various starting positions. The first takes were frustrating: parts of the river were shallow, and rocks kept impeding the raft's forward motion. Bale and Zahn looked like Kinski in the final shot of "Aguirre"--trapped on a river that appears to have stopped flowing. Herzog and the stunt people tromped around the riverbed until they found a deeper path for the raft to fellow. Some crew members worried that the sequence would still look slow on film, but Herzog was content. "I don't want the river to be flowing extremely fast here, " he explained. "I want a buildup that surges to a thunderous climax, as in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony."

Bale and Zahn were dispatched downriver from the new starting point, and the sequence worked better. "Perfect, " Herzog said. He waved his hands at Zeitlinger. Herzog was now going to shoot some closeup footage while flowing downstream with the actors. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it on the riverbank. His right deltoid had a faded black tattoo of a smiling skull. "It's 'Singing Death, '" Lena explained.

"What are you doing, Werner? Werner?" Bale cried. Bale is as polite as Kinski was rude, but fissures were developing. One afternoon, Dengler's helicopter rescue was being filmed, and, during the setup, Herzog, immersed in the excitement of blocking the climactic scene, dismissed Knapp's concern that Bale could be hit by a heavy winch while being lifted inside the aircraft. "I am not going to feckin' die for you, Werner!" Bale exploded, his native Welsh accent emerging for the first time on the set. "You got that?" (Herzog apologized, and Bale was gracious. "It's O.K., " he said. "I didn't sign up for a cakewalk.")

Zeitlinger turned off the tripod camera and prepared to join Herzog. "We have a camera that's protected inside a Lucite box, which allows you to place it right in the water, " he said. "So he could get the shot without any physical contact. But that's not what he wants. He wants an adventure." Zeitlinger had developed a severe cough, and he took a swig of an opium-infused Thai elixir, ominously labelled "BROWN MIXTURE." He then attached a large Styrofoam flotation device to his bottom and waded over to Herzog, his loose outfit ballooning portentously, in the manner of a Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia. The two men attached themselves to a rope that had been suspended in the water, parallel to the shore; they would hook themselves on to the rope and head downriver with the Lucite-covered camera, alongside the raft.

Knapp, who kept muttering to other crew members on his black headset, was annoyed by the spectacle. "There's an easier way to shoot this, " he said, adding sarcastically, "He has this concept of the camera being 'part' of the characters."

Lena could sense the contrary mood on the set. "Werner is always the only one who believes in the dancing chicken, " she said. "The whole crew disagrees, it goes in anyway, and then in the movie it makes perfect sense." She was referring to the surpassingly strange ending of "Stroszek, " a mordant 1977 film about a hapless East German who, upon being kicked out of a mental institution, immigrates to America with a prostitute. The naïve Stroszek fails to get a foothold in America--even his mobile home is repossessed--and, in a bathetic parody of gangster epics like "Bonnie and Clyde, " he becomes the feeblest of outlaws, robbing a barber at gunpoint and stealing a turkey from a supermarket. Pursued by police, he escapes to an empty amusement hall, where he drops coins in a glass cage containing a live chicken; colored lights start blinking furiously, causing the bird to skitter back and forth. Stroszek leaves with his gun, presumably to kill himself, but Herzog returns the viewer to the cage. The film ends with a mercilessly long shot of the horrifying, hilarious chicken. The metaphor may be ham-handed--Stroszek is a helpless creature trapped by capitalism!--but because the surreal image comes out of nowhere and remains obdurately fixed to the screen, it sticks in the viewer's brain, giving the picture the afterglow of a fever dream. The crew on "Stroszek" hated Herzog's chicken idea--"They said it was total *beep* " he recalled--and some refused to come to the set that day. He now considers the sequence one of the strongest he has ever shot.

From the riverbank, it was hard to see if Zeitlinger was capturing anything worthwhile: the camera sloshed up and down like a rubber duck in a toddler's tub. The scene called to mind something that Lieck had said the morning that he quit. "I have formed this theory that Werner has, probably from mid-puberty, been trying very hard to die a grand, poetic death, " he told me. "Whenever there is anything dangerous, you can be sure he'll run out to do it first. But I think he will have his grand, poetic death in a different way. I think he will live to be a hundred and five. He'll have tried all his life to get chopped to pieces or fall from a helicopter, and, in the end, he will die on his pillowcase."

After half an hour, Herzog and his crew dragged themselves out of the water. The director was in a merry mood. He displayed his hands and observed, "My fingers look like those of somebody who just died of asphyxiation." He then offered a vivid recap: "The first take was comically disastrous. The water was strong, and Peter's camera wobbled uncontrollably and teetered over. I was behind him and helped him to reorient himself, but it was too late. We capsized together." Subsequent takes were better, he said, adding, "There may be a couple of good moments in the end." Herzog later told me that, while filming "Fitzcarraldo, " he had woken up before sunrise for twelve days in a row, hoping to lure a fish into swallowing a wad of cash that he dropped into the water. "Finally, we got one to do it, " he said. "All for a five-second image."

After Zeitlinger dried off, he offered his own account of the shoot. "Werner kept holding on to me so he would not be swept away, " he said. "I was trying to get rid of him, and I knocked the camera over.

As the "Rescue Dawn" shoot neared its end, Herzog sent notes via e-mail; they were invariably stippled with words like "brink, " "precipice, " and "abyss." Crew members confirmed that the set had grown increasingly troubled. Chris Camel, the stuntman who had injured his ribs, burned his face in a scene depicting Dengler's plane crash. Although American and British crew members were finally given money, many said that they had not been paid all they were promised, and the producers evidently infuriated Thai contractors by ignoring bills. The entire production crew got turned away from a hotel in Krabi, after the proprietors got wind of these complaints. (Steve Marlton claims that the hotel had suddenly raised its rates, and that all other bills had been paid.) An accountant arrived on the set, then immediately quit, shocked by the financial mess. Midway through the shoot, thirty Thai crew members quit en masse, citing the production's "cashflow problems." (Marlton says of those who resigned, "They had the gall to tell me that I needed to put a million dollars in a Thai bank that they could withdraw from. I told them to get *beep* and they walked.")

Meanwhile, Harry Knapp, who said that he considers Herzog "a poet, " became the liaison between the director and the producers. When Herzog resisted shooting multiple angles of one scene, he warned him, "When we have to change the film because of audience notes, you won't have the footage to do it." Once, Knapp refused Herzog's request to return to a remote location, in order to capture a single elusive image of a fish. (In the scene, Dengler is hallucinating with hunger.) "If we lose this detail, it will never matter, " Knapp told him. "This does not move the story forward." Late in the shoot, Herzog grew hostile. Although his script had described, among other things, Dengler's nails being jammed with razor-sharp bamboo, Herzog sensed that the producers were overly keen on such "Rambo"-style luridness; he refused to shoot any scenes of torture. Knapp felt that Herzog needed to respect his screenplay. After a "blowout fight, " Knapp recalled, Herzog gave in, though he kept the moments of violence short.

A few days before shooting was scheduled to end, Thailand's governor of tourism revoked the production's work permits. Marlton had refused to pay the fee demanded by a contractor that had arranged the rental of military equipment and provided the local crew, claiming that he was being overcharged. In retaliation, the contractor had successfully petitioned the government to close the shoot. Over the next few days, Marlton and eight crew members were prevented from boarding planes at the Bangkok airport. Marlton was informed by the Thai police that he would be allowed to leave only if he paid five hundred thousand dollars in taxes that the production supposedly owed. Herzog, however, eluded capture: "I had two valid passports, and juggled them at a critical moment, " he told me.

Marlton paid a substantial sum and flew home, leaving the other crew members behind. After a weeklong standoff, Gibraltar agreed to pay Thai authorities more money, and the others were allowed to go home. In an e-mail, Marlton said that he had been "squeezed" by the Thai police. He added, "At first, I was appalled, angry, and defiant, but I succumbed to their system." Soon afterward, Knapp was arrested in Bangkok, on the ground that "Rescue Dawn" had violated work-permit regulations; he spent eight hours in a detention center, and criminal charges were filed against him. Marlton posted his bail, but Knapp still faces legal proceedings.

Meanwhile, "Rescue Dawn" remained in a precarious state. In November, Herzog spent two days in Alameda, California, shooting the final scenes. He then asked for ten weeks to edit the film. He would present his cut, and the producers would decide whether to release it or demand changes. On the second day of editing, Herzog was kicked out of his small editing suite, in West Hollywood. The editing studio required payment up front, and Gibraltar didn't have the money on hand.

In April, Gibraltar secured postproduction money, and Herzog was finally paid the director's fee he had been promised. Herzog resumed editing, and he was joined by Knapp. Although Knapp said that "Rescue Dawn" was "Herzog's movie" and that his primary role was to "lend support, " he would also remind Herzog that certain choices--such as trimming action sequences in favor of dialogue-heavy scenes in the prison camp--would likely displease the producers.

Herzog was cautiously optimistic. He had realized too late that, as he told me, the producers "would have rather put me out of the project if they could have." But he wasn't altogether naïve about Hollywood politics. He reminded me that the powerful Endeavor Agency, which represents Bale and Zahn, was on his side. "Christian wants a quality film, not an action movie, " he said. "And the agency wants their client to be happy." Endeavor, he implied, could make life difficult for Gibraltar if it tried to release a bastardized version of "Rescue Dawn."

He also was heartened by what he had seen in his brief visit to the editing suite. His footage was "very, very, strong, " he said. Sifting through his reels on the computer, he had immediately spotted and dismissed various second-unit takes--such as a shot of Bale screaming in slo-mo despair, while gunfire blasts around him, as in "Platoon." Much of the remaining footage had the bracing, off-rhythm feel of a Herzog film. In a scene in which Bale appears to eat a live snake, a single-take shot made clear that the emaciated actor had straggled heartily with a writhing beast. The sequence shot in the river was excitingly disorienting, bobbing the viewer up and down. Shots of the Thai jungle felt palpably constrictive--at one point, Bale and Zahn, after clambering up a steep hill, get their first glimpse of a wider view. The vista before them, partially obscured by branches, is an Edenic blanket of green, but the effect is deflating: this prison cannot be escaped.

The sequence was shot the day after the decapitation scene. Herzog had discovered that there was nothing pending on the shooting schedule, and he seized the chance to flee the Apparatus. He got in a silver van with his wife, Bale, Zahn, Zeitlinger, and a camera assistant. The van's driver had decorated his vehicle in an weirdly apt style: its exterior and interior were plastered with Batman logos.

