The Essentials: The Films Of Werner Herzog

It was 2011 when we first attempted our own “Fitzcarraldo“-like endeavor in writing a comprehensive retrospective on the films of the notoriously prolific Werner Herzog. Since then, not only has he added six or so more titles to his filmography, he’s been feverishly at work on the seventh—the much-anticipated “Queen of the Desert” which we were hoping to see pop up on a Fall festival announcement list, but no news there yet… However, to tide us all over, today Shout Factory are releasing a limited edition, highly covetable collection of sixteen Herzog films on Blu-ray, and that has given us the excuse to go back and relook, update and generally spruce up our retrospective (which includes all sixteen of those, incidentally). And that’s something we’re going to do pretty much any chance we get, being huge fans of the utterly unique, brazenly individual German-born director.

Because who that loves not just film, but the lore of filmmaking, could fail to be a Herzog fan? The behind-the-scenes stories are almost as well known as his films. Has anyone else bet documentary filmmaker Errol Morris that if the latter finished “Gates of Heaven,” he would eat his own shoe? (Herzog not only made the bet, but followed through when Morris won: the act is captured in the documentary short, simply titled “Werner Herzog Eats His Own Shoe.”) Has any other filmmaker, in the midst of a BBC interview, been shot by an unknown assailant with an air rifle, only to dismiss the incident, saying famously “It is not a significant bullet.” Did any other famous director happen to be on the scene when Joaquin Phoenix overturned his car in Los Angeles in 2006 to stop him from lighting a cigarette in the gas-soaked vehicle and pull him from the wreckage? Has any other Cannes Best Director ever attempted to place his entire cast under hypnosis? Of course not. Impossible, ridiculous things happen to Werner Herzog, and Werner Herzog makes impossible, ridiculous things happen. It is a source of endless excitement to witness.

While he’s hardly slowing down now, even at 71, recently he has diversified somewhat, making a rare acting appearance as the baddie in Tom Cruise flick “Jack Reacher,” lending his voice to the U.S. release of Hayao Miyazaki‘s “The Wind Rises,” directing a 35-min PSA about the dangers of texting while driving, and using his profile as a documentarian to executive produce and passionately champion last year’s groundbreaking “The Act of Killing.” But more importantly he’s still making films of his own: aside from “Queen of the Desert,” he’s attached to an upcoming adaptation of “Vernon God Little” and a TV show with the promisingly Herzogian title of “Hate in America,” in addition to producing projects and, erm, sending himself up in animated penguin comedies. Here’s our manful attempt to tilt at the windmill of the inimitable Herzog’s ever-expanding back catalogue. Long may his prodigious productivity continue.

“Signs of Life” (1968)
Hypnotized hens; a bloated dead donkey; incipient insanity in a remote, sunny locale; Herzog’s first feature is an early document of what have proven enduring fascinations—even the main character’s name, Stroszek, would be recycled later on. But at the same time you can see how it could have been misinterpreted as a statement of a different sort of intent by those critics who found his follow-up “Even Dwarfs Started Small” perversely shocking by contrast. “Signs of Life” starts almost in a realist tradition. Stemming from this story about a trio of German WWII soldiers absented from the theater of war and living out the duration instead in the idyllic surroundings of a Greek Island village, Herzog could have evolved into a Rossellini or even a Varda. But he evolved into a Herzog, and there’s a distinctly Teutonic doominess to the film, especially in its increasingly absurdist second half, as the men lapse into destructive boredom and Stroszek into insanity, that we can see in retrospect is a far better signal of what’s to come. Couched in glorious black and white, using an omniscient narrator, “Signs of Life” marks an astonishingly assured debut less about the madness of war than the internal, futile war that is madness, and Herzog’s odd respect for it as a valid response to the unknowable world at large. [B/B+]

“Even Dwarfs Started Small” (1970)
Herzog’s 1971 stark, black-and-white imprisonment allegory (which we included in our round up of Asylum Movies), starring a group of German dwarves, is now heralded as an nightmarish, outsider masterpiece. But upon release it enraged critics with the perceived exploitation of his subjects, and the animal cruelty (cockfighting and monkey crucifixion). Like a strange surrealist dream and yet documentary-style in tone, “Even Dwarves Started Small” centers on a group of institutionalized little people who rebel and attempt to destroy their prison, while the institute’s director holds one of them hostage. Perhaps the demented spiritual sequel to Todd Browning‘s “Freaks,” the enduring and bizarre picture is still one of Herzog’s personal favorites, and he’s said his better-regarded Amazonian masterpiece “Aguirre: The Wrath Of God,” is “like kindergarten in comparison.” Featuring cannibalistic chickens, abused, blind dwarves, and a camel that seems doomed to the indecision of kneeling or standing, ‘Dwarves’ contains some unforgettable imagery that seems transmitted direct from Herzog’s nightmares to our own, and remains a haunting and powerful tale of nihilism, lunacy and rage. [B+]