The films of Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog was born in 1942, in Munich, Germany. During his youth, Herzog studied history, literature, and music in Munich and at the University of Pittsburgh and traveled extensively in Mexico, Great Britain, Greece, and Sudan. He became known for working with small budgets and for writing and producing his own motion pictures. With Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff, Herzog led the influential postwar West German cinema movement. Herzog’s films, usually set in distinct and unfamiliar landscapes, are imbued with mysticism. One of Herzog’s best-known films, Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), follows a band of Spanish explorers into unmapped territory, recording their gradual mental and physical self-destruction. During his career, he produced, wrote and directed more than sixty feature films and documentaries, such as Nosferatu (1978), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Lessons of Darkness (1992), Little Dieter Needs To Fly (1997), Grizzly Man (2005), The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) and Into the Abyss (2011). Werner Herzog has also published over a dozen prose books and conducted as many operas. He lives in Munich and Los Angeles.
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Little Dieter Needs to Fly
In 1966, Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, captured, and, down to 85 pounds, escaped. Barefoot, surviving monsoons, leeches, and machete-wielding villagers, he was rescued. Now, near 60, living on Mt. Tamalpais, Dengler tells his story: a German lad surviving Allied bombings in World War II, postwar poverty, apprenticed to a smith, beaten regularly. At 18, he emigrates and peels potatoes ...
La Soufrière
Herzog takes a film crew to the island of Guadeloupe when he hears that the volcano on the island is going to erupt. Everyone has left, except for one old man who refuses to leave. Herzog catches the eeriness of an abandoned city, with stop lights cycling over an empty intersection.
My Best Fiend
In the 1950s, a teenage Werner Herzog was transfixed by a film performance of the young Klaus Kinski. Years later, they would share an apartment where, in an unabated, 48 hour fit of rage, Kinski completely destroyed the bathroom. From this chaos, a violent, love-hate, profoundly creative partnership was born. In 1972, Herzog cast Kinski in Aguirre, Wrath of God. Four more films would follow. I...
Little Dieter Needs to Fly
In 1966, Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, captured, and, down to 85 pounds, escaped. Barefoot, surviving monsoons, leeches, and machete-wielding villagers, he was rescued. Now, near 60, living on Mt. Tamalpais, Dengler tells his story: a German lad surviving Allied bombings in World War II, postwar poverty, apprenticed to a smith, beaten regularly. At 18, he emigrates and peels potatoes ...
La Soufrière
Herzog takes a film crew to the island of Guadeloupe when he hears that the volcano on the island is going to erupt. Everyone has left, except for one old man who refuses to leave. Herzog catches the eeriness of an abandoned city, with stop lights cycling over an empty intersection.
My Best Fiend
In the 1950s, a teenage Werner Herzog was transfixed by a film performance of the young Klaus Kinski. Years later, they would share an apartment where, in an unabated, 48 hour fit of rage, Kinski completely destroyed the bathroom. From this chaos, a violent, love-hate, profoundly creative partnership was born. In 1972, Herzog cast Kinski in Aguirre, Wrath of God. Four more films would follow. I...