Herzog told the driver to start driving "toward Burma." The driver, looking a bit unsure, set off down the highway. The sound engineer and a few Thai crewhands followed in a small car. Herzog had explored the border area earlier in the summer, and he had pinpointed a splendid spot to shoot the vista scene. He hadn't, of course, marked it on a map. "I am just following my own geographic instincts, " he explained.

An hour and a half later, Herzog still had not found his spot. We passed steep hills terraced with corn plants. Nobody commented on the cheery rainbows glowing over the misty valleys; in a Herzogian world, rainbows would not exist.

At one point, Bale asked quietly, "Werner, does the driver speak English?"

"No, " Herzog said, unperturbed.

"He has a G.P.S. in his head, " Zeitlinger whispered to me. "Do not worry."

Herzog was savoring the hunt. He propped his muddy bare feet on the bench where Bale was sitting, put on some mirrored glasses, and stared out the window, studying the landscape. We drove for two hours more, looking for Herzog's vista. The sun was getting low. "We just need a little bit of luck, " Herzog said with excitement. "I think that ten minutes away there is a spot where we may have some luck."

Half an hour before sundown, a towering escarpment came into view. "Here, " Herzog said. The Batvan stopped, and Herzog began walking up a side approach to the summit. "We must go quickly, " he urged, disappearing in the trees.

The crest was densely forested, but there was a thin opening that showed a ribbon of mountains receding into the distance. Herzog began giving instructions to Bale and Zahn, who, exhausted from the climb, listened in silence. "A storm is coming, " Herzog observed, pointing toward distant clouds. "There is no time to waste."

Zeitlinger wanted to set up a tracking shot; the faraway terrain might look blurry in an unsteady handheld shot. Herzog humored him for a few minutes, until he noticed a mountain that was backlit with a penumbra of golden light. "It's a high-intensity landscape, " he said. "We must do it now." The dolly track was left unfinished.

The sound engineer hadn't yet carted up his heavy equipment. "We will dub it in later, " he said. "These conditions will last for five minutes at most."

"It's sublime, " Lena said, while taking photographs. "It's very Caspar Friedrich."

Bale and Zahn walked fifty feet down the hill, hiked up again, and said a few lines that Herzog improvised.

"I'm going to get you out of here, Duane, " Bale said to Zahn. Then they stared out at the impossibly vast view, and their faces crumpled.

"Have the camera plow past them, through the trees, and into the distance, " Herzog told Zeitlinger.

At the end of several takes, Herzog cried, "Cut!" He smeared the sweat off his brow with his arm. He grabbed Zeitlinger's shoulder, and pointed to the dark horizon. "Thank God, I forced it, " he said. "Look. The glowing mountain is gone."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on April 30, 2006, 11:48:51 PM
thank you so much.
Werner Herzog and Christopher Doyle should make a Jackie Chan movie together--then it'll be like the most physical and most improvised, instincitve filmmaking in the world.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ravi on June 07, 2006, 11:32:30 PM
Has anyone here seen Herzog's documentary Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices?  I just finished watching it and don't really know what to think.  It doesn't chart out the facts of Gesualdo's life like a typical documentary would.  Herzog shows us an old home, he shows a group of singers singing some of his compositions, he talks to two cooks who look at a menu of a feast Gesualdo hosted, etc.  Could anyone provide some perspective on this film?  It's fairly enigmatic.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on June 08, 2006, 05:59:50 PM
Werner Herzog Plays Poker
Source: Cinematical

Who would have thought Zak Penn, he of countless superhero movie scripts (in addition to such highlights as PCU and Inspector Gadget), would have anything in common with slightly unhinged (in the best possible way) German genius, Werner Herzog? It turns out that the two get along like gangbusters, as evidenced by Herzog's starring roles in both Incident at Loch Ness (Penn's directorial debut) and The Grand, the improvised poker flick that Penn is currently putting together.

Herzog is joined in the cast by a host of poker-loving actors, including Ray Liotta, Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, Ray Romano and Jason Alexander who, if his appearances on Celebrity Poker Showdown are anything to go by, will prove himself both annoying and painfully unfunny. Penn's plan is to direct from a screenplay outline, but to allow the actors to improvise most of their dialogue as they play real poker on their way to the championship round of a pretend international tournament; he starts shooting next month.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: matt35mm on June 08, 2006, 06:32:05 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on June 08, 2006, 05:59:50 PM
Werner Herzog Plays Poker
Source: Cinematical

Who would have thought Zak Penn, he of countless superhero movie scripts (in addition to such highlights as PCU and Inspector Gadget), would have anything in common with slightly unhinged (in the best possible way) German genius, Werner Herzog? It turns out that the two get along like gangbusters, as evidenced by Herzog's starring roles in both Incident at Loch Ness (Penn's directorial debut) and The Grand, the improvised poker flick that Penn is currently putting together.

Herzog is joined in the cast by a host of poker-loving actors, including Ray Liotta, Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, Ray Romano and Jason Alexander who, if his appearances on Celebrity Poker Showdown are anything to go by, will prove himself both annoying and painfully unfunny. Penn's plan is to direct from a screenplay outline, but to allow the actors to improvise most of their dialogue as they play real poker on their way to the championship round of a pretend international tournament; he starts shooting next month.
Penn has seemed to latch onto Herzog's ultimate rule of filmmaking: when in doubt, add more Herzog.

This has only applied to documentaries in Herzog's work, though, because Herzog is never in doubt on a scripted feature.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: elpablo on June 14, 2006, 06:08:39 PM
I can't figure out how to get a driect link, but if you go here there should be a link on the right side to a a video of henry rollins talking to herzog.

http://live.video.rainbow-media-online.com/video.jsp?video_id=5467&subcategory_id=2045&template_id=2045&backtochannels=1#
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on June 23, 2006, 11:58:52 PM
I just read in the taiwanese newspaper that he said something about how he wasn't interested in Germany entering the worldcup finals.  he said how beautiful it would be if the championchip was between an Asian team and an African team.
and also found out they are doing a herzog retrospective in Taipei next week.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on November 02, 2006, 09:15:49 AM
wow, when I was in Boston, they had a Herzog retrospective and a talk.  then I went to Taiwan, and the retrospective followed me there, and as soon as I moved to SF, they have one here too!  Either herzog retrospectives are the new Starbucks or there is something in my blood besides AIDS.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on December 18, 2006, 10:49:40 AM
Herzog in Antarctica: An easy place to make a film

Werner Herzog, who has made movies about grizzly bears in Alaska and a downed fighter pilot in Laos, just finished filming in Antarctica and one thing he wants to make clear: it was easy.

Herzog, 64, filmed at Mount Erebus, home of a live volcano, in the Antarctic spring.

While he acknowledged it was cold, and the crew had to spend a couple days getting acclimatized before they could reach the 13,500-foot (4,118-meter) summit -- which feels about 3,000 feet higher due to low air pressure -- he praised the ease of the location.

"It's easy. Antarctica is easy," Herzog, 64, said in a recent interview with Reuters as he waited on the ice to board a military jet at the end of filming.

The award-winning German-born filmmaker, screenwriter, actor and opera director is known for such art house movies as "Fitzcarraldo" and "Nosferatu."

His other recent projects have included "Grizzly Man," a documentary about activists in Alaska who were killed by the grizzly bears they meant to protect, and "Rescue Dawn," about a U.S. fighter pilot shot down over Laos during the Vietnam war.

People get the wrong impression of the harshness of the place, based on the heroic age of Antarctic explorers like Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, Herzog said.

"It's a perpetuated sort of image since the days of 1903 or 1910 or 1911, when Scott and Amundsen and Shackleton were out here," he said. "Now you have got a cafeteria, you have got the barber shop and the TV station. You've got the ATM machine, so what else can you ask for?"

These considerable amenities are at McMurdo Station, the biggest U.S. science installation on the continent, where Herzog was based for the filming of this project, a documentary set to air on the Discovery Channel next year.

ANTI-HUMAN CONTINENT? NO

"Good transportation, a warm bed, a shower," Herzog went on, referring to conditions in Antarctica. "It is easy and nobody should try to perpetuate the aspect that this is a wild, furiously anti-human sort of continent."

He became interested in making a movie in Antarctica after seeing some underwater footage taken near McMurdo by the diver and experimental guitarist Henry Kaiser, Herzog said.

The director, who lives in Los Angeles, was enthusiastic but dubious when Kaiser, a veteran Antarctic hand, suggested filmmaking on the southern continent.

"Somehow, casually, he asked me, 'Wouldn't you like to go to Antarctica?' And I said yes, but I'm not useful here: I'm not a pilot, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a cook, I'm not a mechanic. I'm not needed, not wanted and kind of useless."

Ultimately, Herzog went to Antarctica as part of the National Science Foundation's program for artists and writers.

Antarctica has long been a subject that has captivated filmmakers, starting as early as 1913 with an Australian movie about life in the Antarctic and continuing through to the tap-dancing, environmentally aware penguins of this season's animated hit "Happy Feet."

Often the theme is the folly of human dreams of conquering this hostile land.

George Butler, maker of the 2000 documentary "The Endurance," about Shackleton's harrowing voyage to Antarctica -- which turned into a mission to keep his crew alive -- said he was captivated by the continent, which he called "the most beautiful place on Earth."

Butler praised the wildlife, the variety of birds, the changeability of the light, and the unspoiled nature of it.

"I always try to make movies that are beyond imagination," Butler said. "It's beyond the average person's imagination, and that fascinates people."

Herzog's focus was more on the people who work in Antarctica now, and the fine weather he encountered was not to his taste.

"It looked like stupid postcards: blue sky," Herzog said. "And so I'd like to be here in the twilight months . But it wouldn't make sense because hardly anyone is left then.

"And my feeling is very much about the people who end up here, who do science, who service the community, who do logistics, who do the dishwashing," he said. "You do not find good men and good women like that easily anywhere."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: JG on July 12, 2007, 08:18:33 PM
hey boston kids - wrath of god and kaspar hauser at the brattle this weekend.  sit next to me. 
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on September 18, 2007, 10:29:28 AM
Herzog sends witty postcard from "End of World"

Cinema's self-styled anthropologist, Werner Herzog, whose "Grizzly Man" emerged as one of 2005's more intriguing documentaries, returns with another unique travelogue.

"Encounters at the End of the World" finds Herzog accepting an invitation from the National Science Foundation to pay a visit to Antarctica's McMurdo Station, despite having warned them in advance that he's not at all inclined to make a penguin film.

Instead, he and cameraman Peter Zeitlinger are more concerned with the kind of people who'd be drawn to this desolate corner of the earth, and some of those subjects prove to be just as colorful and intriguing as the more exotic species swimming around beneath the ice.

While oddly shaped, the impressive-looking and sounding Discovery Channel release retains considerable entertainment value on the strength of Herzog's never-dull, very personal narrating style.

After doing some of the obligatory touristy things -- at least, what would pass for touristy in an industrial-looking compound that's home to more than 1,000 research-related personnel every October through February -- Herzog focuses on a sampling of those individuals and uncovers some subtle shared traits between them and the wildlife they're monitoring.

He also spends some time at an orientation program, where newcomers to McMurdo stumble around in the snow wearing buckets over their heads in a simulation of extreme blizzard conditions.

And, despite his initial anti-penguin stance, Herzog ultimately comes around, but only on his inimitable terms, asking an uncomfortable expert the tough questions about whether there were any gay penguins or if others were prone to madness.

Coming from the filmmaker who in the past has been drawn to individuals driven to building opera houses in the middle of the Peruvian jungle or out to prove that a Grizzly is man's best friend, nothing less would be expected.

Narrator: Werner Herzog.

Director: Werner Herzog; Producer: Henry Kaiser; Executive producers: Erik Nelson, Dave Harding, Phil Fairclough, Julian Hobbs; Director of photography: Peter Zeitlinger; Music: Henry Kaiser, David Lindley; Editor: Joe Bini.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Heinsbergen on September 24, 2007, 04:25:40 PM
herzog is the main reason why i'm proud to be a german. actually there are no other reasons cause i can't think of any.

my favorite is probably "aguirre", because i'm convinced the opening shot is one of the greatest cinematic moments ever created. anyone seen "fata morgana"? his greatest achievement right next to "aguirre" in my opinion. the first and maybe last movie (i should count trier's "element of crime" in) to ever really hypnotize me in some strange way. i'm always slightly dissapointed with "even dwarfs started small", can't really connect with it.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: hedwig on September 24, 2007, 05:51:35 PM
Quote from: Heinsbergen on September 24, 2007, 04:25:40 PM
herzog is the main reason why i'm proud to be a german. actually there are no other reasons cause i can't think of any.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi11.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa175%2FLeven321%2FUweBoll.jpg&hash=83ca8e6b61f91b576769935b4b6488b1759cb1fc)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on September 24, 2007, 07:02:27 PM
I've seen Aguirre a couple of weeks ago and it really blew my mind. The impact wasn't that obvious right after it was finished, but for the following days I couldn't think about anything else. Great, great, great performance by Kinski, and a great approach to the material, with some wonderfully scary scenes. This one is really great.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Heinsbergen on September 25, 2007, 03:20:47 AM
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on September 24, 2007, 07:02:27 PM
I've seen Aguirre a couple of weeks ago and it really blew my mind. The impact wasn't that obvious right after it was finished, but for the following days I couldn't think about anything else. Great, great, great performance by Kinski, and a great approach to the material, with some wonderfully scary scenes. This one is really great.

the music by popol vuh should be mentioned here. simply amazing. without it the film wouldn't have been that impressive.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on September 25, 2007, 05:34:34 AM
Quote from: Heinsbergen on September 25, 2007, 03:20:47 AM
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on September 24, 2007, 07:02:27 PM
I've seen Aguirre a couple of weeks ago and it really blew my mind. The impact wasn't that obvious right after it was finished, but for the following days I couldn't think about anything else. Great, great, great performance by Kinski, and a great approach to the material, with some wonderfully scary scenes. This one is really great.

the music by popol vuh should be mentioned here. simply amazing. without it the film wouldn't have been that impressive.


You're right, I shouldn't have forgotten to mention it, but for me the real standout was (as always) the intensity of Klaus Kinski. That creep can roll, man.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: elpablo on October 15, 2007, 01:39:07 PM
I feel like no one here is from the Philadelphia area, but I'll post this just in case because I'm probably wrong:

http://cinemastudies.upenn.edu/

Scroll down to next week on the right side.

Herzog is apparently going to be around next week. They'll be screening a couple of his films and he'll be around for discussions on one or two of those nights. Everything is free an open to the public.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: elpablo on October 30, 2007, 08:49:08 AM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm3.static.flickr.com%2F2142%2F1803378333_64e7034cf2_b.jpg&hash=d17072126adb2b51dd1b29bd46a57521c0894768)

I love this man. I want to fall asleep in his arms while he reads me excerpts from classical Greek literature.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Reinhold on November 26, 2007, 01:50:29 PM
MoMA is screening a few Herzog films on Saturday, December 8.

2:00 p.m.
Film Screenings & Events
Aguirre, the Wrath of God. 1972. West Germany. Werner Herzog. 95 min.
In the Film exhibition Collaborations in the Collection


4:00 p.m.
Film Screenings & Events
Woyzeck. 1979. West Germany. Werner Herzog. 80 min.
In the Film exhibition Collaborations in the Collection


6:00 p.m.
Film Screenings & Events
Fitzcarraldo. 1982. West Germany. Werner Herzog. 160 min.
In the Film exhibition Collaborations in the Collection


Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Alexandro on November 27, 2007, 03:56:43 PM
there's a really cool letter from ebert to herzog up in rogerebert.com

my favorite line from roger: "What must be true, must be true. What must not be true, can be made more true by invention."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Redlum on December 23, 2007, 03:01:18 PM
Mark Kermode interviews Werner Herzog for Rescue Dawn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2GOyYFpkGY
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: john on February 26, 2008, 03:27:05 AM
If you're in the Bay Area, Werner Herzog is at Stanford screening Grizzly Man and Rescue Dawn and doing a Q & A.

Grizzly Man was tonight (2/26) - Rescue Dawn is tomorrow.

Even better - it's entirely free.

http://events.stanford.edu/events/128/12890/


Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on February 26, 2008, 09:18:26 AM
FUCK!
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Gamblour. on March 04, 2008, 11:14:50 AM
Incredible conversation between Errol Morris and Herzog. Some funny stories about grave digging, I don't know if they've been told before, but quite amazing nonetheless.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200803/?read=interview_herzog
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on March 04, 2008, 02:03:56 PM
yeah herzog talked about it in his book.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on April 04, 2008, 12:38:28 AM
Werner Herzog set for 'Piano Tuner'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Werner Herzog will write and direct "The Piano Tuner," a lush Victorian-era drama about a Brit's journey to war-torn Burma, for Focus Features. Mandalay Independent Pictures' Cathy Schulman is a producer on the project.

Based on Daniel Mason's 2002 debut novel, the story centers on Edgar Drake, a man sent to a remote village in the late 1800s to repair an eccentric military man's piano. Drake falls in love with a Burmese woman and her country, but as the officer wins over locals through music and medicine, things grow treacherous when his troops begin to suspect him of treason.

"Tuner" is right up the intense helmer's alley. Herzog has directed several films about men venturing into exotic locales ("Rescue Dawn," "Grizzly Man," "Fitzcarraldo"), but this will be his biggest English-language costume drama in more than four decades as a filmmaker.

The original screen adaptation by Peter Buchman is being rewritten by Herzog. Focus Features executives John Lyons and Kahli Small will oversee the project for the studio.

Mason sold "Tuner" and another novel to Knopf in 2001 for $1.2 million. Schulman optioned the novel with her fellow Bull's Eye Entertainment principals Bob Yari and Tom Nunan in 2003, shortly before their bitter separation. Other producers might be added in the coming months as preproduction ramps up.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: w/o horse on April 25, 2008, 03:39:20 PM
Encounters at the End of the World is finally coming to a theater here next month.  Can't wait.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on May 15, 2008, 02:05:38 AM
Directors team for 'My Son'
Werner Herzog, David Lynch take on murder drama
Source: Hollywood Reporter

CANNES -- Werner Herzog and David Lynch are teaming for "My Son, My Son," a horror-tinged murder drama based on a true story.

Herzog and his longtime assistant director Herbert Golder co-wrote "Son," loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword. The low-budget feature will flash back and forth from the murder scene to the disturbed man's story. A guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island is tentatively set for March.

In a separate development, Lynch's Absurda production company has attached Asia Argento and Udo Kier to star with Nick Nolte in Alejandro Jodorowsky's metaphysical gangster movie "King Shot."

Marilyn Manson is touted to appear as a prophet in the "Sin City"-style film, which producer Eric Bassett said has enough sex and violence to guarantee an NC-17 rating.

Lynch is executive producing both projects, and Absurda is repping their sales rights in the Cannes market.

"Son" is produced by Eric Bassett, who also is producing "King" with his Absurda colleague Norm Hill and Clavis Films' Simon Shandor.

Herzog, repped by Gersh, is having a busy 2008. He was set to film "Son" in the summer but postponed it to direct Nicolas Cage in a remake of Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" starting in July. In the fall, he will shoot the Victorian-era drama "The Piano Tuner" for Focus Features.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: matt35mm on May 15, 2008, 02:18:28 PM
There's no part of that article that didn't get me excited.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: squints on May 15, 2008, 03:07:01 PM
This thread just keeps blowing my mind.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SiliasRuby on May 15, 2008, 03:19:02 PM
Me and probably Neon when he reads this are very very very happy.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: w/o horse on May 20, 2008, 08:46:10 PM
William Finkelstein:

QuoteWriter:
In Production
2000s
1990s
Bad Lieutenant (2009) (pre-production) (writer)


The Line-Up (2006) (TV) (writer)
"NYPD Blue" (5 episodes, 2003-2005)
    - Moving Day (2005) TV episode (writer)
    - Old Man Quiver (2005) TV episode (writer)
    - I Love My Wives, But Oh You Kid (2004) TV episode (writer)
    - The Vision Thing (2004) TV episode (writer)
    - Only Schmucks Pay Income Tax (2003) TV episode (story) (as William Finkelstein) (teleplay) (as William Finkelstein)
L.A. Law: The Movie (2002) (TV) (written by)
"Law & Order" (3 episodes, 2001)
... aka Law & Order Prime (USA: informal title)
    - Swept Away - A Very Special Episode (2001) TV episode (writer)
    - Sunday in the Park with Jorge (2001) TV episode (writer)
    - Whose Monkey Is It Anyway? (2001) TV episode (writer)
"Murder One" (4 episodes, 1997)
    - Chapter Eleven, Year Two (1997) TV episode (story)
    - Chapter Twelve, Year Two (1997) TV episode (writer)
    - Chapter Ten, Year Two (1997) TV episode (writer)
    - Chapter Nine, Year Two (1997) TV episode (writer)
On Seventh Avenue (1996) (TV) (written by)
"L.A. Law" (60 episodes, 1986-1994)
    - Finish Line (1994) TV episode (story)
    - How Am I Driving? (1994) TV episode (writer)
    - Dead Issue (1994) TV episode (writer)
    - Three on a Patch (1994) TV episode (writer)
    - Cold Cuts (1994) TV episode (writer)
      (55 more)
"Civil Wars" (1991) TV series (unknown episodes)
"Cop Rock" (1990) TV series (unknown episodes)


Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: squints on May 21, 2008, 03:18:42 PM
Well sir, i don't like it.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Just Withnail on May 21, 2008, 05:26:22 PM
Quote from: squints on May 21, 2008, 03:18:42 PM
Well sir, i don't like it.

Werner Herzog:

QuoteDirector:
In Production
2000s
1990s
1980s
1970s
1960s
The Piano Tuner (2010) (pre-production)
Bad Lieutenant (2009) (pre-production)

Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
Rescue Dawn (2006)
The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
Grizzly Man (2005)
The White Diamond (2004)
Wheel of Time (2003)
... aka Rad der Zeit (Germany)
Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002) (segment "Ten Thousand Years Older")
Invincible (2001)
... aka Unbesiegbar (Germany)
Pilgrimage (2001)
Julianes Sturz in den Dschungel (2000) (TV)
... aka Wings of Hope (International: English title)
"2000 Jahre Christentum" (1 episode, 2000)
... aka 2000 Years of Christianity (USA: DVD title)
    - Neue Welten - Hinter dem europäischen Horizont (2000) TV episode

Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski (1999)
... aka 25. tunti: Klaus Kinski (Finland: TV title)
... aka Mein liebster Feind (Germany)
... aka My Best Fiend (Europe: English title)
"Höllenfahrten" (1 episode, 1998)
    - Flucht aus Laos (1998) TV episode
Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
... aka Flucht aus Laos (Germany)
Verwandlung der Welt in Musik: Bayreuth vor der Premiere, Die (1996) (TV)
... aka The Transformation of the World Into Music
... aka Verwandlung der Welt in Musik, Die (Germany: short title)
Glocken aus der Tiefe - Glaube und Aberglaube in Rußland (1995)
... aka Bells from the Deep: Faith and Superstition in Russia
... aka Glocken aus der Tiefe (Germany: short title)
Tod für fünf Stimmen (1995) (TV)
... aka Death for Five Voices (International: English title)
... aka Gesualdo - Tod für fünf Stimmen (Germany: long title)
... aka Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (International: English title)
Lektionen in Finsternis (1992)
... aka Lessons of Darkness (USA: video title)
Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein (1991)
... aka Cerro Torre Scream of Stone (Canada: English title)
... aka Cerro Torre, le cri de la roche (France)
... aka Conquête de la peur, La (Canada: French title)
... aka Scream of Stone
Jag Mandir: Das exzentrische Privattheater des Maharadscha von Udaipur (1991) (TV)
Echos aus einem düsteren Reich (1990)
... aka Echo d'un sombre empire (France)
... aka Echoes from a Somber Empire

Wodaabe - Die Hirten der Sonne. Nomaden am Südrand der Sahara (1989) (TV)
... aka Herdsmen of the Sun
... aka Wodaabe, les bergers du soleil (France)
... aka Wodaabe: Herdsmen of the Sun (International: English title)
Giovanna d'Arco (1989) (TV)
"Français vus par, Les" (1988) (mini) TV mini-series
... aka The Cowboy and the Frenchman (USA: DVD title)
... aka The French as Seen by... (literal English title)
Gauloises, Les (1988)
Cobra Verde (1987)
... aka Slave Coast
Portrait Werner Herzog (1986)
Gasherbrum - Der leuchtende Berg (1985) (TV)
... aka The Dark Glow of the Mountains
Ballade vom kleinen Soldaten (1984) (TV)
... aka Ballad of the Little Soldier
Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen (1984)
... aka Where the Green Ants Dream
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Glaube und Währung - Dr. Gene Scott, Fernsehprediger (1980) (TV)
... aka God's Angry Man (International: English title)
Huie's Predigt (1980) (TV)
... aka Huie's Sermon

Woyzeck (1979)
... aka Werner Herzog's Woyzeck
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979)
... aka Nosferatu - fantôme de la nuit (France)
... aka Nosferatu the Vampyre (USA)
La Soufrière - Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe (1977)
... aka Soufrière, La (USA: festival title)
Stroszek (1977)
Herz aus Glas (1976)
... aka Heart of Glass (USA)
Mit mir will keiner spielen (1976)
... aka No One Will Play with Me (International: English title)
... aka Nobody Wants to Play with Me
How much Wood would a Woodchuck chuck... - Beobachtungen zu einer neuen Sprache (1976) (TV)
Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (1974)
... aka Every Man for Himself and God Against All
... aka Kaspar Hauser - Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (West Germany)
... aka The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
... aka The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser
Große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner, Die (1974)
... aka The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
... aka The Strange Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)
... aka Aguirre, Wrath of God (UK)
... aka Aguirre: The Wrath of God (USA)
Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit (1971)
... aka Land of Silence and Darkness (International: English title)
Fata Morgana (1971)
Behinderte Zukunft? (1971) (TV)
... aka Handicapped Future (International: English title)
Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen (1970)
... aka Even Dwarfs Started Small

Massnahmen gegen Fanatiker (1969)
... aka Measures Against Fanatics
... aka Precautions Against Fanatics
Fliegenden Ärzte von Ostafrika, Die (1969) (TV)
... aka The Flying Doctors of East Africa (UK)
Lebenszeichen (1968)
... aka Signs of Life
Letzte Worte (1968)
... aka Last Words
Beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreuz, Die (1967)
... aka The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (International: English title)
Spiel im Sand (1964)
... aka Game in the Sand (International: English title)
Herakles (1962)

Werner Herzog... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Herzog)


Werner Herzog! (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=werner+herzog&search_type=)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ravi on June 05, 2008, 03:10:59 PM
Did anyone see Herzog on Conan last night?  He didn't mention Bad Lieutenant but they showed a clip from Encounters at the End of the World and this interview clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXqc8TQ15w) in which Herzog gets shot.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: w/o horse on June 07, 2008, 01:05:24 PM
Re:  Mac's previous post:  most of my personal fears about the project have thus been assuaged.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on June 10, 2008, 01:53:16 PM
EXCL: Traveling the Globe with Werner Herzog
Source: Edward Douglas; ComingSoon

Veteran filmmaker Werner Herzog has effortlessly alternated between documentaries and dramatic films over his forty-plus year career, but in recent years, he's become known for his prolific ability to crank out two to three non-fiction films a year. His 2005 documentary Grizzly Man was thought by many to be the best doc that year even though it was ignored by the Academy. His latest effort Encounters at the End of the World is just as riveting, a unique look at Antarctica and the inhabitants of the McMurdo Base, a place that few people get to see and fewer ever get to visit. Herzog spent seven weeks down on the continent filming the gorgeous landscapes and capturing unbelievable underwater shots the likes that haven't been seen except in the movies of James Cameron, combining them with his trademark narrative and a beautiful soundtrack of Russian chorale music. As hard as the famous German filmmaker tried avoiding the penguins who've made the continent famous, he did manage to sneak one wildly lost penguin into the movie, which seemed appropriate.

ComingSoon.net sat down with Herzog at the THINKFilm offices for a brief interview, although it took some time to get onto the same page, since he seemed to want to answer his own questions rather than the ones we asked. Hey, when you make as many great movies as Herzog, you can answer whichever questions you want, right?

ComingSoon.net: When I interviewed Zak Penn last year for his movie "The Grand," we were talking about your role in his movie. He mentioned getting a call from you and you telling him matter-of-factly that you were in Antarctica. Was it that easy a decision to just go down there and make a movie?
Werner Herzog: (ignores my question and answering his own) Sometimes it's good to show a good amount of self-irony. It does good to me, and besides, I've been in the last two films of Harmony Korine, "Julian Donkey Boy" and "Mister Lonely." It's simply that I love everything that has to do with cinema: writing, directing, producing, editing, and including acting, but I'm good in acting only in a limited scope. I'm only good when it comes to characters that are violent, debased people, dysfunctional, then I'm good and quite convincing then.

CS: Having seen you in so many of your own documentaries, whenever you show up in a movie like that, one expects you to start narrating or commenting on what is happening. As far as "Encounters" though, you saw some underwater pictures that got you interested in Antarctica?
Herzog: Of course, the film shows it and I'm making a clear statement. I was absolutely fascinated by footage that I saw under the water, complete and utter science fiction environment that doesn't look like (it's from) this planet. Of course, it is under the ice of the Roth Sea shelf. The divers have to drill a hole through 10, 15, 20 feet of ice and they have to be absolutely expert divers because sometimes there are unexpected currents underwater. If you get disoriented, you cannot surface anymore. If you do not find the exit hole anymore, then you're dead. It was quite clear very early on I would never have a chance to dive. I'm not a scuba diver, and even if I had gone into training for a full year, they wouldn't have allowed me, because it was simply too dangerous. The community in Antarctica, which is very hard to maintain, cannot afford to put all the resources into a rescue operation. They'd better use a helicopter and manpower in supporting a nutrino detection project or climate change project or a whatever project.

CS: Knowing that you wouldn't be able dive yourself, did you just want to have one of the divers take a camera down to film new footage?
Herzog: Exactly. He's the musician Henry Kaiser, with whom I did the music in "Grizzly Man," together with Richard Thompson, he produced the music. He actually in "Encounters at the End of the World" plays guitar, but mostly, it's David Lindley, a wonderful great musician, and the other part of the music is actually prerecorded Russian Orthodox church choirs, and it gives this kind of great space to the landscapes. How it functions is very strange, and of course, it gives something almost sacred to certain things that you see. The Russian church choirs of course already existed, but all the rest of the music was done together with the images, and it was recorded for the movie itself.

CS: When you decided to make a movie down there, did you have to get some sort of financing together and have a solid gameplan or did you just go down with a small crew and start shooting?
Herzog: Well, it was a minimum crew. There was a cinematographer and me, the director who did the sound, and Henry Kaiser who did the diving and worked on the music and the organization, because he was down there seven times maybe, so he knew shortcuts in the bureaucracy down there which is immense... strangely, big big amount of bureaucracy, but it's okay. No complaints about that. It was just an incredible fascination about the footage I had seen from underwater and of course, those stories that I heard. I said, "Oh, I'll never have a chance to go down to Antarctica" and Henry Kaiser said to me, "Yes, there might be a chance. There is an artists and writers' program by the National Science Foundation. Why don't you apply?" I applied and they invited me! It came out and I didn't expect it, and then the consolation in producing the film was the same like in "Grizzly Man" which means Creative Differences, a man who runs it Erik Nelson, he by the way has his own film "Dreams with Sharp Teeth" and I'm very proud that we're handing over the cinema from his film to mine. (Note: It's true. Nelson's Harlan Ellison doc played at New York's Film Forum until Tuesday and then Herzog's film starts on Wednesday.) He's really a wonderful filmmaker and producer, and he since he had worked a lot with Discovery, they came on board and it was in this case, fairly easy, because we had a similar set-up like in "Grizzly Man."

CS: As far as the community down there, it must be very secular and they must keep to themselves, especially the scientists, so how did you approach them about talking in front of your camera?
Herzog: The majority of the population are not scientists. They are people for maintenance and organization, mechanics, people who work in the kitchen. The dishwasher in the galley is a retired judge from a high court, things like this, so you find amazing people, but very dedicated. Out of roughly a population of thousands of men and women down in McMurdo during the astral summer, which is our winter, there are roughly one thousand and about 200 or 250 are working on scientific projects, all the others are plumbers, like the journeyman plumber you see in the film who is a wonderful man. In the organization and housing and maintenance and transport and security, you just name it.

CS: In general, you wanted to talk to whomever you could, so what did you tell them when you asked them to be in your film?
Herzog: That's the strange thing. I flew down and I had no idea whom I was going to meet, with the exception of one or two, Henry Kaiser I knew I would meet and Sam Viser, who runs this diving camp. I knew that, but I flew into the unknown and I had no idea whom I was going to meet and how I was going to do the film and what I would do. I only knew I had to come back seven weeks later with a film in the can... which frightened me. I know I'm a good storyteller and I always connect very quickly to real good people.

CS: But you've done other films in less than seven weeks.
Herzog: Yeah, well you lose about more than a week, once you're down there, once you arrive there, you're not allowed to leave McMurdo. You have to do a course in survival, a course in radio communications, a course in snowmobile riding. Three days into being down there, I had an accident on a steep slope. The instructor asked me to do a turn on a very steep slope and being a good skier, I thought, "well, this looks a little bit twisty for making a U-Turn" and indeed, the snowmobile, 800 pounds, turns over and I tried to get away from it and it tumbles after me, this 800 pound monster rolls all over my body, so for the next six weeks, I was hurting everywhere you can hurt, and I could barely bend down to tie my shoestrings, because my rib cage was hurting so badly, swollen hands five times as thick as a hand should normally be.

CS: Someone was telling me once—I think it was Zak—that they wanted to do a graphic novel about you, your life and your adventures, and I think that story would have to be in there.
Herzog: Yes. (chuckles)

CS: It seems that a lot of people want to go down there to disappear or get lost, they literally drop out of normal society....
Herzog: No, I don't think anybody goes down there to disappear from society. You don't do that, because you could not... if you tried that, you could not sustain yourself for more than a week, because you cannot carry more food with you.

CS: But McMurdo has its own society. I'm talking about getting away from normal society.
Herzog: Society (down there) is not much different from what we have here. You've got an ATM machine in McMurdo and an aerobics studio, and you have yoga classes and Alcoholics Anonymous... and you have three bars and you have a film club, and you just name it.

CS: That's a lot of stuff we didn't see in the movie. I see a sequel here.
Herzog: In condensed form. (chuckles)

CS: Was a lot of the motivation for making the film just to show people things they hadn't seen before?
Herzog: Well, I didn't know exactly what was going on there. I only knew there was a lot of cutting edge science, and not only what everyone thinks, that science in Antarctica has to do with the climate change and so on. Yes, there's a good amount of cutting edge science and knowledge coming from there, but it's other things like origins of life. The divers actually dive for very tiny mono-cellular creatures, which gives us insight into very, very early forms of biological life on this planet. There are people who are trying to detect nutrinos for very obvious reasons. It is much easier to detect in there because from a balloon for example that flies 40 kilometers high into the stratosphere, you can cover hundreds and hundreds of miles under you and detect the tiniest signals without any disturbances. Even a light switch that you turn off and on would be registered as a signal up there at 40 km distance, and of course, you don't have all these disturbances, and then they have a field of observation that is very favorable.

CS: Your documentaries are very well known for your trademark narratives. Do you tend to write that stuff while you're down there or experiencing it or is it all done after the fact once you've edited the movie together?
Herzog: It was done during editing, because I knew while I was filming, I knew I would easily get enough fascinating footage to make a film out of it, but in which order I would narrate it, I did not know clearly. A few things I saw immediately, yes, I had to show why did I go to Antarctica as the first images I have to show, underwater stuff, so a few elements in the whole structure were clear in its position. Otherwise, I fill it with this kind of great curiosity and also, there's a lot of humor in it, and you see it when you watch it in a theater with audiences, so much laughter. I'm very enthusiastic about the fact that people laugh so much and they see the humor in it.

CS: Between "Grizzly Man" and "Rescue Dawn," you've had somewhat of a resurgence, so have you discovered that you have a new younger audience that never saw any of your older films?
Herzog: Yeah, in a way. You know that I live in the United States. I got married and I live in the United States and it's done very good to me. I'm out for new horizons and not only that horizon into Antarctica was opened to me, significantly by the American National Science Foundation, they've been very good to me. It's also distribution, for example, here we are at THINKFilm, it's a first time I'm collaborating with THINKFilm and I'm finding that it's very significant that all of a sudden, the Discovery Channel or Creative Differences or that "Rescue Dawn" was not a studio film but it was released by MGM, so all of a sudden, completely new horizons. I don't want to tread the same spot all over throughout my filmmaking life. I'm always exploring, I'm always out for new horizons. It has done good to my films, it has done good to me. When you look at the films I've made recently, "Grizzly Man," "Rescue Dawn," "Encounters at the End of the World", "The Wild Blue Yonder," it's just a very significant new step for me.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Gold Trumpet on June 10, 2008, 11:22:27 PM
I don't like the idea of Herzog adapting Bad Lieutenant. When I think of Bad Lieutenant and Werner Herzog, I think of a filmmaker and film that are already pretty much the same. Herzog is the ultimate documentation. His thematic consistency through all of his films is that he deals with extreme characters and situations, but he always does so in a documentation fashion. He chooses to search through nuances of the character's actions instead of question their what ifs. Bad Lieutenant is already a classic example of following a character of extreme emotions through his tumultuous life. I don't know what Herzog would really change. He may have his character doing different things, but I have to imagine it would be to the same ends as the original film.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on June 22, 2008, 12:56:36 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fmedia%2Fphoto%2F2008-06%2F40251465.jpg&hash=14f9fc558d75eba9ad2b87d4db20625ef700a910)

Werner Herzog explores the Antarctic
The filmmaker travels to the South Pole to make what he says might be the deepest film of his career, 'Encounters at the End of the World.'
By Sheri Linden, Special to The Times

WERNER HERZOG says he should have known better. In 46 years of visionary filmmaking often devoted to life in extremis, the prolific director has never been one to toe the line. But on his latest work, the nonfiction feature "Encounters at the End of the World," he had a brief lapse: Against his better instincts, he followed instructions -- and found himself on the losing end of a tussle with an 800-pound snowmobile.

"Encounters," filmed over seven weeks in Antarctica, abounds with exhilarating and strange beauty, unforgettable characters both human and otherwise, and is often mordantly funny. Having now made features on all seven continents, Herzog discovered a landscape unlike anything he had previously explored. "The only thing that comes close would be the Sahara Desert, in just the expanse of it and the amount of solitude," he said recently.

Arriving at the Studio City offices of the film's production company, Creative Differences, Herzog was all warm hellos and high energy and dispensed not a syllable of unnecessary preliminaries. That focus and efficiency are hardly surprising; this is a man who has released six films in the last five years, one of which, the acclaimed documentary "Grizzly Man," he shot, edited and delivered in 29 days.

In the lead-up to this Friday's Los Angeles bow of "Encounters" for a weeklong run at the Nuart, Herzog was juggling preproduction logistics for his next project, the Nicolas Cage-starring remake of "Bad Lieutenant." That film, which has more than 45 speaking roles, is at the far end of the spectrum from Herzog's two-man-crew adventures in the vast emptiness of Antarctica.

But he's famous for moving between fiction and nonfiction -- sometimes within the same film -- and for dismissing the distinction between the two as arbitrary. Central to his 2005 sci-fi narrative "The Wild Blue Yonder" was documentary footage of Antarctic dives. That underwater imagery, by diver Henry Kaiser, led Herzog to the South Pole to make "Encounters."

"There is something almost sacred about being there," he said, "something that does not belong to our planet anymore. As if it were science fiction, as if we were confronted with the essence of creation."

But before Herzog, who handled the film's production sound, and his longtime cinematographer, Peter Zeitlinger, could venture into the frozen wilderness and out to the field camps where glaciologists, biologists, physicists and volcanologists pursue their singular passions, they had to endure a week of "briefings and bureaucracy and snowmobile training," not to mention the mandatory exercises of the Happy Camper survival school.

Only a couple of days into his stay at McMurdo Station, the sprawling base camp and research hub, the director, an accomplished skier who had never been on a snowmobile, was asked to make a turn on a slope that looked too steep. "I followed instructions, which I shouldn't have." When the "monster" of a vehicle toppled, it rolled over Herzog and left him "hurting everywhere" for the remainder of the shoot.

But "Encounters" offers no evidence that its director was in pain; marked by Herzog's signature brooding exuberance and German-accented voice-over pronouncements on such "abominations" as aerobics studios and New Age wishful thinking, it's full of affection for the outsiders, full-time travelers and philosopher-forklift drivers who call McMurdo home during the five-month, nighttime-free austral summer.

"You find a retired judge washing dishes in the galley," Herzog said.

Herzog's willingness to strip his filmmaking operation down to the "absolute minimum" -- Zeitlinger and himself -- was a key selling point to the National Science Foundation, which runs McMurdo and was Herzog's sponsor.

"James Cameron apparently, I was told, had applied to be invited to McMurdo, and his request was declined because he would only show up with, I don't know, a 35-man crew -- I'm just taking a guess. And to maintain one single person for one day down there is a huge expense. . . . I did not want to waste resources that they need for other things."

Herzog also made it clear to the NSF that he was not interested in filming a heartwarming tribute to "fluffy" penguins. Yet a couple of individuals from that pop-culture-fav species do make a powerful impression. Zeitlinger's images of them, in combination with Herzog's narration, create an indelible expression of nothing less than the existential mystery of life.

"I know the film has depth, although it tries to hide it behind all its humor," Herzog conceded. "It's probably pretty much the deepest film I've made -- maybe with the exception of 'Land of Silence and Darkness' " (a 1971 documentary portrait of Fini Straubinger, who was deaf and blind).

Although his Antarctic explorations were above the surface -- as far above it as the rim of 12,000-foot Mount Erebus, where he received "etiquette" lessons in how to respond when a volcano explodes -- Herzog's initial inspiration for "Encounters" was the marine world "under the ceiling of ice." That may be why he's particularly pleased with an underwater sequence that uses footage by Kaiser and sound design by Doug Quinn of seals calling to one another, in voices that one scientist likens to Pink Floyd. "That's the finest moment in sound I've heard in many years," Herzog said.

For the filmmaker, who rejects romanticized notions about the natural world -- "I don't have any beliefs about nature. I just make my own observations" -- the Antarctic landscape put certain realities into stark relief. "The only thing that becomes quite obvious in Antarctica," he said, "is that our presence on this planet, the human presence on the planet, is not really sustainable."

Herzog is not talking merely about the top-of-mind matter of global warming. "Climate change would not be the only reason why we might become extinct. Sure, it may be a factor. It may not. But human life in complicated civilized structures is very, very vulnerable. And of course when you look at the presence of biological life on this planet, it has been an endless line of cataclysmic events. . . . I do not make any predictions. That would be silly; we do not know. But there is an all-pervasive sense which makes me see clearly that our presence is not sustainable -- in particular this highly technical civilization which is wasting resources at a dramatic pace."

Some observers have mistaken Herzog's clear-eyed view for misanthropy. But like the "professional dreamers" he encountered in Antarctica, he meets the world head-on -- creatively, ecstatically and without undue regard for convention.

"The thought that human beings may eventually disappear from this planet doesn't make me nervous," Herzog noted. "There was a very beautiful thing that Martin Luther, the reformist, said in the 16th century. He was asked, 'What would you do if tomorrow the world would disappear, would explode, would not be anymore?' And Luther said, 'I would plant an apple tree.' " Herzog leaned forward, smiling, his voice filled with gleeful decisiveness. "And my answer is, if I knew it was over tomorrow, I would start to shoot a movie."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on July 21, 2008, 02:08:59 AM
encounter was great.  it was like casual herzog; herzog lite, but still full of wisdom, humor, and revelation.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on January 28, 2009, 12:35:15 AM
Michael Shannon Set for Herzog's My Son
Source: Entertainment Weekly

Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) is working with director Werner Herzog and executive producer David Lynch on the horror film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, a picture announced early last year.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Shannon is playing the lead, a San Diego man "who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword." Shooting is expected to begin in Peru from a script by Herzog and Herbert Golder.

Shannon has appeared in Dead Birds, Bug and World Trade Center. Reports in December also say Udo Kier and Willem Dafoe will co-star.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: abuck1220 on January 31, 2009, 03:03:45 PM
i thought encounters at the end of the world was pretty awful. he'd show some cool shit and then cut to some weirdo that zips herself in a suitcase. yawn. it's like he just could resist throwing in some herzog-esque nuttiness to put his stamp on it. unfortunately, the population of this place is pretty small, so he has to try and make the guy whose second and third fingers are the same length seem interesting.

and it looked like shit. even the blu-ray.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on February 09, 2009, 01:17:23 PM
'Done' deal: Trio joins Herzog thriller
Thriller casts Michael Pena, Brad Dourif, Bill Cobbs
Source: Hollywood Reporter

BERLIN -- Michael Pena, Brad Dourif and Bill Cobbs have joined the cast of Werner Herzog and David Lynch's psychological thriller "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done."

The trio join Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe and Chloe Sevigny in the film, which Herzog is directing. Eric Bassett ("Inland Empire") is producing while David Lynch serves as executive producer.

Unified Pictures, the Los Angeles-based production, finance and international distribution company, is handling international sales with David Lynch's company, Absurda, and introducing the film at the European Film Market.

The film is loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who experiences a series of mystifying events that lead him to brutally murder his own mother with a sword.

Pena's credits include "Crash" and "World Trade Center" while Dourif is a veteran actor who's appeared films ranging from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" to "The Lord of the Rings" movies. Cobbs next appears in "Black Water Transit."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SiliasRuby on February 09, 2009, 01:45:54 PM
Soooo excited for this....its hopefully going to be Mmm mmm good.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on February 14, 2009, 10:29:58 PM
Werner Herzog and his 'uninvited guests'
The filmmaker insists he doesn't seek out the eccentric, larger-than-life characters he spotlights.
By Susan King; Los Angeles Times

Werner Herzog admits he has never had any grand plan for choosing his projects.

"The films always stumble into me," says the German-born, L.A.-based filmmaker. "I have never planned a career like other filmmakers would do. It's always been like a home invasion -- how do you get the burglars out of your homes in the middle of the night?"

Case in point: His stumbling into "Grizzly Man," his 2005 award-winning documentary that explored the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, who studied grizzly bears before he and his girlfriend were killed by a bear in 2003.

"I was not searching for a story," recalls Herzog, 66. "I was searching for my car keys in the office of a big production company. The producer, who thought I spotted something on the table, shoved an article to me and said we are doing a very interesting project."

Herzog couldn't say no. "It's like uninvited guests," he says. "All of a sudden, you open the door a foot wide and uninvited guests are crowding in your home."

Herzog has never shied from controversy and has a reputation for daring narratives and documentaries that explore larger-than-life characters. They include Treadwell, Klaus Kinski's conquistador in 1972's "Aguirre, Wrath of God" and the offbeat workers and citizens of the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station in his latest film, " Encounters at the End of the World," for which he is nominated for his first Academy Award, for feature documentary.

Friday at UCLA's Royce Hall, Herzog will talk about his films with Paul Holdengräber, director of public programs at the New York Public Library (and former director of LACMA's now-defunct Institute for Art & Cultures). "We had planned on a wild event with musicians from Senegal, Sardinia and Holland, but the problem is apparently they didn't get a work visa," Herzog says. "So it's a complicated situation. . . . I will basically be in discourse with Paul, and we will show excerpts of how I put music particularly in two films -- 'The Wild Blue Yonder' and 'White Diamond.' "

"Yonder" is a 2005 sci-fi drama combined with documentary images about the environment, whereas "The White Diamond" is a 2004 documentary about an airship designer trying to navigate the rain forest in Guyana. Herzog is one of the few directors who moves with ease among genres.

"I am not into this wild business of labeling," he says. "To me, it's all movies. I cross the border lines in a way as I stylize documentaries. Sometimes I script documentaries -- some of them are just feature films in disguise."

Since completing "Encounters," Herzog has directed the feature "Bad Lieutenant" with Nicolas Cage (the cop thriller doesn't have a domestic distributor), staged the opera "Parsifal" in Spain, made a short film in the south of Ethiopia about music and started shooting his latest narrative drama, "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?," in Peru.

"It was just one isolated sequence which I had to do at the height of the rainy season," he says of "My Son," which is loosely based on a real story about a San Diego man who envisions a Sophocles play in his mind. (The principal filming will take place three or four weeks from now, he says.)

Herzog has also written an English translation of a nonfiction book. "It's based on diaries I wrote during 'Fitzcarraldo,' called 'Conquest of the Useless,' " he says.

"It will be out fairly soon, and it will survive all of my films."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: NEON MERCURY on March 23, 2009, 10:09:48 PM
im esxcited byt his as well....the synopsis leaves so much to imagine..and gives the creative froces behind the film nuch to work with..but i though that lynch had a writing credit as well :ponder:
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: SiliasRuby on March 23, 2009, 10:19:53 PM
PM, we still want your complete and full review of 'Inland Empire' hat you didn't get to finish.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: NEON MERCURY on March 26, 2009, 09:52:50 PM
its cmoing..i watched it again for the 5th time...and i feel like one more viewing will give me what i need to finish it
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on September 22, 2009, 08:41:14 PM
Herzog to teach guerilla filmmaking
Weekend will cost $1,450
Source: Variety

With a typical no-nonsense approach, Werner Herzog has decided to teach guerilla filmmaking at a cost of $1,450 for a weekend -- and cautioned the faint of heart to stay away.

"Censorship will be enforced," he says. "There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth."

Herzog -- whose credits include "Aguirre," "Fitzcarraldo," "Encounters at the End of the World," "Grizzly Man" and the new "Bad Lieutenant" -- also warned applicants not to bring a laptop to the first session Jan. 8-10 in Los Angeles. Instead, he promised he'll offer insight into such areas as "the exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully" and "the neutralization of bureaucracy."

"The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted; it is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favoring their projects," he said. "In short: it is for those who have a sense for poetry. For those who are pilgrims. For those who can tell a story to four-year-old children and hold their attention. For those who have a fire burning within. For those who have a dream."

At the end of the seminar, participants will receive a signed copy of Herzog's "Conquest of the Useless."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pozer on September 22, 2009, 10:36:16 PM
so strange what Herzog does. sooooo strange. didnt he once pull Nic Cage out of a streetcar after Ferrara blew it up?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: polkablues on September 22, 2009, 10:43:43 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on September 22, 2009, 08:41:14 PM
Herzog to teach guerilla filmmaking
Weekend will cost $1,450
Source: Variety

With a typical no-nonsense approach, Werner Herzog has decided to teach guerilla filmmaking at a cost of $1,450 for a weekend -- and cautioned the faint of heart to stay away.

"Censorship will be enforced," he says. "There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth."

Herzog -- whose credits include "Aguirre," "Fitzcarraldo," "Encounters at the End of the World," "Grizzly Man" and the new "Bad Lieutenant" -- also warned applicants not to bring a laptop to the first session Jan. 8-10 in Los Angeles. Instead, he promised he'll offer insight into such areas as "the exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully" and "the neutralization of bureaucracy."

"The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted; it is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favoring their projects," he said. "In short: it is for those who have a sense for poetry. For those who are pilgrims. For those who can tell a story to four-year-old children and hold their attention. For those who have a fire burning within. For those who have a dream."

At the end of the seminar, participants will receive a signed copy of Herzog's "Conquest of the Useless."

Ho. Ly. Shit.  Someone get on making a documentary of that.  It will be the most hardcore, insane thing ever.  "I'm With Busey" times 10,000.  I guarantee you at least one person will not make it out alive.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on April 12, 2010, 01:17:06 PM
Werner Herzog Making 3D Documentary on Prehistoric Cave Art!
by Elisabeth Rappe; Cinematical

The brilliant and entirely unique Werner Herzog seems to be everywhere these days. Thanks to YouTube, Twitter, movie sites, and blogs, he's enjoying the kind of pop culture status that you couldn't have predicted back in the cultish days of Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Klaus Kinski. When Roger Ebert is tweeting battles pitting Werner Herzog against Chuck Norris, you know he's reached a new level of viral fame.

But what might he be working on now? The Herzog Versus Norris battle didn't reveal it, but Roger Ebert's blog did. Herzog, of all people, is embracing 3D technology to make a documentary about prehistoric paintings in the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc. This is an astonishing, haunting discovery that was just made in 1994 in France, and almost no one has seen what the explorers have found there. They've been fanatic about preserving it, and rightfully so. (Many prehistoric finds are being eaten away by tourists, such as the famous paintings of Lascaux.) But Herzog has, in his own words, talked his way in and has been allowed to film the paintings for a few hours at a stretch.

Ebert's blog has video of Herzog talking about the project in his hypnotic and passionate way. It's not worth trying to describe what he's seen there when he can do it so much better. His thoughts on 3D are both coolly analytical and critical, and sums up what many of you have probably felt watching a 3D film. Yet he's not going to disdain the technology, and his employment for this documentary sounds nothing short of incredible.

I don't know when we'll ever see it -- Herzog was taking off from this CU-Boulder appearance to go shoot his longest stretch yet -- but I'm really anticipating the day we do. It's the only way any of us will see Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, and I can't think of a better man to bring them to the wider world than Herzog. (I can't even begin to imagine what other archaeological treasures could be explored this way.) And yes, in case you were wondering, he will be narrating this film.


http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/the_ecstary_of_the_filmmaker_h.html
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pas on April 12, 2010, 01:30:31 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on April 12, 2010, 01:17:06 PM
When Roger Ebert is tweeting battles pitting Werner Herzog against Chuck Norris, you know he's reached a new level of viral fame. you should never be made aware of what the internet is ruining.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: polkablues on August 02, 2010, 03:10:25 AM
Burden of Dreams, the documentary about the filming of Fitzcarraldo, is available on Hulu right now.  I want Werner Herzog to be my dad.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: squints on August 02, 2010, 12:25:13 PM
speaking of which...some harder to find herzog from the 70s are on the netflix instant right now including this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076741/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076741/)
this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070136/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070136/)
und this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074650/ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074650/)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: JG on August 02, 2010, 12:48:16 PM
Haven't seen the third but the first two are definitely cool, especially the one about the skier.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on August 22, 2010, 10:15:02 PM
Werner Herzog's Next an "Epic" Gertrude Bell Biopic?
Source: ComingSoon

Werner Herzog spoke this morning with CraveOnline to promote the DVD release of his latest film, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? and chatted briefly about upcoming projects.

Theatrically, Herzog's 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams will debut September 13th at the Toronto International Film Festival. Herzog was given unprecedented access to France's Chauvet Cave, the site of some of the oldest documented human drawings.

That documentary will quickly be followed by another in the form of Happy People: A Year in the Taiga. Produced, edited and narrated by Herzog, the footage itself comes from a four and a half hour version by filmmaker Dmitry Vasyukov, focusing on hunters in Siberia. The film is expected to premiere at Telluride. Footage from the release premiered under-the-radar on Herzog's own website and is viewable at the bottom of this story.

"In between all this, I've written a screenplay for a big epic feature film that I'm plowing on," Herzog also told CraveOnline, though was hesitant to go into details.

The Playlist managed a bit more, learning that the film takes place in the desert. Most likely this is the long-discussed biopic of Gertrude Bell, the ambassadorial British writer who traveled the middle east in the first years of the 20th century, becoming a powerful figure in the political administration of the region. Late last year, Herzog told FilmCritic.com that a Bell project was in the works.

The busy director told CraveOnline that he has already started filming on another project as well involving a Texan maximum security prison.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ravi on August 22, 2010, 10:16:54 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on August 22, 2010, 10:15:02 PM
The busy director told CraveOnline that he has already started filming on another project as well involving a Texan maximum security prison.

Anyone know where he's filming this?
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on September 16, 2010, 01:03:41 AM
IFC Films explores Herzog's 'Cave'
Film unit nabs U.S. distrib rights to 3D docu
Source: Variety

TORONTO --- IFC Films has snapped up U.S. distribution rights to Werner Herzog's 3D docu "Cave of Forgotten Dreams."

Also in Toronto, IFC's banked the first major deal of the fest with James Gunn's dark comedy "Super," starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page.

"Cave" is repped by Submarine Entertainment, which is also selling Errol Morris' docu "Tabloid" here at the fest.

Herzog's pic, which he narrates, explores the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave in southern France, which houses the oldest known art creations of humankind and depict life some 30,000 years ago.

Pic has generated buzz since its screening at Toronto and has had a number of domestic buyers circling it since it screened this week. It also screened at Telluride pre-Toronto.

"Cave" is produced by Creative Differences in partnership with History Films and The French Ministry of Culture and Communication as a co-production with Arte France in association with More 4.

Erik Nelson and Adrienne Cuiffo produce and Dave Harding, David McKillop, Julian P. Hobbs, Molly Thompson and Tabitha Jackson exec produce. Nelson has already produced two docus with Herzog: "Encounters At The End of the World" and "Grizzly Bear," which went on to generate more than $3 million in the U.S.

Deal was negotiated by Arianna Bocco and Betsy Rodgers for IFC and Submarine's Josh Braun on behalf of the filmmakers with Marc Simon of Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP providing legal services.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: polkablues on September 16, 2010, 01:09:17 AM
Quote from: Variety
Nelson has already produced two docus with Herzog: "Encounters At The End of the World" and "Grizzly Bear"

Good god, they're bad at this.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Stefen on September 17, 2010, 04:37:00 AM
He got his film and music indie wires crossed. His computer chip is all wrong.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ravi on November 07, 2010, 11:24:00 AM
Herzog gives voice to a plastic bag (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuJ31bu01mM) (directed by Ramin Bahrani)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Gold Trumpet on November 07, 2010, 11:38:22 AM
Haha, the second attempt to post about the Ramin Bahrani short in Werner Herzog's director thread.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: polkablues on April 18, 2012, 07:08:30 PM
Quote from: Werner Herzog"After 35 years of knowing John Waters I turn to my wife and I said to her, 'I have the feeling that this man is gay.'"

I love you so much, Werner Herzog.


Context, if you really want it, can be found here. (http://www.movies.com/movie-news/werner-herzog-john-waters/7526)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: P Heat on April 19, 2012, 07:23:06 PM
what I don't understand is how Werner does not have his own "Director's Chair" thread in the front page.  The man is always active and everything he creates is pure gold. Even youtube videos like the one above (Thx for that polka, classic herzog)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pubrick on April 19, 2012, 09:10:17 PM
Quote from: P Heat on April 19, 2012, 07:23:06 PM
what I don't understand is how Werner does not have his own "Director's Chair" thread in the front page.  The man is always active and everything he creates is pure gold. Even youtube videos like the one above (Thx for that polka, classic herzog)

It was this kind of mentality that led to us creating a forum for almost every notable director alive.

In case you haven't noticed we have significantly fewer forums now because quite frankly no one actually gives a fuck to actually TALK about these so called great directors. It just results in an even more cluttered board which our meager membership can hardly find the patience to trawl.

Feel free to go nuts in this thread though. If you can best thirteen pages of intermittent discussion over nearly ten years, well, that'll be super.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Neil on April 27, 2012, 10:22:52 PM
Werner Herzog writes a letter to his cleaning lady.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/werner-herzogs-note-to-his-cleaning-lady/ (http://www.sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/werner-herzogs-note-to-his-cleaning-lady/)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on April 27, 2012, 11:43:19 PM
it's a fake right? It says right there who wrote it.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: RegularKarate on May 02, 2012, 12:33:48 PM
yes, of course it's a fake. 
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Neil on May 02, 2012, 01:06:21 PM
I think the word you all were searching for was, "joke."  Something along those lines.  Maybe not a funny joke, but pun was intended.

Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Ravi on August 14, 2012, 04:49:48 PM
http://www.slashfilm.com/robert-pattinson-attached-to-play-lawrence-of-arabia-for-werner-herzog/

Robert Pattinson Attached to Play Lawrence of Arabia for Werner Herzog
Posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 by Russ Fischer

Can Robert Pattinson fill the shoes of Peter O'Toole? More important, can he match the defining Lawrence of Arabia when it comes to humanity and gravitas?

You may recall that Werner Herzog has been prepping a film called Queen of the Desert, in which Naomi Watts is set to play English writer, explorer, and archaeologist Gertrude Stein. Now Pattinson has been attached to play T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, in Herzog's film. Lawrence was a colleague and friend to Bell, and casting Pattinson suggests that he'll figure prominently in Herzog's take on Bell's history.

Variety says that the film aims to shoot late this fall, which would bring to fruition the plan Herzog has discussed since 2010. He originally described the film as "a big epic film set in the desert," and we don't have much more from Herzog than that. But his long-standing interest in chronicling important historical figures who aren't exactly household names leads to some high hopes for this film. (Bell will be perhaps one of Herzog's best-known subjects, but I imagine most of the details of her life won't be known to the film's broad audience.)

Other actors to play T.E. Lawrence over the years, though never in a production so monumental as David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia, include Ian McKellen and Ralph Fiennes. And Herzog isn't the only major filmmaker to train his eye on Gertrude Bell lately, as Ridley Scott also has a biopic planned.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: malkovich on August 14, 2012, 05:00:04 PM
Wow, I like this new art house direction Pattinson's moving in. First Cronenberg, now Werner Herzog. Sounds pretty cool. I'm looking forward to it.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pubrick on August 14, 2012, 11:40:46 PM
Quote from: Ravi on August 14, 2012, 04:49:48 PM
http://www.slashfilm.com/robert-pattinson-attached-to-play-lawrence-of-arabia-for-werner-herzog/

Naomi Watts is set to play English writer, explorer, and archaeologist Gertrude Stein.

They fucked up here, they meant Gertrude Bell as they refer to her throughout the rest of the article. Gertrude Stein was definitely not an explorer or archaeologist.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: P Heat on August 20, 2012, 10:08:59 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on August 14, 2012, 11:40:46 PM
Quote from: Ravi on August 14, 2012, 04:49:48 PM
http://www.slashfilm.com/robert-pattinson-attached-to-play-lawrence-of-arabia-for-werner-herzog/

Naomi Watts is set to play English writer, explorer, and archaeologist Gertrude Stein.

They fucked up here, they meant Gertrude Bell as they refer to her throughout the rest of the article. Gertrude Stein was definitely not an explorer or archaeologist.

thanks for clear up. Werner needs to do 'The Piano Tuner" already. This Queen of the Desert doesn't sound as good as it. Still being how old Werner is I think its awesome how he still wants to tackle harsh climate conditions.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: HeywoodRFloyd on October 17, 2012, 07:19:49 AM
Okay, I'm a bit mind blown right now.

I was watching The White Diamond for the first time just before. Little did I know, the main character, Dr. Graham Dorrington, is my Aerospace Propulsion Lecturer.

Like I handed in a paper to him last friday.

I just emailed him.

Seriously my mind is blown.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: RegularKarate on October 17, 2012, 01:13:22 PM
Werner is in Jack Reacher
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pedro on October 17, 2012, 09:07:50 PM
Quote from: HeywoodRFloyd on October 17, 2012, 07:19:49 AM
I was watching The White Diamond for the first time just before. Little did I know, the main character, Dr. Graham Dorrington, is my Aerospace Propulsion Lecturer.

I just emailed him.

Seriously my mind is blown.

Ask him about what all was scripted.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: pete on October 18, 2012, 01:54:05 AM
that's amazing. I love that film. That's my favorite Werner film.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Pubrick on August 09, 2013, 12:38:09 PM
Werner Herzog Made a Documentary About Texting While Driving. And It's Haunting.

By David Haglund | Posted Friday, Aug. 9, 2013, at 10:04 AM
source: Slate (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/08/09/werner_herzog_texting_while_driving_documentary_from_one_second_to_the_next.html)


"From One Second to the Next," the rather unlikely film below, came together when AT&T approached the legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog and asked if he would direct a series of short films warning people about the dangers of texting while driving.

"What AT&T proposed immediately clicked and connected inside of me," Herzog told the AP. "There's a completely new culture out there. I'm not a participant of texting and driving—or texting at all—but I see there's something going on in civilization which is coming with great vehemence at us."

The result is haunting. It focuses on four accidents, some of them fatal, and Herzog aims his camera squarely at the faces of both victims and perpetrators, asking them to describe in detail what happened and the aftermath. Herzog emphasizes the change in civilization he perceives in part by examining an accident in which an Amish family was killed and another in which a horse-shoer's truck was involved.



another Herzog quote from the AP article: "This has nothing to do with consumerism or being part of advertising products. This whole campaign is rather dissuading you from excessive use of a product. It's a campaign. We're not trying to sell anything to you. We're not trying to sell a mobile phone to you. We're trying to raise awareness."
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: MacGuffin on February 07, 2014, 12:38:08 PM
Russell Brand, Pamela Anderson, Mike Tyson Set to Join Werner Herzog's 'Vernon God Little'
Source: Variety

BERLIN — Russell Brand, Pamela Anderson and Mike Tyson are set to join the cast of Werner Herzog's "Vernon God Little."

Sasha Pieterse, Julia Sarah Stone and Austin Abrams, who will play Vernon, have also been lined up for the dark coming-of-age pic about teenage alienation, which is being sold at the European Film Market in Berlin by HanWay.

Brand is set to play a charming, yet unscrupulous TV reporter, Lally, who manipulates the situation, while Anderson will be Vernon's sweet airhead mother, and Tyson is the ax murderer, Lasalle, who Vernon meets in jail, and who gives him the name "God."

Herzog, who is shooting "Queen of the Desert" in Morocco, starts lensing "Vernon God Little" in April.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Garam on February 07, 2014, 08:56:02 PM
Amazing. Great news. Any other director, even PTA, I'd treat the news of Pamela Anderson, Russell Brand or Mike Tyson joining the cast with worry and disappointment. But those people fits Herzog's way of seeing the world, and that oddball book so well. This is the same guy that managed to channel Nic Cage at his most manic and insane into some type of garbled transcendence. I don't even like that book enough to read it again, but as a jumping off point to twist it into whatever he likes it's perfect, fits in really well with his recent Death Row work. I'm glad he's making more fiction films in the southern states. Bad Lieutenant's a bit of a masterpiece. Long live Herzog, one of the few relevant old masters.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: 03 on December 10, 2014, 02:20:14 PM
perfection:
http://herzoginspirationals.tumblr.com

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F36.media.tumblr.com%2Fcab1e85c47b71985cf7af9eb4ba7b6e4%2Ftumblr_ng6zjp9dWy1u5q7tfo1_1280.jpg&hash=4b8cc499bdde20debe5931f80dd908afbbf4a581)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F36.media.tumblr.com%2F9c543d781a4ec6ef74defd84ea76067d%2Ftumblr_ng6yxagsFt1u5q7tfo1_1280.jpg&hash=448e6c34ced834103aa36d57be7dd998a06b2d53)
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F41.media.tumblr.com%2F5ac46b405fcefbd2dbae4a185c067284%2Ftumblr_ng8fzfs7pW1u5q7tfo1_1280.jpg&hash=6d2f57cea22d63073251ac3f73aa14e0de3b1d3a)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: OpO1832 on May 14, 2015, 12:16:02 PM
I hope he gets the chance to make The Conquest of Mexico.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: jenkins on June 20, 2015, 04:58:25 PM
Quote from: Garam on December 20, 2014, 02:51:14 PM
Of Walking in Ice, Herzog's 1974 diary of walking cross-country in winter to dying film critic Lotte Eisner has been reprinted in English, so you can actually afford it now! Old editions usually cost in excess of £100 online.

Represent, remembered hearing about this. Came out in the US on April 27, 2015. I noticed it yesterday. After this text there'll be a photo of me holding the book, since I took that photo, and I'm going to quote an Amazon review, which nicely says what isn't nice to say about this book. During this text I'll mention it's a dream scenario for him to be able to publish a book like this and for people to give a fuck, that's an enviable position to have in life, and I don't have an impulse to buy it but imagining myself on a plane or train some day in the future when my thoughts are roaming during the free time given to them, but controlled slightly by the noise of passengers and the time of the trip, well I perhaps hope to choose this Herzog book over other worse options, like I'd probably read it before Karl Ove Knausgaard.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FHzQOP1h.jpg%3F3&hash=9b7589d8e09e5e3fb48c0d0bb3352e23404e7efa)

Quote0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2/5 stars
Might have been better edited as a poetry book instead
By A regular dude on May 30, 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

I thought it would be interesting. It just rambles. Sure - there are a few interesting
lines here and there. Might have been better edited as a poetry book instead.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: OpO1832 on June 27, 2015, 11:54:09 AM
Would anyone happen to have his script on the conquest of mexico?
I want to read it an imagine Klaus Kinski playing Cortes
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Just Withnail on November 21, 2015, 05:40:21 AM
So! Queen of the Desert.

I saw this about nine months ago and wrote this little text that I never ended up posting:

Herzog is the King of Dessert. I had never expected something so sugar-coated from him, and it really doesn't feel like a Herzog.

It's a purely heroic portrait of Bell, and more interested in the very flat love stories than in her actual immersion into the Middle East.

In the beginning Zeitlinger's photography showed some signs of immersing us in the emotions of the character (like a terrific dance scene where she reacts to multiple suitors), but it's quickly obvious that these few scenes are not going to be the standard.

Herzog is making a conventional drama but he doesn't seem to quite believe in it, and a huge amount of the dramatic scenes are punctuated by little odd "comedic" moment that aren't big or surreal enough to become Herzogian "ecstatic truth", but only serves to undercut the emotions of the cardboard characters.

I wish there were some "His soul is still dancing"-moments.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: Just Withnail on December 07, 2015, 05:22:18 PM
Was this ever announced?

From the Sundance line-up:

LO AND BEHOLD, Reveries of the Connected World
(Director: Werner Herzog) — Does the internet dream of itself? Explore the horizons of the connected world.


Herzog doing a doc on the internet tickles me in all the right places.
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: squints on July 12, 2016, 09:57:30 PM
Buckle Up.
This is great

"I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. AMA."

I'm Werner Herzog. Today, I released my MasterClass on filmmaking. You can see the trailer and enroll here: www.masterclass.com/wh.

[Proof](https://twitter.com/masterclass/status/751876208334237696)

Edit: Thank you for joining me at Reddit today! Of course there's lots of stuff out there in the Masterclass. So I shouldn't be speaking, it should be the Masterclass talking to you. Best of luck, goodbye     !

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4sjaoe/i_am_werner_herzog_the_filmmaker_ama/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4sjaoe/i_am_werner_herzog_the_filmmaker_ama/)
Title: Re: Werner Herzog
Post by: wilder on July 25, 2020, 02:40:10 PM
AppleTV+ Acquires Werner Herzog's Astronomy Documentary 'Fireball' About The Impact Of Meteorites On Human Mythology
The Playlist

The Oscar-nominated filmmaker will be teaming up with AppleTV+ and professor Clive Oppenheimer on astronomy documentary "Fireball."

Apple announced Friday that it will release "Fireball" on its AppleTV+ streaming platform. Per Apple, the documentary takes viewers on a journey to explore how shooting stars, meteorites and deep impacts have shaped human mythology and focused human imagination on other reals and worlds, and on our own past and our future. The documentary hails from Spring Films and Werner Herzog Film, and will be produced by André Singer and Lucki Stipetić, while Richard Melman executive produces. The documentary is being made with the support of Sandbox Films.

Herzog has already collaborated with Oppenheimer on the Oscar-nominated documentary "Encounters at the End of the World" focused on Antarctica, and again for the Netflix doc "Into the Inferno" which was nominated for an Emmy and focused on various volcanic sites. That film, much like "Fireball" will do, explored the connection between natural phenomena and mankind's history.

When the project was first announced in 2018, Variety described it as having a similar style as "Into the Inferno," saying: "They will once more go globe-trotting, this time to visit sites that yield insight into comets and meteorites and help them understand what they can tell us about the origins of life on Earth."